“Look, if you want to sleep around with her, be discreet. If we’re to have an open marriage we should always be discreet about our liaisons.”

I send her a cool look that tells her that’s not my thing.

But she’s cool and ruthless. Understands I do it all for money. Even plan my wedding around convenience.

This is how I got to where I am.

Smart, cunning planning, no decision based on emotion.

This is why I left Austin too—there were no opportunities there for me to become what I am now.

It was easy to step into the role I did, having little emotional attachments. With my bit, however, I can never quite put a wall up between me and her. I can never quite be reasonable when it comes to her.

I still want to kiss her stupid.

Jesus.

She walks into my door, and suddenly I question everything. Who I am.

I busted my balls for years, wanting to be better. For her. For me.

I have everything I need, and more—more money than I could spend in a hundred lifetimes. And I still don’t have the one thing I’ve wanted most in my life.

“Who is she?” Miranda asks at my silence.

What she wants to know is who she is, if she’s important society-wise.

She’s not really asking who she is to me.

“From the Kelly’s department stores. The only daughter,” I answer.

“Poor dear.”

I stare out the window, jaw clenched because the answer, the real answer is,

My future.

And no matter how uncomfortable staring at it again is, I want it. I want her, I always will.

Bryn

Get dressed…

Put one foot in front of the other…

Be open to whatever comes next…

Trust that it’ll make sense in the future.

That’s my motto. But I don’t believe all of it. Because life has taught me. Loss is one of the things in life that stays. And some losses never make sense. Ever.

Still, I’m trying to get my life in order.

I figure if I stay busy enough, the pain will go away or at least recede. I’m working from nine to five, plus the weekends. My free time, I spend walking either alone, or with some of the dogs whose owners continue calling Sara, booking her to the limit.

I tell myself I won’t think of Christos every morning, and I repeat the thought at night—but obviously I’m not listening to myself. Because he’s everywhere. In House of Sass. In my email. My phone. In all of New York. In my mind and heart, the most.

“Okay, you need to start talking to me, don’t shut me out,” Becka said on the phone the other day.

“I can’t. It’s a Pandora’s box I don’t want to open.”

“Why not?”

“For fear I’ll never stop.” I groan.

“Crying? Oh, Bryn.”

That’s my life. I’ve lost my parents, and my Aunt Cecile, but I have never lost someone who is still living. There is comfort in seeing him every day at work, in knowing he breathes, but while the pain is more tolerable, it is still so acute sometimes. I cannot believe this is how things will end between us.

I’m not surprised when Becka arrives one Friday afternoon. I spot her standing at the door of my apartment when I arrive home from work, and my jaw hangs open.

“Becka?”

She drops her bag when she sees me and we hug.

I ask her what she’s doing here and why she isn’t writing—I need her book to distract me. She says, “I can write anywhere. And that’s what friends are for.”

“To join the pity party?”

“That, and also to sign them up for match.com.” At my displeased gesture, she hurries on, showing me my own image on her phone. “It’s time to get you out and dating, Bryn. The sooner you get over him the more productive and happy you will be.”

“I can’t,” I say.

She follows me inside. “Yes, you can.”

“Hey, do I know you?” Sara asks from the door to her room.

“I’m Becka,” she says.

“Oh. I’m Sara!”

“I’m also the guilty party who signed Bryn up for match.com.” Becka smirks.

“Quite genius, I approve. It’s been the most awful two weeks for her,” she goes on saying, joining us in the living room.

“Guys. STOP. The thought of being with another guy makes me want to choke.”

“You won’t choke,” Becka says.

“Except with dick—and only if you want to.” Sara nods vehemently.

They laugh but when I don’t join, Becka grabs my hand. “Your man is not yours anymore. He’s having a baby, Bryn. With someone else,” she says as gently as possible.

I curl up on the couch and look at the dating profile on Becka’s phone screen. She used a picture of me I sent her a few months ago when I arrived in New York. Thirsty to make it. Gung-ho attitude.

I’m smiling, pointing toward the sign that says WELCOME TO NEW YORK with a grin on my face and thirst in my eyes. That image makes me feel so beat up right now. But it reminds me of the girl I know, the one who survived the loss of her parents. It reminds me of how far I’ve come. “Give me that,” I whisper, peering into the profile description, which is TMI and cheesy as shit, so I fix it a bit to sound more like me. Simple, young, hoping to find love and success. What every woman wants.

Except I found both, with the same man—and yet I cannot have him.

My throat constricts remembering but I swallow it back and skim the rest of my profile.

I’m not kidding myself in thinking I’ll find some guy I’ll fall madly in love with and have babies with—in fact, I already know the only babies I want are his, and that’s not possible—but I need the distraction.