I always knew our paths would cross again, one way or another, but I never thought it would be here. Not with him dressed in a crisp dark suit that looked as natural as the beat-to-hell jeans and vintage t-shirts once had. Not with me frozen in place while all the monologues I'd rehearsed emptied out of my mind. Not in this lavish tent, chandeliers glittering overhead while our old audience looked on.
I'd prepared myself for many things tonight, but this was not one of them. Painful conversations? Two separate people had pointed at my name tag, frowned, and told me they'd always thought my name was Emily or Sarah ormaybe something stuffy like Constance. Graceless moments? Someone spilled a glass of wine down my dress and I apologized to them for it. Latching onto the familial connections? I'd already smile-shrugged my way through five requests for my father to "take care of" legal matters ranging from aLow-key DUItoWe're hoping the Securities and Exchange Commission doesn't get involved.
I'd also steeled myself against the onslaught of questions I knew I'd get about Jude. It was a damn good thing, because everyone wanted to know why he wasn't here, what he was doing now, why we weren't together—and how it ended. An entire lifetime had passed since high school and they were dying to know what happened and how it all fell apart.
There was a hungry glee woven into those questions, like they'd been waiting to pick my broken little heart from my chest, and any other organs damaged in the breakup, and simmer them into a stew. Because I'd never deserved him. Never good enough, not even close. That was what they thought. What they said when they didn't know I was listening.
As if it wasn't enough to have everyone talking about him, he decided this wasn't a party without his full participation and had to show up looking like a storm cloud in a bespoke suit.And since that still wasn't enough for him, he had to watch me with a gaze that stripped a layer from my skin with each passing minute.
I had no clue what would happen between us tonight. Whether we'd talk for the first time in years or he'd leave me to squirm under his watchful gaze all night without saying a word to me. He probably thought I deserved that type of torture. Probably thought I'd earned myself an uncomfortable evening of him treading on my territory like a heavy-handed reminder that I was the one who'd made this mess. Part of me agreed with him.
The other side of me wanted answers. Wanted to know why he was here when I knew for a fact he hadn't even opened his invite, let alone clicked the RSVP link.
And as Jude stepped away from his group and started across the tent toward me, I had a good idea which side would win.
chapter three
Audrey
Today's vocabulary word: ascend
It shouldn't have surprisedme when Jude raked an impatient glare from my shoes up to the hair I wore loose around my shoulders, and the first words from him in years landed like a kill shot.
"Your mother must be pleased."
The unfortunate truth was that my motherwaspleased. She was the one who'd cornered me into this gig and she'd added to my servitude by setting me up on a lunch date for tomorrow. This made my response of "Don't get carried away with the assumptions," all the more brittle.
Jude's answering laugh was a dry, rueful sound that sliced into my skin like a paper cut. "I'll see what I can do, Saunders."
Another true thing about me was that I was a thoroughbred good girl. Good daughter, good student, good dancer, good friend, good person. I was kind and thoughtful and generous. Quiet and attentive, as all the best people-pleasing doormats were. I wasn't snappy or sarcastic, and I never argued or sparred with anyone.
Unless Jude Bellessi was around.
It was like a switch flipped inside me when he was within shouting range and I transformed into a blowtorch of a woman. Gone was the constant itch to put everyone at ease, even at the cost of my own comfort. Not only did I invite myself to confrontations with him, I started them.
It was like stepping into someone else's skin—and I'd never made peace with the fact that it fit so much better than my own.
Jude went on studying me, his gaze catching on the damp spot from my earlier run-in with the wine. Introducing red wine to a navy dress was no tragedy but the slight shake of his head made it seem like a moral failing.
He could stare all he wanted. Pin me like a rare yet ultimately unimpressive butterfly. I could take it. I'd endured far worse than some unpleasant moments and hard glaring. And honestly, I wanted this. I wanted him to take all the hurt I'd handed him and throw it right back at me.
For once, I wanted to feel something real, even if it was awful.
Just as long as we maintained a polite distance from each other, because that blowtorch situation of mine? There was no controlling it when we were close. I burned through all my safety nets and guardrails, and my mind kicked and skipped, never stopping to analyze every thought or rehearse every word.
I folded my arms over my chest and spent a full minute fighting to keep my emotions from using my face like a billboard as I waited for… I didn't know. An explanation of whatever it was that'd brought him here tonight. He responded to my obvious struggle with a tolerant smile that was the equivalent of a pat on the head.
I didn't know what it was called when you knew you owed someone a minimum of seventeen specific apologies and probably needed to throw yourself off the side of a mountain but also wanted to violently remind them how little you enjoyedbeing patronized. Whatever that was called, it was my current state of being. Sincerely apologetic but also not so sincere that I couldn't scratch his beautiful face off.
Through the veil of my bloodlust, I couldn't help but notice the years had treated him well. As if time would have the audacity to give him anything else. He'd never had an awkward stage, which was criminally unfair since my entire life was a series of overlapping awkward stages. But that wasn't Jude. He'd started high school with a full, almost-black beard and the kind of biceps that would've had him under suspicion of steroid use if he'd bothered with sports. He passed for twenty-something by the time he was sixteen, no fake IDs needed, and now—now he looked the same as always butbetter.
He was built like an old Gothic cathedral. Ridiculously tall, broad beyond reason, and too damn pretty for his own good.
He'd settled into himself in the years that'd passed. His dark hair was still thick, a rogue wave running through the strands and snatching back any hint of pretty boy perfection. He was sun-kissed as always and his espresso eyes gleamed in the soft chandelier light. Time and distance had done nothing to dim the ever-present buzz of restless energy that tightened his jaw and kept his fingers drumming against his thick thigh.
The suit was a very nice touch. Quality tailoring. Expensive, but not obviously so. No tie, though it didn't matter. He would've gotten away with strolling in here wearing jeans and a leather jacket, his motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm.
Since I wasn't equipped to win this staring contest and I'd evaporate into the night if I didn't fidget with something, I turned to the catering table to busy myself with consolidating trays of blueberry feta crostini. I hated feta but it hadn't crossed my mind to ask the caterer to switch it out. I hadn't planned this party to suit my tastes. It was funny how I was still the last person I took into account.
