Happily Ever His (Singletree #1)

girl didn’t always allow you to feel that way. Juliet had gotten along fine—being beautiful from age one would do that for you. But I’d always been a little different. And while I’d never minded not fitting in with all the other kids, it seemed to bother them a lot that I didn’t care. And I’d needed to learn how to make them leave me alone. Maybe words would have worked better, but Dad knew how to use his fists to convince people of things, and that’s what he’d taught me, perhaps against my mother’s wishes.
But that’s how it was, I guess. Juliet was Mom’s. I was Dad’s daughter.
I punched, kicked and jabbed until my lungs were screaming and my muscles were weak, and then I cooled down, throwing myself onto the mat once I’d finished stretching. The best thing about working hard enough to physically need the rest was that it stilled my mind and I was thinking about absolutely nothing.
“You’re still beating the shit out of these bags, huh?” Juliet asked, stepping down into the musty space and looking over at me.
Despite all the weirdness, it was still nice to see my sister.
“Keeps me in shape,” I panted. “Gets my mind to still a bit.”
She nodded. “Dad would be happy. Maybe I could use that,” she said. She reached out a dainty fist and hit the speed bag, watching it recoil and bounce a bit. Something in the action, and so much in her voice felt sad and lost.
“You doing okay?” I asked her.
She shrugged and punched the heavy bag with her other hand. “Ouch. Shit!” She stared at her knuckles.
“You need to wrap your hands if you’re going to hit that hard,” I told her, pulling myself to my feet. I switched off my Bluetooth speaker and picked up my water bottle, turning to head back upstairs with my sister, but she stood still. She was staring into the middle distance, unseeing. “Hey, you,” I said, bumping shoulders with her. “You sure you’re okay?”
A smile flickered over her face and she turned to look at me. “I’m great, Tess. Really.” it was the least convincing acting she’d ever done.
“Ryan seems nice.” I couldn’t help it. There was a strange excitement in even getting to speak his name, and it didn’t seem to matter that I’d told myself I wasn’t going to talk about him, think about him today.
I knew it was impossible. He was here. He was gorgeous and kind. And I was no better off than I’d been before my workout, as if speaking his name brought every misplaced feeling I had for him racing right back in.
I tried not to think too hard about the things my sister got to do with him. About whether they’d done any of those things last night after I’d gone to bed, and replayed our single near-kiss over and over in my mind like a lovesick child.
“He’s a good guy.” The words were right, and she sounded like she meant them, but I’d somehow expected something more. More passion, maybe. More enthusiasm. I knew I’d have a hard time not gushing if Ryan McDonnell was my boyfriend.
“You’ve just been seeing each other a couple weeks? I mean, you weren’t seeing him before … you know …?”
She shook her head as we started up the stairs. “No. I would have been faithful forever. Even though things …” Her voice cracked a bit on the word forever. “Things had gotten harder,” she said, and it was as if she’d admitted to killing a kitten. She sounded so guilty, like she blamed herself for failing at marriage.
“Jul,” I said, reaching up to pat her back ahead of me. “I’m so sorry.”
She turned and gave me an appraising look, and then sighed. “There’s so much I want to tell you.”
“So tell me.” I wasn’t used to Juliet being cryptic, but it had been a while since we’d seen one another. Time and space had driven us apart.
“I can’t,” she said simply, stepping out into the hallway next to the kitchen. “The magazine people are here.” She pointed to the front parlor, where I could see people moving past the open doorway and hear unfamiliar voices. One of the hulking security guards stood next to the door and he grinned at Juliet when he saw us standing there. Those guys were creepily everywhere, and managed to stay silent, even though they were huge. I guessed that was their job. I peered around him at the bustle in the room.
“Crap, they’re really early,” I said, keeping my voice low. It wasn’t even nine A.M.
“It’s good. Maybe we’ll be done early,” she said.
“I need to shower. I wanted to be ready. I had a plan.” A small panic rose in me. I’d wanted to be prepared for them to arrive, to greet them and offer coffee and tea, to seem worldly and put-together. But they were an hour earlier than I’d expected them, and I was drenched in sweat.
“It’s fine Tess, you don’t have to wait on anyone.” She said it like a person who never worried about waiting on anyone, and the differences between our lives were brought into sharp relief in my mind.
“I got this.” I took a deep breath and did what I needed to do. I pretended perspiration wasn’t actually dripping from the back of my hair and sliding down my neck as I welcomed the photographers, makeup artists, and the interviewer into my home. I acted like this was how I’d intended to look when the two biggest movie stars in the country were about to be interviewed in my house, like I was just. That. Casual.
“There’s some coffee and tea, and some muffins and fruit in the dining room,” I told them. “Or, I mean, there will be in a minute or two …”
“I’m sorry we’re early,” Alison Sands told me, offering the smile I’d seen a few times before when the magazine had done segments on television entertainment shows.