Chapter 3
Chapter Three
After quite a bit of mental urging, I draw in a shaky breath, then force myself to step back from Caged.
I can’t stay here all night, no matter how much I want to.
There’s a party upstairs full of people expecting to see the radiant bride-to-be.
There’s a father with a large stick up his ass who will notice my absence and make me pay for it.
There’s a semi-fake fiancé/best friend who deserves better than a woman who keeps sneaking away to commune with a dead man’s paintings.
Time to put the mask back on.
I slip out of the gallery and make my way to the elevator, the click of my heels echoing in the silence. Then I gather myself as the car rises, and by the time the doors glide open and the hum of the party washes over me, my society armor is back in place.
The buzz of voices. The clink of glasses. It’s the sound of celebration, and most of the guests are truly happy for me and David, with no clue that they’re raising their glasses in honor of a marriage that will be nothing but a business transaction dressed up in white lace.
I’ve known that forever, of course, but it truly hits me now. I should run. But I can’t leave the gallery—can’t walk away from Gabe’s memory. And my father would find me anyway.
I draw in a breath and step back through the doors of the ballroom like a mouse skittering into a maze.
Across the crowd, I can see my father holding court near the ice sculpture.
He’s laughing at something one of the investors said, his hand resting possessively on Mina’s shoulder, the picture of charm and success—the benevolent patriarch celebrating his daughter’s happiness—with his younger-than-me girlfriend on his arm.
I shudder.
Nope, this was a mistake. I can’t do this. Not tonight. Not after standing in front of Caged, soaking in those brush strokes and colors, and feeling Gabe’s absence like a physical wound.
I make one circle, being seen but avoiding conversation, then I slip back out the way I came in. I take a deep breath of freedom, then hurry to my penthouse suite. Just one little perk of being a Hart heiress. One of the few I truly enjoy.
It’s quiet when I slip inside—blissfully, mercifully empty.
David is staying with me, of course. Just another hat tip to how very, very in love we are. And no, as we’ve told everyone, of course, we don’t have separate rooms. That would be far too hard on our hearts.
Yeah, right.
I kick off my heels and leave them where they fall, then pad across the plush carpet to the balcony door.
The Atlantic City skyline glitters below me.
Somewhere out there, people are winning fortunes and losing everything.
But in the end, of course, the house always wins.
I press my forehead against the cool glass and close my eyes.
That’s when I hear the click of the door.
I whirl around, then immediately relax. David.
“Hey,” he says as he tosses his jacket over the back of the sofa. “You okay?”
I should tell him I’m fine, that I just need some sleep, that I’ll be back to performing tomorrow.
Instead, I say, “Not really.”
He tilts his head, studying me. “You went down to the gallery.”
I nod, and he comes to me, then pulls me into a hug. This is why I love David. He knows me. He gets me. We just don’t love each other that way. Which is good. If I did, that would mean I’d let Gabriel go.
And I’m not ready for that goodbye.
“All this bullshit with our wedding,” he says quietly. “I get it. It should have been him. A real wedding instead of this corporate merger our parents concocted.”
“We agreed,” I say with a shrug.
He grimaces. “We didn’t really have a choice.”
He holds me tighter, then releases me, stepping back and casting an assessing look over me. “You could use some wine.”
I almost laugh. “Yeah. I really could.”
David nods, flashing a grin that’s almost devious. Then he moves to the kitchen and returns far too quickly with a tray holding two glasses of red wine and a bag of chocolate chip cookies.
“What on earth?” I look up at him, not sure if the pressure in my chest is delight or a knot of tears.
“So here are your options,” he says. “You can cry, and I’ll hold you and make sympathetic noises and pretend I know what to say. Or we can put on something funny and pretend the world doesn’t suck for a couple hours.”
Despite everything, I can’t hold back my smile. “What are our movie options?”
“I may have bookmarked a few things.” He grabs the remote. “Princess Bride, Buffy, or stand-up comedy?”
“I can’t believe you planned this.”
“I planned for the possibility that my fake fiancée might bail early from her own engagement party and need a distraction.” He shrugs. “I know you, Bella.”
He does. That’s the thing. After twenty-plus years of friendship—summer camps and charity galas and school and all the glittering prison cells where children of dynasties are stored—David Mercer knows me better than almost anyone.
“The Princess Bride,” I decide. “I need Westley telling me that death cannot stop true love.”
Something flickers in David’s expression, but he nods and queues up the movie.
I change out of my gown in my bedroom, trading silk and diamonds for yoga pants and an oversized sweater. When I emerge, David has transformed the living room into a proper movie-watching nest—lights dimmed, cookies on a platter within reach, a soft blanket draped over the back of the couch.
“This is perfect,” I say.
He pats the cushion beside him. “Come on. Buttercup’s about to make some questionable life choices, and I need someone to mock her with me.”
I settle onto the couch, tucking my feet beneath me the way I’ve done a thousand times before.
David spreads the small blanket over both of us, and I scoot closer to him so that I’m fully under the soft material.
It’s warm and comfy, even though I can’t hide how many cookies I’m snarfing since our shoulders brush every time we reach for one.
Halfway through the movie, the cookies are gone. David sets the platter aside on the coffee table, and when he settles back, his arm comes around my shoulders, just as we’ve sat a million times before.
I lean into him, letting my head rest against his chest. His heartbeat is steady beneath my ear, slow and calm and comforting.
“Thank you,” I murmur. “For this.”
“That’s what friends are for.” His hand strokes my shoulder-length hair. “Whatever you need.”
On screen, Westley and Buttercup are navigating the Lightning Sand. I’m only half watching. The other half of me is marveling at how nice it feels to just be.
The movie plays on. Miracle Max. The storming of the castle. True love’s kiss.
“As you wish,” Westley says, and something in my chest cracks.
Gabriel used to say that to me. It was our silly little nod to this movie that morphed into our thing. As you wish, Izzy. However you need me. I’m yours.
Except it was a lie. Because how I need him is here and alive. But he’s not. And I’m in another man’s arms, wearing another man’s ring, preparing to spend the rest of my life with a friend I love. But it’s the wrong kind of love, even if he’s the right kind of friend.
David must sense the shift in my mood, because his hand stills in my hair. “You okay?”
“No.” The word comes out before I can stop it. “I’m not okay. I haven’t been okay in almost five years, and I don’t know if I ever will be again. I’m sorry. I hate dumping this on you, but—I’m just sorry.”
He doesn’t say anything. Just holds me tighter, his chin resting on the top of my head.
“I keep waiting for it to fade.” My voice is barely above a whisper. “Everyone says time heals everything. But it doesn’t feel like healing. It feels like...learning to live with a piece of yourself missing. Like you just get better at ignoring the empty space where something vital used to be.”
“Maybe that’s what healing looks like. Not forgetting. Not moving on. Just learning that you can carry it and still have space for something new.”
I shrug. I don’t really want to be mollified. I want Gabriel. I always will. And right now, he doesn’t just take up space in my heart, he fills the space, leaving only corners and crannies that maybe—maybe—someone else could someday fill.
“It hurts,” I whisper. “But I don’t want to spend my life alone with his ghost.”
“He wouldn’t want you to. He’d want you to move on. And you can, you know.”
I want to believe him. God, I want to believe that there’s more to my future than this endless ache.
But I don’t.
I tilt my head back to look at him. The movie’s credits are rolling now, casting shifting patterns of light across his face. He’s handsome. Not in the sharp, dangerous way Gabriel was handsome—all edges and intensity, strength and power—but in a softer way. Warm. Safe.
He’s the brother I never had—hell, he even looks the part with our similar pale skin and light brown hair that looks golden under the sun. Even our eyes support the illusion, with his emerald green eyes matching my left eye, and my right sky-blue eye left out of the party.
“You are earning so many friend points,” I tell him. “I mean, you must have a zillion stacked up. And I know it must be a downer for me to keep moaning about Gabe every time you turn around.”
“The man you loved died horribly, and now you’re being trotted around as the glowing bride. I think some melancholy is allowed.”
“Yeah, well, I still appreciate it.”
“All part of the David Mercer Best Friend Kit. You need me, I’m there for you.”
“Even if what I need is to marry you while I’m still in love with someone else?
” I wince. Tears and wine are a bad combination.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to toss our parents’ bullshit arrangement back in both our faces.
Honestly, if we have to play the medieval sell-the-bride thing, then I’m glad I’m being pawned off on you. ”
“Pawned off,” he repeats. “I promise you, Bella, that’s not how I feel. I mean, come on. You and Harper are my two best friends.”