Sweet Filthy Boy(92)

A woman he was with for six years.

Four of us, together all day long . . . I don’t know that I’ll ever know anyone in the way I know those three . . . Those relationships are some of the best and . . . complicated of my life . . . We missed our families together, we comforted each other, we celebrated some of the proudest moments of our lives.

I feel my face heat, my lips part in a gasp. How many times did Ansel let me assume Perry was another man, a friend? I told him everything about myself, about my life and fears and relationships, and he spoke only in vague generalities about Minuit and their “too-long” relationship.

She looks thrilled, like a lioness that caught a gazelle. She wraps her arm around his bicep, but he shakes it off, reaching for me again.

“Mia.”

I pull out of his grasp. “I think I’ll probably leave now.”

There are a million other things I could say—a million other biting things someone like Harlow or Lola would say right now—but for once I’m glad I won’t give voice to any of them.

He calls after me but I’m already running to the stairs, tripping down the tight spiral. Behind me, his feet pound on the wood; my name echoes down along the banister.

“Mia!”

My mind bends away from understanding what just happened back at the party. Two magnets pushing apart.

The sidewalk is bare, cracked, and crooked as I turn on Rue La Bruyère, sprinting into the small curve at St.-Georges. It’s funny that I know where I’m going now, so I can properly run away.

I catch my breath between two buildings. I think he went looking for me the other way; I don’t hear him anymore.

There are too many things I have to figure out now: how fast I can pack, when I can leave, and why Ansel left me to be blindsided tonight by a woman he was planning to marry before I came along. I have no idea why he kept this from me, but I feel the shards of panic pushing deep into my lungs, making it hard to breathe.

How old this city is. The plaque on the building I’m up against states it was built in 1742. This structure alone is older than any love affair alive in this country. Ours might be the youngest, even though it always felt as though we were picking up where our souls left off on a thread much further up the line.

I know now that I love him, that what we have is real, and that I probably loved him that first second I saw him from across the room, enjoying my happiness as much as I did. For whatever Lola and Harlow say about it, I’m a true believer.

It is possible to fall that fast.





Chapter NINETEEN




ABOUT TWO BLOCKS from our apartment I know he’s behind me again, far enough back to give me some space, close enough that he knows where I am. Upstairs in the narrow hallway, I fumble with my keys as he bursts through the door to the stairwell, out of breath. At least he was smart enough to let me take the elevator alone.

The flat is dark now, the sun no longer lingering in the sky, and I don’t bother to turn on any lights. Instead, I lean against the doorway to the bedroom and stare at the floor. He stops in front of the kitchen, directly across from me but leaving about four feet in between. Slowly, his breathing returns to normal. I don’t even have to look directly at him to know he feels miserable. From the corner of my eye I can see his slumped posture, the way he’s staring at me.

“Talk to me,” he whispers, finally. “This is a horrible feeling, Mia. Our first fight, and I don’t know how to make it okay between us.”

I shake my head, looking down at my feet. I don’t even know where to start. This is so much more than a first fight. A first fight is what happens when he keeps leaving the toilet seat up or washes my new silk dress in hot water. He kept me in the dark about Perry, about a fiancée he had, for two months—and I don’t even know why.

I’m drowning in humiliation and we both seem so unbelievably naïve for thinking this was anything but a joke. This entire thing is such an epic rebound for him. Six years with her and then he jumps into a marriage with a stranger? It’s almost comical. “I just want to go home. Tomorrow, I think,” I say, numbly. “I was planning on leaving soon anyway.”

I thought he was leaning against the wall but realize he wasn’t only when he seems to collapse back against it. “Don’t,” he breathes. “Mia, no. You can’t leave early because of this. Talk to me.”

My anger flares, renewed at the slight measure of disbelief in his voice. “I can leave because of this! How could you let me walk into that? I was completely blindsided!”

“I didn’t know she would be there!” he insists. “Marie and Christophe are my friends from before; she doesn’t really know them. I don’t know why she was there!”