“I know,” he said.
It struck him that knowing it—knowing that he was buying her something comparatively small, something she could buy for herself—was part of why this mattered to him. He’d had his money for a long time now, a complete fluke after all these years, the kind of money that grew without him doing a damn thing worthwhile with himself, and the only way it’d ever felt okay to him was when he was buying his mother a farm or paying for most of this insane, over-the-top wedding. If he wanted that sort of feeling, he would’ve found a way to get back to that clothes museum Layla loved from yesterday; he would’ve tried to get someone to sell him one of those starlight dresses, straight off the mannequin, or he would’ve leaned into his hate-cocoon-driven urge to buy her some hulking, unmissable piece of jewelry, just to stick it to Jamie MacKenzie.
He might not be good; he might not be reliable. But hewasrich.
This, though. This was different.
So he leaned down quickly, set his lips against her for one ofthose corner-mouth kisses he liked to give her, and ducked out of the store before she could object again.
Back outside, he tucked himself off to the side of the building, and almost immediately—as soon as he was out of sight of the shop’s window, no longer able to see Layla—the forgetting part was over. In his mind, he was away from the Marais, back on the hill in Montmartre with Michael. He was staring down at a heap of debris and ash; he was thinking,What happened here?; he was sorting through the answers that were too numerous and too quick in coming.
He realized now that he’d been wrong about this wedding—about theriskto this wedding—from the beginning. He had not known how far Michael had already gone to ensure it would happen, and in the not knowing, he had simply blamed Layla. And then he had grown close to Layla, closer than he’d let himself be with anyone in years, only to be reminded—first by her ex-husband, and then by Michael, too—that he was not good enough for her, that he was unreliable, a hermit who never left his house, a man who had no room to judge.
It rang in his ears, thatYou don’t judge me for this, that broken note in Michael’s voice as he said it, and the worst part was how much heunderstoodit. He understood how long Michael had grieved for Sara Beth, how much harder and heavier the grief had been for how close Griffin had come to dying, too, how challenging Fitz and Paula had been in the aftermath.
He understood, too, that Emily was a miracle to Michael, a balm to him. He understood that Michael genuinely loved her, and that’s why he was so afraid to lose her.
And he supposed he also understood—now that he’d been with Layla—why the whole truth was sometimes so hard to say.
You didn’t break up the best feeling you’ve had in forever to say, Let me tell you about the worst thing that ever happened to me?
He hadn’t. In all the time he was with Layla, yesterday and last night, he hadn’t.
Except…except itwasn’tthe same.
He knew it wasn’t the same, no matter if now, he thought maybe he could tell Layla about the fire, about Sara Beth and how he hadn’t been able to save her. It wasn’t the same because he hadn’t been with Layla for over a year, hadn’t proposed to her, wasn’t going tomarry hertomorrow night.
That thought—marry her—sent a shock through him, an unfamiliar sensation that didn’t show up on the pain scale.
He shoved it aside.
He thought of Emily finding out about Sara Beth later. After the wedding.
What it would do to her, to find out later.
And then he thought of Layla again, across from him at that café table, telling him about her divorce.
That’s not the same, either, part of him thought.All right, I still fucking hate him, but I can see that he didn’t reallylie. Not like Michael’s lying. He changed his mind, like Layla said.
But a bigger part of him—a better part of him, maybe—thought,It’s the same. Emily could get hurt the same.
And when she did—when she got hurt from finding this out, after she’d already married him—Michael would lose her.
From his spot against the coal-black building facade, Griffin raised a hand to his forehead, pressing his fingers beneath the brim of his hat, rubbing at the tension there. Distantly, he thought,Do I have a goddamn headache, a regular-person headache? How strange.
It was more complexity than he had allowed into his life inages. For years, he had been guided by only a few things. Managing his pain, making sure his mother was taken care of.
And Michael. Seeing Michael happy, and settled.
The way he would’ve been, if it hadn’t been for the fire.
Now, though, it was different.
He thought of Michael looking at him, hard-eyed but scared, Michael saying,You, never leaving your house, and he wished Michael was here right now. He wished he could say back what had just come to him, bright and blinding and so terrible that there was no one he wanted to tell except for his best friend.
But I did leave the house. I left the house; I crawled out of the bell tower, out of hell itself, and it hurt almost the whole fucking way.
And that’s how I know what you’re doing isn’t right.
