I stare at Dion’s suitcase by the door in dismay, personally offended by its presence. He chuckles and reaches for me, his hands cupping my face tightly. “Don’t look so peeved, baby. How am I supposed to leave when your eyes are begging me to stay?”
I glance up at him and throw him a glare. “Just count your blessings that my mouth hasn’t joined in on the begging. We both know you wouldn’t be able to say no if I asked you to stay.”
Dion bursts out laughing, and I stare at him in awe. He’s never been so relaxed around me, and I’ve never felt quite this close to him before — not outside of bed. When he gave me that photograph of my mother a week ago, everything changed. I began to do what he asked me to. I began to try, in earnest. No more facades, no more holding back my words or feelings.
“Shall I just stay?” he asks. “Lex really doesn’t need another manufacturing plant. And if he does, he should just buy it domestically and keep me out of it.”
I shake my head when I realize he’s serious. “You can’t,” I murmur. He knows as well as I do that none of the Windsors can buy any foreign assets without his signature. He’ll have to go, and I can’t come with him because of my upcoming concert. If I could’ve canceled it, I would have. Just the thought of everything I’d do to distract him on the plane has my lips turning down in disappointment. “It’s only a weekend, anyway. I’m sure we’ll survive,” I murmur, my tone placating.
“I don’t think I will,” he says, his hands wrapping around my waist. He lifts me up and against the wall, his lips finding mine. “I hate flying without you, but not as much as I hate sleeping without you.”
I wrap my legs around his hips and lose myself in our kiss, my hands roaming over his body eagerly. Dion groans when my nails scrape over his scalp, and his hand slips underneath my dress. “I need you,” he pleads. “I have to hear you moan my name just one more time. This morning wasn’t enough, Faye. Give me just one more.”
I nod, my heart pounding wildly as liquid heat gathers between my legs. He pushes my panties aside seconds before our doorbell rings, both of us freezing. Dion drops his forehead to mine and takes a shaky breath before gently lowering me to the floor. “Who the fuck could that be?” he mutters.
My stomach twists as dread washes over me. My father hasn’t contacted me once since Dion and I went over for dinner, but there’s no escaping him. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been dreading my concert this weekend. Each time I see him, he destroys my confidence and tears down everything Dion and I have built. Just seeing him reminds me that I’m deceiving Dion, and that this fantasy we’re choosing to escape into isn’t real.
Sooner or later, Father will dig his claws back into me. Could he have known that Dion should’ve left for the airport already, and that I’d be alone? A small part of me is expecting him to show up here at some point. If anything, I’m surprised it’s taken him so long.
My entire body is tense when Dion pulls the front door open. Mere moments later, relief rushes through me despite Dion’s thoroughly unamused expression, his gaze on Sierra, Raven, and Valentina.
“Oh,” Sierra says, looking equally dismayed. “Why are you still here?”
He sighs and steps aside to let them in, an apologetic look in his eyes when he glances at me. I simply smirk back at him, letting him know I’m completely fine with our unexpected guests. He has no idea how grateful I am that it’s them and not my father. If I told him that, how would he respond? When he realizes how weak I am, will the way he looks at me change?
“I should probably head out,” Dion says, turning back to me and ignoring the girls entirely. He doesn’t even give them a chance to greet me as he bends down, his lips finding mine. He takes his time kissing me, ignoring the giggles filling our hallway, and I can’t help but give into his demands. My hands find their way into his hair, almost involuntarily, and he sighs, his forehead dropping to mine. “Be good for me while I’m away, okay?”
I nod and rise to my tiptoes, pressing another swift, chaste kiss to his lips before pulling away. “Always,” I promise.
Dion looks reluctant as he steps back and reaches for his suitcase. He throws the girls a warning look before walking out, pausing in the doorway to glance back at me. “I’ll see you in two days, angel. Break a leg at your concert, okay?”
I nod, and the door falls closed behind him. It’s only two days, yet I miss him already. I’m aware of how ridiculous that is, but I can’t help it.
“Did not see that coming,” Sierra says, her arms looping through mine as she drags me back into the house.
“Me neither,” Valentina says, soft laughter escaping her lips. “Dion is smitten.”
Raven nods. “I told you, and you wouldn’t believe me.”
I’m so flustered that I have no idea what to say to their teasing. Smitten… I’m not sure if he is, but I have enough faith in us to know that there definitely is something between us now that neither of us expected to have.
“I thought you were joking when you told me this house was a masterpiece,” Valentina says, her shoulder bumping against Raven’s.
Sierra pauses abruptly in the living room, her eyes settling on the piano. She looks stricken, and I place my hand on her arm to steady her. “Are you okay?” I ask, concerned.
She turns to look at me, wide-eyed. “Faye,” she says, her voice trembling. “Tell me how that piano made its way into your living room.”
“I… well, your grandmother had it delivered when I was decorating the house. She told me it was one of Dion’s most beloved possessions, so I had it restored for him and put it in the living room. I know it’s his, but I’m the only one who really uses it.”
Sierra stares at me, a hint of confusion in her gaze. “Dion lets you touch it?” she asks, her voice trembling.
I frown at her, trying to decipher her tone. “Of course,” I murmur, confused. “I’m a pianist,” I add dumbly, mildly offended.
“Has Dion… has he ever said anything to you about it?” Sierra asks, her voice soft. “About the piano, or even just the sound of it?”
I frown at her odd question. He did say something that stuck with me the very first time he heard me play it, but I’m not sure it’d be appropriate to repeat that. “He once said something along the lines of how he’d soon associate the sound of it with me. Why do you ask? Is something wrong?”
“Faye,” Valentina says, her voice soft. “This piano was made for Tara Windsor. While it’s true she left it to Dion, there’s a reason he let it fall into disrepair. He can’t stand the sound of the piano without thinking of his mother, and this piano specifically… the only times Dion can even bear to look at it is when he’s drunk. He’s never been able to let go of his parents, and he’s never truly grieved them. Instead, he’s always avoided every mention of them. If he’s finally allowing parts of them back into his life, then that is a good thing.”
What? Dread settles in the pit of my stomach as I see the piano in a different light, and my heart wrenches painfully. Have I unknowingly been forcing Dion to lay eyes on something that hurts him, something he wanted hidden away and forgotten? Why would he let me?
Sierra gently touches the golden Windsor logo on the piano, and Raven steps in beside her, her arm wrapping around her best friend. “I should’ve told you about the piano,” Raven says to Sierra. “I saw it last time, but I didn’t connect the dots.”
Sierra shakes her head and turns to look at me. “The fact that it’s here, that Dion lets you play it without so much as a hint of protest… you have no idea how much that means to all of us, Faye,” Sierra says. “You might not realize it, but you’re doing what none of us have been able to do. You’re helping him move on.”
I think back to the haunted look in his eyes the first few times he heard me play, and the way he’d distract me from it by touching me. These days, he seems content to lean back and watch me play, but that wasn’t always the case. I just didn’t recognize his behavior for what it was.
“Have I been hurting him?” I ask, my voice breaking. When I asked him why he’d gotten so drunk last week, he wouldn’t answer me, but it makes sense now. It must have killed him to search through photos of his parents, just to find one of my mom for me.
Worth it, he’d said when he saw me smile. At the time, I hadn’t realized what it had cost him to give me back those memories.
“No,” Raven says. “You’ve been healing him.” She smiles at me with such genuine gratitude that I relax just a fraction. “Dion won’t talk about this, but trust me when I say this is a huge leap forward for him.”
Raven grabs Sierra’s hand and gently leads her to the sofa, her gaze dropping to the old photo albums I left scattered all over. They both smile then, but it doesn’t quite reach their eyes. Sierra picks up one of my favorite photos, one of Dion and me as kids, and holds it to her chest for a moment. “You have no idea what you’ve done for him, do you? The man that opened the door today was the brother I thought I’d lost, and you returned him to me, to us. I owe you everything, and you don’t even realize it.”
I shake my head as I join the girls on the sofa. “Whatever you think I’ve done for him, I can assure you he’s done more for me,” I tell her, my voice soft.
She nods at me in gratitude as her gaze roams over the photos on the coffee table. I selected my favorites and had planned to put them up around the house, but maybe that’s not a good idea after all. It hurts to realize that I can’t read Dion as well as I thought I could. If I’d so much as suspected that looking at these photos hurt him, I’d have hidden them away.
“I remember this,” Sierra says as she picks up a photo where she’s seated on a swing, and Dion is pushing her. She looks at me then. “I know you think you don’t owe me anything, but I beg to differ, and I know exactly how to repay you.”
She holds up another photo then, one where Dion is wearing lipstick, and Sierra is holding up a makeup set. “The three of us know so many embarrassing stories about Dion that you definitely want to hear.”
I smile and nod at her in gratitude. I’m eager for more of my husband — I want to know everything about him, especially the past that haunts him. I want to know what he used to love, what made him smile. There are so many things he won’t tell me, and because of it, I’ve unknowingly been hurting him.
Val chuckles and reaches for her handbag. “I definitely know a few interesting facts about him that I can be convinced to spill after a few shots,” she says, holding up a bottle of tequila. “They aren’t from his childhood, but I assure you you’ll enjoy them.”
Raven grins then, an indulgent look in her eyes. “For example, do you know what Dion’s favorite color is?” she asks as she reaches into the pocket of her jacket and pulls out shot glasses with the words Windsor Girls Anti-Poker Night on them. They’re all personalized with names engraved on them, and it looks like I get one of my own. Intriguing. They definitely came prepared, but I’m not entirely sure what for. What is anti-poker night?
I nod. “Of course. It’s blue.”
Sierra and Raven share a conspiratorial look and simultaneously burst out laughing. “So, hear me out,” Raven says as Val begins to pour shots, and Sierra opens a Tupperware box she brought filled with lime slices. “His favorite color right until my wedding day was green. A few days later, he shows up at my studio, telling me he wants a few ties and cufflinks in a very specific kind of blue. He spent an hour rejecting everything I offered him, and let me tell you, Dion doesn’t do that. He’s the most easygoing of all of us, so I was seriously confused. It made no sense at all. In the end, I had to custom mix colors for him and order him bespoke pieces. I spent months trying to figure out what was wrong with him, and in the end, it was Val who noticed it.”
Valentina laughs, her arm wrapping around me as she leans into me, her eyes on mine. “It’s so obvious, in hindsight,” she says, before bursting into laughter all over again.
Sierra shakes her head. “His new favorite color is the exact shade of your eyes,” she says, a teasing smirk on her lips.
The girls all burst into fits of laughter while I sit back on the sofa, dazed and flustered, my heart pounding wildly as I remember what he told me when I threw his tie on the floor in his London office.
I do wish you hadn’t crumpled and thrown down my tie like that. I bought it because it’s the same color as your eyes — it’s my favorite.
Have I truly been missing all the signs he’s been giving me? Raven’s wedding was two years ago… back then he and I weren’t on good terms yet, but I remember that night vividly, because it was the first time he danced with me more than once. Even that would’ve been a small sign he was no longer doing the bare minimum. The first dance would’ve been an obligation, but the second and third ones were choices.
I bite my lip, eager to trust his actions. I learned long ago that a man’s actions weigh heavier than his words, yet somehow, I seem to have been missing everything he’s been saying.
Each step he’s taken toward me has been a hushed confession, an unspoken desire. In that regard, he and I are far more similar than I realized. We’re both too scared of rejection, of destroying the rocky foundation we built. Regardless, it’s time I start meeting him halfway. I wasn’t ready before, but I am now.
