I’m not so selfish that I begrudge Harlee her happily-ever-after romance. It’s what she’s always wanted.
It’s what I thought I wanted. Until I got engaged and discovered that I loved the idea of owning a bakery morethan I liked the idea of being someone’s wife. Lucas…hadn’t understood when I’d asked to postpone our wedding. Hadn’t understood why I wanted to quit my safe job working at Rolling Scones to open my own shop. Hadn’t understood why I’d take such a big risk borrowing so much money when I could be safe with him.
He'd always been risk averse.
He’d always been too good for me.
And then I’d broken his heart by breaking our engagement entirely.
Harlee and I aren’t the same, though. When I got engaged, I became miserable. Harlee has flourished. She’s more confident than when we first met. It’s like falling in love with Roan has made her more comfortable with herself. She isn’t always second-guessing everything she says, and she doesn’t step back and let everyone else do the talking for her anymore.
“I can’t believe I’m going to be getting married!” She clasps her hands together, as if there’s a ring on her finger, even though there isn’t.
Maybe I should’ve made sure Roan didn’t really think weddings were about exchanging fingers before sending him back to Harlee. Hopefully, the lack of a ring is more of a logistical error than a translation misunderstanding. It’s not as if there are any shops on Ril II from which Roan can purchase jewelry.
“Bride to be,” Harlee says, trying the words on for size. “Mrs Roan...” She frowns. “I don’t know the brothers’ surname. Do you?”
“Maybe they don’t have one. Anyway, he could always take your surname.”
“Mr. Roan Jun. Mr. Jun.” But she shakes her head. “That sounds too much like my dad. Maybe we’ll stick with first names only.”
Mrs. Lydia Papadopoulos.
And now the entire Papadopoulos family hates me for making Lucas cry.
I bet they’d be pleased if I never made it back to Earth. I bet they’d be pleased to never see me again. And I can’t blame them. They welcomed me into their family the first time Lucas took me home to meet them, and I spat on their hospitality seventeen months later when I returned my wedding dress.
That’s exactly why I’ve got to get back to Earth. I can’t have broken Lucas’s heart for no good reason. I need to follow my dream. I need to open my bakery. I need to make a success of my life to justify all the crappy decisions I’ve made.
“Roan asking came as a real shock, did it?” I ask, raising my eyebrows suggestively.
She giggles. “Well, I had to coach him on what to say, and then he tried asking me in the middle of sex, so I made him ask again later. It’s like when you first confess to being in love. It doesn’t count when you’re in bed together.”
“It counts,” Roan says, coming into the kitchen and bending down to kiss Harlee’s cheek.
She blushes. “Does not.”
I meet Roan’s gaze, half expecting that Harlee will ask me to be her bridesmaid, but instead, she glances over my shoulder at the talking tablet. “What are you doing?”
“Oh, nothing much.” I take a half step back, trying to block her direct line of sight, but considering she’s taller than me, I don’t think I manage. “Research.” I wave a dismissive hand, feeling…uncomfortable all of a sudden. How can I have more in common with Chloe than with my friends? “Can you make it stop?” I ask Roan, passing him the tablet, and a second later silence falls over the kitchen.
I struggle for something to say. Harlee and Roan glance at each other. It’s one of those looks couples share when they’re silently communicating. I can imagine Harlee is saying,I feelguilty for telling Lydia about our engagement when she’s so lonely.And Roan is probably replying with a sympatheticWe can’t put our lives on hold forever because Lydia doesn’t want to be here.
He’s right. Knowing that doesn’t make me feel any better.
“How’s work?” I ask, saying the first and only thing that comes to mind. It’s so clearly an attempt to change the subject that I feel my face heat with more embarrassment.
“The first day of harvest is tomorrow.” Roan wraps his upper left arm around Harlee’s shoulders and his lower left arm around her waist. She leans against him. They fit together. Two pieces of the same puzzle.
Sorin and Briar are like that, too. Sorin took one look at Briar and knew he was in love.
It was very romantic.
It was very isolating. Killan took one look at me and immediately knew he wanted me out of his life.
I open a random cupboard under the kitchen counter, banging around among the crockery in an attempt to appear busy. The robotic arm that usually does all the work stirs but doesn’t try to stop me.
“You two staying for dinner?” I glance over my shoulder.
