Chapter 38 #2
Bea’s throat tightened. “You’re a better friend than I deserve, Lils.”
Lillian accepted Bea’s hug.
“So. London. Is that why you visited?”
Bea nodded.
“It puts a whole new spin on everything,” she said. “Almost like…we should have that conversation all over again.”
Bea let out a breath, but it wasn’t a laugh. More like a release. “Sure, why not?”
Lillian stayed quiet for a moment. Then she asked, “How did it feel?”
Bea picked at the edge of the pastry paper. “Like a city I was supposed to be impressed by. And I was. It’s beautiful. Powerful. Controlled. Everything Gage is.”
“What did Gage say?”
“That it could be home.”
“And can it?”
Bea stared out across the lawn. She thought back. Tried to sift through her memories and emotions in light of all the months in between.
“I don’t know. Maybe? I think I kept waiting for something to click. Like I’d see a sign, or feel it in my bones. But it didn’t come.” A breeze stirred the corner of her skirt. “I didn’t hate it. I just didn’t feel like I…belonged to it.”
Lillian nodded slowly. “So more information, but not more answers.”
“Something like that.”
There was a pause. A long one.
“Would you ever come back?”
“He said the plan is three to four years.”
“Three years is a long time.”
Bea looked down, then up. “But also…not that long, right?”
“Long enough to change you,” Lillian said softly.
Bea didn’t respond. Her fingers folded the edge of the pastry bag again.
In her mind, the image of Gage at the podium played on loop. The picture of a man who was marching forward.
“Do you want to go?” Lillian asked.
That question. The question Gage has never asked me.
Not once. Not directly.
Bea looked at her friend. Unable to lie, but unable to say the words out loud.
“You want to want to,” Lillian spoke for her, gently. Bea nodded. Once. “Because you love him.” It wasn’t a question.
Bea’s eyes burned before she could stop it. She blinked up at the sky and nodded again.
“Is that enough to make you go?” Lillian asked.
Bea’s voice was quiet, but steady. “Probably.”
Lillian studied her. “What if you stayed?”
She didn’t answer at first. She reached for a napkin and folded it, slowly. Then finally, she whispered, “I think if I stay…I’ll lose him.”
“And if you go?”
“I’d be okay. Eventually.”
“Is that enough?”
The question sat between them like it had nowhere else to be.
And this time, Bea didn’t have an answer.
RAFAEL
4:56 p.m.
The notifications hadn’t stopped all day.
Normally, Rafael didn’t care much for social media. But today he’d read more posts than he had in the past year combined.
Maybe it was curiosity. Or something closer to punishment.
@URFinestTea Not engaged yet, but we’ll bet the group chats are 3 Pinterest boards deep.
@TheURStandard He got the title. She got the timeline. It’s giving Q4 proposal, Q3 wedding.
@GoldForkFiles Her silence is either grace…or a six-figure exclusivity deal with Legacy Brides.
@MonarchWatch_UR I’m not saying there’s a ring. I’m just saying her manicure suddenly got serious.
He locked the screen.
She wasn’t a headline to him. Not a piece in the game they thought they were watching.
And yet…every single post felt like it was drawing a circle around what he hadn’t done or said yet. What he was losing by the hour.
He didn’t sit at his desk. Couldn’t. The office was still halfway gutted from the remodel, bare walls and uncovered wires, but the punching bag was hung.
He threw another combination. Hard. Left hook, body shot, step back. Breath burning in his chest. Wrapping tape still tight on his knuckles.
He didn’t hear the office door open—just felt the shift of air.
Laurent, of course. The man never knocked. “Rough day?”
Rafael didn’t look over. He drove another punch into the bag. Then another. The sound echoed off concrete and half-painted drywall.
Laurent walked in and sat like he had all the time in the world.
Then, without cruelty, without anything but fact: “She loves him, Rafael. She’ll probably say yes.”
Rafael’s fists slowed. He’d been telling himself that. All day.
Laurent’s voice came again, flat with certainty. “And if he proposes, if she goes to London—” A pause. “C’est fini.”
Rafael stopped moving. One hand on the bag, holding it steady. Jaw tight.
He knew that. When men and women of the UR made promises, they kept them. In their world, marriage wasn’t a fifty-fifty gamble. It was ’til death do us part.
“She’s not done here,” Rafael said.
Laurent raised a brow.
“She’s building something of her own. And she’s not finished yet.” He picked up a water bottle, took a long drink. “But you’re right. She loves him. And she’ll carry his future if no one stops her.”
Because that’s what love was to her. Because she was loyal. And brave.
Laurent studied him. Then gave a short laugh. “You really do see her.”
He didn’t reply.
“Do you know how she looked when I told her you’ve never looked at a woman the way you look at her?” Laurent said, gaze angled toward the glass.
Rafael’s head turned sharply. The look he gave was lethal in its blandness. And not surprised.
“Like it landed somewhere deep,” Laurent said. “And she didn’t want it to.” He didn’t rush through the silence. “What’s stopping you from telling her how you feel? You already told everyone at the Harvest Summit.”
Rafael’s knuckles pressed into the side of the bag. Hard.
He wasn’t afraid of fighting for her. He’d burn the ground between them if it meant she’d be free.
“The last time I got close, she moved in with him.” His voice roughened. “The closer I get, the more he tightens the net. Her choices become reactions.”
He’d seen it in her eyes. He’d watched her almost reach for him, then retreat. Like wanting him was something she had to overcome.
That was the thing about fire. It made you flinch. You feared it immediately.
But ice—ice you held onto until you stopped feeling anything at all.
Telling her he wanted her wouldn’t loosen the grip of everything else. She felt it already, whether she admitted as much or not.
Laurent leaned forward slightly. No drawl now. No detachment. “Then don’t ask. Show her there’s another way.”
Rafael exhaled through his nose, slow and sharp. The instinct to act found a new shape.
He couldn’t drag her out, not yet, but he could make sure she saw there was more than one exit. Sometimes, fire didn’t chase. It waited.
And lit the way back.