Chapter Six
Allegra teetered on the edge of a wooden bench at Bain des Paquis, fingers white-knuckled around a glass of ice water. She nudged her sunglasses higher, wincing as a pulse ricocheted inside her skull. Thanks for nothing, Advil.
She’d sprinted back to her hotel, no time for shopping, no time for anything but a shower and a costume change, and reemerged in an outfit cobbled together from her suitcase.
The Chloé linen shorts, usually reserved for champagne brunches, had been wrinkled beyond recognition and paired with a white Ralph Lauren button-down she’d knotted at the waist, the sleeves rolled up to hide the monogrammed cuffs.
Her feet were strapped into Valentino sandals, pounded against the hotel’s concrete terrace until they looked like they’d survived a hike through the Alps.
The pièce de résistance: a Viven Sheriff sunhat so wide it could double as a satellite dish, purchased for nine hundred euros in Saint-Tropez last summer and now deliberately sat on to suggest a supermarket impulse buy.
Subtle. Inconspicuous. The epic, Oscar-worthy performance of Just a girl waiting for a boy, hoping he doesn’t notice I’m literally a heiress. Nailed it.
Her phone read 12:11 p.m. Nate was late. Not catastrophically, but enough to make her Valenstadt-raised brain twitch. Back home, punctuality wasn’t just expected; it was an obsession, a way of life, the closest thing her country had to extreme sports.
She took another gulp of water, her stomach sloshing unhappily, and pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth, bargaining with her headache.
That’s when the thought landed.
Oh shit. If Nate had changed his plans, decided to show up later, bail, or been taken out by one of those stealth-mode electric trams, she’d have no way of knowing. His phone was currently in her bag. Genius. Real mastermind stuff.
“Ella!” a voice called.
Her brain took a second to catch up, like a record skipping before the sound kicks in. Right. Me. She whipped around, and there he was.
Nate.
Okay, wow. Had he always been this tall?
And the tattoos. Full sleeves, winding down his arms. How had she missed those last night?
The sunlight did him favors, casting him in a glow that made him look like he’d stepped out of a music video: LA Dodgers cap pulled low over artfully tousled hair, grin easy, the faint crinkle at the corners of his eyes sending an unexpected whoosh straight through her middle.
And wait.
She blinked. No socks.
She must have been staring, because he glanced down at his feet, then back up at her with a sheepish grin.
“Decided to try something new.”
“Oh. I hope that wasn’t because of—”
“You shamed me into it,” he laughed, shaking his head. “It’s an improvement, right?”
Allegra smirked. “It’s a start.” She fished out his phone and pressed it into his hand. “Anyway, I really am sorry. About the flight. And, uh… everything.”
He took it, grinning. “You keep apologizing, but I’m starting to suspect you enjoy watching me suffer.”
Allegra snorted. “Shut up. Maybe a little.”
“Seriously though, don’t mention it. Feels like the universe was trying to tell me something.”
Her ears warmed. “Still. Flights aren’t cheap. And you must’ve had things to get back to.”
“Not really,” he said, shrugging. “I’m an… actor.”
There was the tiniest pause before the word, enough to make her wonder. Actor, as in red carpets and after-parties? Or actor, as in I once played a corpse on a crime show?
“Cool. Anything I might’ve seen?”
“No!” he said quickly. “I mean, small-budget stuff.”
“Ooh.” She wagged her finger at his mobile. “Show me.”
His eyes went wide. “Oh, no. I wouldn’t inflict that on you. It’s kind of indie.”
Indie. Riiight. That was what people said when their work was either groundbreaking or filmed in their cousin’s basement with a phone and a ring light. Allegra bit the inside of her cheek to keep her smile in check. “Got it.”
He scratched his cheek. “Anyway, was an actor. Looking for a career change.”
“You don’t like it?”
He laughed, but it came out tight. “Think I lost my enthusiasm for it.”
His eyes flickered, just for a second. A story he wasn’t ready to tell. She recognized the look instantly. She’d lived there, letting the world tell itself stories about her while she smiled along. So she let him have it.
“Yeah,” she said. “I get that.”
He shifted on his feet. “So, uh, I’ve never had fondue. And you speak flawless English, German, probably French. What, like a dozen others? Want to order for us?”
“Not a dozen. Just five. I can also tell you my name in Japanese, but I don’t think that qualifies as fluency.”
Nate rolled his eyes. “Only five? Wow. Disappointing.”
“I’ll try not to let the weight of your expectations crush me,” she said dryly. Then, with a brisk nod, “And sure, I’ve got this.”
She stood, adjusted the brim of her hat, and did a quick, instinctive sweep of the space—faces, reflections, anyone looking twice—before striding toward the counter.
Fifteen minutes later, they were tucked inside the lakeside hall, seated across from each other at a scarred wooden table.
One whole wall yawned open to the lake, letting in a breeze that smelled like water and sunscreen.
Outside, kids hurled themselves off the diving board in shrieking arcs, while sunbathers—some topless, some valiantly pretending not to notice the toplessness—stretched along the concrete edge like languid, sun-drunk cats.
Between them, a red enamel pot of molten cheese burbled cheerfully, sending up puffs of fragrant steam. Allegra gestured at it. “Okay. First rule: no double-dipping. Ever.”
“Got it. No double-dipping,” Nate said, saluting with his bread skewer.
“So tear the bread into chunks,” she continued. “Coat it, dip it in pepper if that’s your thing, then eat. With the short fork. Only the short one.”
He stabbed his piece of bread. “There’s a method to this dipping bit?”
“Instinct,” she said, plunging her own bread into the bubbling pot. “Observe carefully, then fake confidence.” She swirled, blew, scraped it through the pepper, skewered it on the short fork, and took a bite.
“Got it,” Nate said, dunking a hunk of bread. “So tell me something about you. Like, what do you do?”
“I, uh…” she began, then faltered. “I’m a student. Art history.”
Technically true. She was enrolled. Still had a student ID somewhere in her wallet, though she suspected it was more symbolic than functional at this point.
She’d missed so many papers her professors had started sending emails with subject lines like Are you okay?
But somehow, they kept passing her. Probably because no one wanted to risk failing that Allegra.
“Right,” Nate said. “Art history.”
She could hear the skepticism in his tone, or perhaps she imagined it. Either way, she jumped in before he could ask anything too specific. “Oh, I know what you’re thinking. What does a person even do with that?”
His smile turned playful. “Well?”
“No clue. Teach, I guess? Or label pottery shards until I go cross-eyed.”
He chuckled, blowing on a gooey morsel. “Sounds thrilling.”
“But—” The words escaped before she could stop them. “I’ve always kind of wanted to be a museum curator.”
There it was. That little dream she’d stashed away between “vanish to New Zealand” and “drive alone for once in my damn life.”
“So why not go for it?” Nate asked.
Allegra wrinkled her nose. No one had ever thrown that out as if it were an actual option. “Oh, you know,” she said, forcing a shrug. “My parents are old-fashioned. Don’t think there’s a career in it. They want me to join the family business.”
Nate fed himself another bite and raised an eyebrow at her. “You know, you’re allowed to live your own life, right?” he said still chewing.
She smiled back, but something tight pinched behind her ribs.
Live your own life. He said it like freedom fit in a carry-on.
Still, for a fleeting second, she let herself imagine it: a small flat somewhere, coffee rings on textbooks, a job no one cared enough about to have opinions. Maybe even a Nate.
The thought burst like a soap bubble. “Maybe. Anyway, weren’t you flying home? Where to?”
“LA these days. But I grew up near Detroit.”
“It was a lot.” He leaned forward in his chair, fork twirling absently. “Dad ran off when I was a kid, so they took it upon themselves to parent me. Which meant getting bossed around by a rotating committee of idiots.”
Allegra winced in sympathy. “Yikes.”
“Yeah.” He smiled, not bitter, just thoughtful. “But they meant well. Mostly. What about you? Big family?”
“A younger sister. Clara.” She beamed at the name—it came easily, even here. “She’s the smart one.”
“And you’re what, the charming one?”
“Obviously,” she said, rolling her eyes even as her stomach did an undignified little somersault at the compliment. “We’re very well-balanced.”
“And you made it sound like your folks are pretty strict.”
“Oh.” Allegra’s fork clattered against the plate. “Yeah, you could say that.”
“What do they do?”
“Uh.” Her mind scrambled for something plausible. “Banking,” she said finally. “And, um, tax stuff.”
Nate made a face. “Oof. Fun.”
“Oh, it’s a laugh a minute,” she said, grabbing a napkin and dabbing her mouth to hide a blush.
“Guess that explains why you’re so good with rules,” he teased. “Like this whole fondue—”
CRASH!
A glass shattered directly behind them, the sound knifing through Allegra’s skull. She flinched, hissing as she slapped a hand to her temple.
Nate’s mouth curved. “I’ll take that as a yes to ‘carried on late last night’?”
“Something like that,” she mumbled.
“And the guy you were—” he began, but she shut it down before he could finish.
“No one. Just some random bar acquaintance.”
Nate studied her for a second, then shrugged, skewering his bread with a fork and waving it above the pot. “Okay.”
Then plop. His chunk of bread slid off and disappeared into the molten yellow.