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“I can’t,” I said.

“I’m sorry, Tori. God, I’m an idiot. You just looked so…” Gavin shook his head, running a hand through his hair, and I could tell he really hadn’t meant to lose control. “No excuses. That was strike two. I better put you in a cab.”

We walked down the pier wordlessly, until we finally reached the street where the taxis were queuing up.

“Listen,” I said, as my cab pulled forward. “I had a great time. Let’s just forget about the…what happened. Water under the bridge.”

He nodded. “Still friends?”

“Of course.” I smiled and ducked into the back of the car. “Maybe we can do this again sometime. Invite the others, too.”

“Yup. See you in class.”

I gave a final wave and rolled the window up, burrowing into the warmth of my coat in the backseat.

As we pulled away from the curb, I turned to watch him. He stood there, hand still raised in goodbye as tiny snowflakes drifted onto his shoulders. I couldn’t believe what a complete idiot I was being. Here was a kind, handsome, smart, and equally studious man who liked me, word-nerdiness and all. Why couldn’t I like him back? Why couldn’t I kiss him? Why couldn’t I go out with him and have fun without guilt?

But try as I might to get lost in my not-date with Gavin, I still hadn’t been able to erase Stefan from my thoughts. All night I’d been thinking about his kiss. His cock. I told myself that it was normal to feel like this, to have confusing, conflicting emotions, to desire him physically and emotionally even when I knew who he really was. What he was capable of.

But I still hated myself for it.

It wasn’t fair. I never would have followed through with my marriage to Stefan if I had known what it really meant. But they had all kept the truth from me—my father, Konstantin Zoric, Stefan himself—all of them had obscured the reality of what I was agreeing to.

My brain knew this.

My heart on the other hand…

My heart seemed to be having a much harder time letting go of the fantasy I had imagined on the night of my eighteenth birthday. The night where I had been dressed like a princess and promised a fairy tale wedding. A romantic future. A marriage of possibilities. I had considered myself and Stefan a team, working together to break free from our fathers’ machinations for our respective futures. I had never imagined that Stefan was part of those machinations. That he was just as much the enemy as my father was.

A tear slipped down my cheek and I quickly swiped it away. I was tired of crying over Stefan, but I couldn’t help myself. A part of me was still grieving for the fantasy that had died. The fantasy I had built out of a look from a handsome man across a ballroom. The fantasy I had built from a kiss. From a promise.

It had all been nothing but a lie.

My mind knew it. My mind knew exactly what had happened, what was still happening—and exactly how fucked up the whole situation was.

I just needed to convince my heart of the same.

Tori

Chapter 4

Though it was a cold, overcast November day in Chicago, as far as I was concerned, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and everything was on the upside.

I’d been stressing for weeks about a big project for my Linguistic Landscapes class, a group assignment worth 30% of our grade. Luckily I’d been partnered with Gavin and Diane, my good friend and hippie classmate from Vermont, both of whom took the class as seriously as I did. And today, the results were finally in. Our geo-tagged map of Chicago and the accompanying research paper on the usage and display of language at specific spots in the city had earned us all a big fat A. Praise Jesus.

We’d worked our tails off, taken field trips all over town to snap photos of signs, subway maps, informational displays, and place markers, and the paper we’d all taken turns writing examined the way language was used to communicate with the public via these signs. With midterm exams looming ever closer, it was a huge relief to know I had this class practically in the bag. Professor Angstrom, for all her enthusiastic and brilliant lecturing, was not known to grade gently.

“We kicked its ass!” I yelled. With a whoop of triumph, I spun away from the grade sheet posted on the bulletin board outside our lecture hall. It took all of my self-control not to rip the paper off the board and kiss it—or run back inside the classroom to kiss our professor—but instead I threw my arms around Diane and Gavin, pulling them in for a group hug.

“Angstrom gave us an A!” I crowed. “You guys really came through for me. I owe you.”

It felt like a huge victory—despite the fight with my father and the awful situation at home with my monstrous husband and our cold relationship, I’d managed to double down on my studies and lean on my school friends so I could keep up with my program. It was so much easier to focus on schoolwork than it was to think about Stefan and everything going on with KZM.

“Angstrom didn’t “give” us anything—weearnedthat A. We make a great team.” Diane laughed in her gentle way, readjusting the hemp backpack that I’d knocked off her shoulder. “And you definitely don’t owe us anything. We all contributed equally.”

“I disagree about the owing,” Gavin said warmly, looking straight at me. “I think we’ve earned ourselves a celebration. You do owe us that.”

If he was holding a grudge for the almost-kiss that I’d rejected on our not-date at Navy Pier, he kept it well hidden. If anything, he’d been treating me with even more kindness lately. When we studied with our group, he was always checking in to make sure I had everything I needed, occasionally asking how things were going with my father or if Stefan’s late nights at work had eased up at all (in both cases I had no news to report). I’d never had such an abundance of highlighters, study snacks, or sympathetic ears in my life. Gavin was actually kind of perfect.