11. Xavier
ELEVEN
XAVIER
I'd called her because I was worried about her safety.
That was the clean version of the truth, the only one I could say out loud without examining the radioactive core of it. She'd run into Eliza in the doorway, and by the next morning she was fleeing the estate.
The timing was sudden, and after replaying the whole sequence, I landed on the only conclusion that fit the data: she hadn't moved on.
She'd confessed she regretted leaving me, right there on the cold stone steps with the night closing in around us, and a person doesn't say those words about a chapter they've permanently closed.
After finding the ring in my pocket, she'd likely knocked on my door to finally say something real. What she hadn't braced for, what I'd watched wreck her face before she locked her expression down, was Eliza.
I'd arrived at those conclusions and needed to do something with the adrenaline, so I called her. That was the only move I made.
It was possible this was just ego-driven thinking.
I knew that. I'd known it the second I dialed her number, and I knew it now, lying flat on my back in the master bedroom of the new house I'd just bought.
Early morning light bled through the edges of the curtains in New York, a few blocks from Violet and Simon's place, the zip code I'd wanted to land in.
I hadn't lived in the city in years. The clinic network didn't require me to anchor in any state, so long as I showed up to the right board meetings.
I'd spent so many years living out of hotels and short-term rentals that the decision to finally plant roots felt enormous.
My assistant had sourced the property, bought it, and staffed it.
I'd only moved in two days ago, and it already felt more like home than anywhere else I'd existed in a decade.
The house was suffocatingly quiet. Eliza was still asleep in the bed beside me, her breathing a steady rhythm.
I threw off the duvet and got up.
I went straight to the gym in the basement and ran on the treadmill until I'd burned out whatever frantic energy I was carrying.
Then I showered and walked into the kitchen to find Eliza leaning against the marble island with a mug of coffee.
Her eyes were clear, the corporate tension gone from her shoulders, while the housekeeper moved around her.
I pulled out a stool and sat.
"How'd you sleep?" I asked.
"Very well." She scanned the vast kitchen, her chin tilting up in approval. "This is a spectacular house, Xavier. You chose well."
"My assistant chose it."
"Then you hired a phenomenal assistant." She slid a second mug of black coffee across the marble toward me. "You're up early."
"Hit the gym."
She gave a knowing nod and held her coffee with both hands, her eyes on the broad kitchen windows. Morning light caught the planes of her face, and for a stretch neither of us spoke. We were good at not talking—because most of what we had, we'd built without ever saying much about it.
"You were restless last night," she said.
I took a sip. "I didn't realize I woke you."
"You didn't. I was already up." She turned the mug in her hands. "I've noticed it for a while. You used to sleep through anything. Lately you're running the treadmill at five in the morning and pretending your schedule demands it."
"My schedule does demand it."
"Xavier." She looked at me, dark eyes steady, and didn't blink. "I'm not building a case against you. I'm asking if you're okay."
I set my coffee down. The question wasn't really a question. It was a verdict she was giving me the chance to confirm, the early mornings and the lost conversations and the wedding weekend already tallied behind her steady eyes. Eliza only asked once she was sure of the answer.
"I'm fine," I said. "The move has been an adjustment. New house, new routine. It takes time to settle."
She watched me for a beat longer than was comfortable.
"Okay," she accepted. Her tone was level, her posture unchanged. She didn't push, didn't challenge, didn't look wounded. She just filed the answer somewhere behind her steady expression and took another sip.
That composure was the thing I respected most about Eliza and the thing that, in moments I refused to examine, felt like the widest gap between us.
She never demanded more than I offered. She never pressed for honesty I wasn't volunteering.
She made space for whatever I was willing to share and gracefully absorbed the absence of everything I wasn't.
It was an arrangement designed for people who didn't want to be challenged. And until recently, I'd believed that was the same thing as peace.
My phone lit up on the island between us. A text from Violet. I slid the phone over to read it.
She wanted us for lunch, and she wanted me to bring Eliza.
"Violet wants us for lunch," I relayed. "You have any emergencies today?"
"Nothing I can't reschedule. Are they hosting a crowd?"
"She didn't say." I set the phone face-down. "But she usually keeps things small."
Eliza went quiet, her fingers tracing the rim of her coffee mug.
"Do you think Sloane will be there?" she finally asked.
I stared at her.
She set the question down between us, eyes on her coffee, and left me room to take it or let it pass. When I didn't answer right away, she didn't look up.
She knew I'd been tangled up with someone long before I met her, someone who'd walked away, someone whose absence had reshaped the man she'd made a partnership with. She'd never asked for the details, and I'd never offered them.
"There's a chance," I admitted. "But I can't say for sure."
She gave a small nod. "I'd like to get to know her better. She seemed interesting."
"She is," I agreed, staring at my coffee.
We walked the few blocks to Violet's penthouse just before lunch.
The apartment was warm, flooded with light, clearly prepped to host more people than had shown up.
Violet welcomed Eliza with a tight hug. Simon offered a firm handshake, and we settled around the table with drinks, waiting. Sloane was nowhere in sight.
"We're just waiting on one more," Violet announced. "And then Simon and I have something to tell you all."
"An announcement?" Eliza guessed, her eyes sparking.
"More like a proposal," Violet corrected, flashing a secretive smile when Eliza arched an eyebrow.
Simon drifted over to where I stood by the window, hands shoved in his pockets and his posture loose.
"Eliza," he muttered. It wasn't a greeting, but a subject. He tilted his chin toward the far side of the room where the women were deep in conversation.
"What about her?" I asked, keeping my voice low.
"You think she's the one?"
I swirled the amber liquid in my glass. "There's a solid chance."
"A solid chance," he repeated, polite skepticism in every syllable.
"She's kind," I defended. "She's razor-sharp. Our arrangement works for both of us. There's nothing wrong with it."
Simon weighed that for a judging moment. "That sounds an awful lot like a corporate defense you're building."
"It's a direct answer to your question."
"You skipped the part where you said you love her."
I snapped my gaze to his face. "Sometimes romantic love isn't the priority. Sometimes what matters is that two independent people understand each other, want the same things, and know they aren't going to destroy each other."
He digested it slow. "I honestly don't even know what the hell that means."
"It means Eliza and I have a clear, mutual agreement about what we are.
Companionship. Friendship. Understanding.
We're both detached, and it works for our lives.
If something deeper grows over the years, fine.
If it doesn't, also fine. We aren't faking some grand romance.
" I took a sip of my drink. "It's honest."
Simon's jaw flexed once. He fixed me with a deadpan look, his chin level, his mouth a thin line.
"That's a cowardly way to move through life, Xavier."
I turned toward him, my pulse spiking.
"A coward doesn't choose the hard way," he went on, his tone calm and free of malice. "A coward finds something hollow and easy to settle into."
"This isn't cowardice," I hissed. "It's two functioning adults who refuse to spend the rest of their lives managing the wreckage of relationships that blow up and fail."
"Did you go looking for this arrangement before or after someone wrecked your heart?"
I dropped my gaze to the floor.
"Sloane has nothing to do with this," I ground out.
"Okay," Simon conceded, holding his hands up. "Fine. It's just a coincidence."
He drifted off toward the kitchen to refill his drink, leaving me alone with it.
Could he be right? Was this just sophisticated cowardice?
I'd spent years convincing myself it wasn't. I'd called it emotional intelligence, a bulletproof arrangement between two people who understood that love was a high-cost, high-risk proposition.
Eliza had her own guarded reasons. From day one, she'd said she hated the restrictions traditional love placed on a person's ambition.
But I hadn't even tried.
That was the damning truth under all my excuses.
I'd refused to love again after Sloane burned my life down.
I'd surveyed the wasteland left after I opened her package and made a terrified decision to never stand in the blast zone again.
Eliza had conveniently shown up wanting the same detachment, and I'd been pathetically grateful for the escape hatch.
I'd dressed up my terror and called it intelligence.
The front door clicked open.
Sloane walked in.
She wore a deep crimson dress, her hair down and loose over her shoulders, and a strange man walked beside her.
He was tall, a few inches taller than her.
His fingers were laced through hers, and he strolled into the room, scanning it once without a flicker of hesitation.
He moved like he owned the place. I already hated that.
I shot to my feet before my brain registered the movement.
Violet squealed and rushed across the foyer, her hands out. She looked the man up and down. "And who's this?" Her eyes were already dancing with amusement before Sloane could speak. The question was a formality.
"This is Andrew," Sloane announced. "The friend I went to meet yesterday. The reason I left the estate early."
I stared at Andrew.
He wasn't as tall as I was. He was good-looking, with styled blond hair and blue eyes, and he dropped her hand to let both arms hang at his sides.
Simon stepped forward, extending a hand. "Simon. Violet's husband."
Andrew gripped it. "Andrew. Genuine pleasure to meet you."
I forced my arm forward. He took my hand, and we traded a hard handshake.
"And you must be Xavier." He cast an appreciative glance around the sunlit room.
"Great to meet everyone. I've heard nothing but good things.
" He glanced down at Sloane beside him, his blue eyes softening for half a second, before he addressed the room again.
"We've been getting to know each other. It's going well. "
"Andrew's someone my father's been trying to introduce me to," Sloane clarified. Her voice was level, her chin high. "He's been pushing for a meeting for months. I finally decided now was a good time."
She locked eyes with me on the last sentence, let the words sit one brutal second, then looked away.
Or maybe I was projecting. She'd been ambushed by Eliza in that doorway, bolted from the estate the next morning, and then I'd called her and gotten laughed at and called egotistical for my trouble.
And now Andrew stood in my sister's living room holding her hand.
It was possible Andrew had nothing to do with me.
We moved to the table for lunch. The chef brought out the first course, and Violet clapped her hands. "Everyone eat first. Then I have something important to tell you."
"Not even a tiny hint?" Sloane pleaded.
"Not even a crumb."
"Is it catastrophic news?"
"It's fantastic news."
"Is it a medical diagnosis? Because if Simon's pregnant, I demand to know immediately."
Simon turned his head to stare at her. "Why would I be the one who's—"
"You just seem like the maternal type," Sloane deadpanned. Eliza let out a bright laugh, and Andrew glanced between the two women, his eyebrows shooting up before an appreciative grin spread across his face.
"Just eat your food," Violet said.
The conversation bounced easily around the table.
I contributed when a question came at me, but my whole bandwidth was quietly tracking Sloane.
She sat close to Andrew, her posture loose.
At one point she murmured something to him, and he leaned down to catch it, nodding before she went back to her meal.
"You need more water?" he asked her.
"Please," she said, not looking up.
He grabbed the pitcher and filled her glass. She kept eating, comfortable in his care.
I watched the whole domestic exchange, keeping my face still.
Once the plates were mostly cleared, Violet dropped her fork onto the china.
"Alright," Simon said. "The floor's yours."
"Now," Violet agreed, her eyes gleaming. She scanned the faces around the table. "As you all know, Simon and I haven't gone on our honeymoon yet. We talked about it, and we had a big idea. We think it could be good for everyone."
Sloane squinted at her. "What idea about your honeymoon could possibly benefit the rest of us? It's your honeymoon."
"It's about the honeymoon," Violet said, "but it's also about you.
There are people in this room we love, and we want them in on the celebration.
" She paused for effect. "We're going on a couples trip.
Hawaii. A private rented estate on the beach.
One full week. Me and Simon, obviously. Eliza and Xavier. And you and Andrew."
Sloane blinked at Violet, then turned her head to look at Andrew.
"You want to fly to Hawaii?" she asked him, bewildered.
"Yes." He flashed a blinding smile. "I'm in."
"Then I guess we're going to Hawaii."
"Are we going to be in separate rooms?" I asked, my voice level.
Eliza whipped her head to look at me, then let out a loud laugh, slapping a hand over her mouth. "Every couple gets their own master suite, Xavier. Don't be ridiculous."
I stared dead across the table at Sloane and Andrew, sitting shoulder to shoulder.
Before I could get out a single objection, Eliza chimed in, "That's a wonderful idea, Violet. I need a holiday right now. Thank you for including us. We'd love to come." She turned her warm smile on me. "Wouldn't we, darling?"
"Yes," I lied through my teeth.
I picked up my water glass and stayed quiet.