“You’re too young. And I’m still—” She couldn’t bring herself to complete the thought. She didn’t feel married. She felt like a prisoner promised early release for good behavior. “My life is a mess. It isn’t fair for you to be a part of it.”
A harsh laugh erupted from his throat. “Like I’m not already?” He moved forward, closing the distance she created. “I think about you all the fucking time. And not just—” He swallowed hard. “I’m no good at this. Every time I think I’m okay with how we left it, that I’ve gotten it together, you take me apart. Who was I before I met you?”
Her eyes filled. “Don’t say that. Please—”
“Look at me.” He cupped her face in both hands. “I’m not too young. I’m not a mistake. I just want you to see me.”
She heard a soft click and the creak of a door swinging open.
Rachel pushed him away and stepped back a moment before Matt appeared in the doorway. She caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror on the far wall. Her eyes were still glassy from too much bourbon.
“There you are,” Matt grumbled. It sounded like an accusation—as if she’d failed the moment he realized she wasn’t where he’d left her. “Have you seen the Post today?”
“No, I haven’t,” Rachel said. The intensity of the interrupted moment still lingered, cutting through her voice. Nathan had backed away, and Matt hadn’t moved far enough into the kitchen to realize they weren’t alone. Matt unlocked his phone and glared at the oversized screen. “The ‘Inevitability’ of Mayor Abbott.” His eyes flicked up. “Inevitability is in quotation marks. Your aunt wrote this. This isn’t that puff piece of yours on the school.”
“It wasn’t my puff piece,” Rachel said, praying that Nathan wouldn’t move closer. She could feel his gaze prickle along her skin. Even the room smelled incriminating—like liquor and guilt.
Matt squinted at the screen. “A blue blood prince raised on the spoils of a capitalist oligarch dynasty that he hides in the footnotes of his press releases like a dirty secret.” He looked up, seeking support for his outrage. “This last part. Now this takes the cake. Don’t be fooled by his sleight of hand. He’s not a progressive. He’s a Democrat. There is a difference.” He sighed. “She hates me.”
Matt moved farther into the kitchen and blinked when he spotted Nathan. “Sorry. There was a car outside, but I thought it was another decorator Rachel hired for the house. Nathaniel, right?”
“Nathan,” he corrected.
“Right,” Matt said, nodding. “How is, uh… how’s your family?”
Nathan leaned back against the counter and gripped the edge with both hands. “They’re fine.”
“Great.” Matt was still nodding, the strained conversation thinning his voice. They eyed each other until the tension was stifling. Rachel cleared her throat.
“We were discussing Nathan’s gala pieces.”
“Of course,” Matt said. “Makes sense.” His eyes skimmed her shirtdress. “I’ll leave you to it. The team’s stopping by in an hour to troubleshoot the article in the dining room.” He glanced at Nathan, flashing a tight smile. “Say hello to your mother for me. Her last donation was incredibly generous.”
Nathan didn’t respond, and Matt didn’t wait to be acknowledged. He lifted the phone to his ear and walked out of the kitchen. Rachel’s body slacked with relief as she watched him leave. She glanced at Nathan. “Lenora will be back any minute. She’ll come straight here, and—”
“We need to talk.” He made it sound inescapable, a ticking bomb about to go off.
If Nathan were more like Joe, he probably would have outlined all the reasons they could work as a couple. They would plan everything together. Her divorce. Their new life. Thieves plotting an escape route. But instead, Nathan’s thoughts were scattered, incomplete sentences piling on top of each other in a mental junkyard. He just wanted to tell her how he felt, that she didn’t have to go through any of it alone.
Rachel led him to a small guesthouse near the back of the property. Dust floated into the air, and the only furniture was a writing desk and two unused chairs. He spotted a large box marked Rachel’s Photographs next to a camera bag and tripod.
“This was supposed to be my studio,” Rachel said. “But after Matt got elected, we decided it would be my First Lady’s office, which was a joke. Now it’s storage.”
He pointed to the box. “Can I see?”
She pulled out a photo book and flipped the pages. “I put them in chronological order so I could see improvement. It made me want to push myself. Keep getting better.”
He paged through slowly, studying every photo. When he was done, he pointed to another large portfolio case. “What’s in that one?”
“My senior thesis.” She grew solemn as she opened it. It was a photo collage with a small white label that read Fast Girls. The photos formed an X on the canvas. At first, he saw only bare arms and legs in various shades of brown. Then he looked closer and noticed hands resting on bare hips and breasts. Ambient light licked their skin and made their bodies glisten. His chest tightened, like he was seeing something he shouldn’t, but he didn’t want to turn away. “Jesus. Rachel, this is amazing.”
“My professor had a rule that prohibited real or simulated sex in our final projects. And I knew that. But I’d had this idea stuck in my head, and I had to do it. It felt wrong not to, like I’d be betraying myself if I didn’t. So I turned it in.” She looked at the collage like someone might look at their child: a prideful I made that. But then she swiped a hard hand over her eyes and looked away. “I got an incomplete,” she said. “And an email about professionalism that I forwarded to the student paper. It sparked this huge debate on college campuses about censorship versus academic freedom. And then my dad got sick, so I had to leave. The incomplete became an F and I never graduated.”
“You never got your degree?”
She shook her head, a small, stiff motion that looked more like flinching. “That’s who I was back then. Someone who would wreck her own career prospects to get what she wanted.”
Nathan knew what she was trying to say. He could list a dozen reasons why their situation was different, but he couldn’t compete with that soft waver in her voice. You can’t rationalize your way out of fear.
She touched his hand. “You said earlier that you wanted me to see you.”
Nathan shook his head. “We don’t have to talk about that right now.”