Chapter Nine
The Rh?ne was cold.
Not refreshing cold. Not I feel alive cold. This was vindictive, mountain-fed, glacier-adjacent water that didn’t give a damn that it was summer.
Allegra lay back on the yellow tube, arms flung wide like she was auditioning for a soda commercial, feet numbing in the turquoise water. The current tugged her along, utterly indifferent to her suffering.
Weren’t ice baths supposed to clear the head? She closed her eyes and considered the evidence. Nope, definitely hungover.
Which felt unfair, considering she’d promised herself—out loud, in the bathroom mirror, toothbrush foaming at the corners of her mouth—that last night would be tame.
Then the fog had lifted around ten. One drink had seemed medically necessary.
One cocktail became three. Three became dancing.
Dancing became being funneled into a club called Le Zoo, which should have been a warning sign.
There was bass. There was sweat. There was that Greek man she’d made out with, whose tongue tasted like tzatziki.
A series of choices had been made. None of them approved by Present-Day Allegra, who would very much like a croissant, electrolytes, and a time machine set to yesterday, 9:47 p.m.
She adjusted the triangles of her bikini and sank lower into the tube, letting gravity do its thing. If only everything in life would just carry her along without demanding opinions, plans, or foresight.
Nate drifted alongside her, striped board shorts riding low on his hips, toes angled toward her as the current carried them in tandem.
A dry bag was clipped to the handle of his tube, bumping softly against the rubber.
He barely paddled, just skimmed one hand through the water now and then to correct course, as if he and the river had a private agreement to make him look effortless.
And damn it all, he did. Sun-bronzed skin, water sliding off his bare chest in rivulets.
“Okay,” she said, spinning her tube to face him. “I don’t buy this.”
His brow furrowed. “Buy what?”
“You. No one looks like that and is also this… nice. There has to be at least one red flag.”
“Red flag?” he repeated slowly, like he was trying to decode the phrase.
“Yeah, you know. Your dirty little secret. And I don’t mean birdhouses. So, what is it? You kick puppies? Host a bro podcast? Secret wife and kids in LA?”
“Oh—uh.” He laughed, startled. “No wife. Definitely no podcast.”
“But you hesitated,” she said triumphantly. “I saw that. The face of a man about to confess something scandalous.”
“I wasn’t—” He stopped. His jaw flexed.
Allegra kicked, sending her tube bumping into his. “Oh my God,” she gasped. “You do have a secret family.”
“What? No!” His eyes widened in horror, then relief. “No. Nothing like that.”
She tilted her head, studying him. “Girlfriend?”
“I was with someone,” he said carefully. “For a while. She was an actor, too. Didn’t work out.”
Something in the way he said actor made her pause. She wanted to ask what happened, how serious it was, who broke whose heart—but her instincts told her to stop.
“Ah,” she said instead. “Creative differences.”
He huffed. “You could say that.”
They drifted for a moment, the sound of laughter and splashing echoing from further upstream. Allegra trailed her fingers in the water, drawing spirals and watching them vanish.
“So,” Nate said, eyes on the river, “what’s your situation then?”
“Me?”
“Yeah. Anyone special back home?”
“Not anymore.” She snorted. “I was engaged once. Broke it off.”
His mouth tilted, sympathy clear. “Oof. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She flicked her hand, sending droplets flying. “He was a jerk. I was the idiot who took too long to notice.”
Nate’s face softened. “Still. That sucks.”
“Yeah,” she said. “But I’m calling it a growth experience. Or emotional exfoliation.”
They slid beneath a bridge, tires hissing overhead. Nate frowned, eyes sharpening. “Wait. Rewind. What did you mean by ‘no one looks like that’?”
“Oh my God.” She groaned and thumped his tube with her foot. He yelped, twirling wildly, arms flailing as he tried to regain balance without tipping into the water.
Allegra laughed so hard she clutched her sides.
***
They lay side by side on the grassy bank, towels spread beneath them, the Rh?ne murmuring just a few feet away. Somewhere upriver, someone whooped; closer in, a cyclist rang a bell, the sound thinning and vanishing into the afternoon.
Allegra stared up at the sky, one arm stretched above her face, damp hair plastered to her neck, bikini already heating like a solar panel. “Aiee,” she said, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead. “I feel like I might evaporate.”
Nate chuckled, hands folded on his chest. “Should I be concerned?”
“Only if I start snoring. Which is imminent.”
He turned his head toward her. “What happened to the early night?”
“I intended one.”
“And?”
“And then a bar appeared. Full of people. And music from my formative years.”
Nate snorted. “So, no.”
“So judgy,” she said, waggling a finger. “Guess we can’t all be perfect, can we?” She bit her lip, bracing for the snide remark. Instead, silence. Not awkward—worse. Loaded. She swallowed. New topic. “Your turn. You said something yesterday about wanting a career change.”
“Did I?”
“Yes.” She rolled onto her side, propping herself on one elbow. Suddenly, they were close enough that she could hear the faint rattle of his breath. “So, what’s the plan?”
That’s the thing,” he said, running a hand through his hair and leaving it sticking up at a ridiculous angle. Her fingers twitched, itching to smooth it down. “I don’t really have one. Except, well, one of my brothers, Jason, runs a tech startup. TriaPulse.”
“Wow. Roles of the tongue.”
“Yeah, apparently all the cool names were taken,” Nate said with a smirk. “It’s AI for emergency rooms. Helps doctors diagnose faster. Or something like that. He’s been hounding me to join him.”
“So?”
“I keep saying maybe.”
“Ah, keeping the door open?”
“Or stalling indefinitely,” he admitted. “What if I hate it? What if I’m shit at… whatever you do at an AI startup?”
Allegra shifted, her knee brushing his. Pure accident, but a shiver ran up her thigh anyway. She tucked her legs tighter beneath her and cleared her throat. “I guess sometimes not choosing is the choice. Especially with family, right?”
Nate’s gaze lingered, then he propped his chin on his fist. “That sounds personal.”
Her smile stayed easy, but her thumb traced a restless circle against her palm. “My parents are very… deliberate.”
“Deliberate?”
“They like things to go according to plan.” She plucked at a thread on the towel. “And they’ve got the resources to make sure they do.”
“Resources,” he repeated dryly. “I love a vaguely rich word.”
Allegra sat up, knees to her chest. “Whoa, I didn’t say rich.”
“You didn’t need to,” he said, grinning. “Let me guess. Big apartment in Vienna. Ski holidays in St. Moritz?”
“Okay, rude.”
“Am I wrong?”
“Fine. Yes, my upbringing was comfortable. And, like, claustrophobic.” She swiped at the air as if she could clear the invisible ceiling of do what we tell you hovering above her.
“So Geneva is the dramatic escape?” He sat up and arched an eyebrow. “Roughing it for the summer with inflatable tubes?”
“Oh, sure,” she said, mock-solemn. “My rebellion arc.”
He snickered, but it was short-lived. His fingers found the skin under his chin, rubbing absently. “Honestly, I get it, though. The feeling everyone else owns a piece of you.”
Allegra’s throat tightened at that, her jaw locking for a second. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She hadn’t come here to feel seen. She’d come here to vanish. She forced a smile. “Careful, birdman. You’re getting deep.”
“Sorry. I’ll make a joke about trust funds to rebalance us.”
She nudged him with her foot. “Says the unemployed actor just hanging out in Geneva.”
“Ah. Suspicious deflection.”
Allegra snorted. And then—oh, hell—she realized her eyes were glued to his mouth.
Not in a casual, “yep, that’s for talking” way.
No, this was full-on, “how has no one written a sonnet about this masterpiece?” level of fascination.
That ludicrous, tilted smirk. The way his lower lip was a little fuller than the top, like the universe had taken its sweet time perfecting the ratio. Damn it.
She grabbed her water bottle, chugged, and promptly sputtered all over herself. Warm. Horrifyingly warm. “Ugh,” she muttered, wiping her chin and flopping back onto the towel. “That’s foul.”
Nate’s chuckle was a velvety sound that did nothing to help the situation.
He lay back and stretched out. Not touching, but close enough that their shoulders hovered in that charged no-man’s-land where every inch felt intentional.
The breeze lifted her hair, sliding it across her cheek, and she could feel the heat rolling off him, seeping into her skin.
Her fingers twitched, her pinky brushing his.
She tensed. Just a spasm, she lied to herself. A random firing of nerves. Happens all the time.
His pinky brushed back.
This time, neither of them pulled away. Then their little fingers hooked, tentative, almost apologetic, and electricity shot up her arm, blooming hot in her chest until it felt too full to breathe.
The world went fuzzy at the edges. The gurgle of the river dulled.
The whoops of tubers faded. Her thoughts bailed, slipping out the side door.
The spell broke, shattering like a dropped Dom Pérignon on tile.
Allegra’s internal alarm system blared. Abort. ABORT. She yanked her hand back and sat up so fast she nearly elbowed Nate in the ribs. “Bug,” she said, swatting at the air. “Huge one.”
Her brain scrambled, tossing out rationalizations like confetti. This was biology. Low blood sugar. Sunstroke. Two warm bodies and bad judgment. Anything but the terrifying possibility that she might actually care about Nate.
Because let’s be real, her world was all duty and smiling until her face hurt. His was whatever he felt like. You couldn’t just drop a man like that into a life of motorcades and PR statements. It would ruin him.
She exhaled slowly, pressing her palms into the towel. Stick to the plan. Sleep with Nate. End it. The sooner, the better. You’ll be doing him a favor.
She repeated it like a mantra.
By the fifth repetition, she almost believed it.