Page 59 of The Matchmaker's Cottage

Just his imagination, of course.

“Have you seen Sarah?” He stayed on track with the question he’d intended to ask from the get-go. To track down his missing girlfriend.

“She’s in the bathroom,” Gem shouted back at him over her shoulder, still not looking at him.

“Yeah, but she’s been in there for a while.” It felt ridiculous having a conversation at this volume, but there was literally no alternative. Any decibel lower and she wouldn’t be able to hear him at all.

“Maybe she’s freshening up.” Gem caught his eye then and deliberately pushed her pointer finger against her right nostril, pressing it shut, before miming a big sniff.

Ethan blinked, momentarily shocked. He was surprised at Gem’s forthrightness and, frankly, her hostility toward Sarah. He knew—at least he thought he knew—about his girlfriend’s habits and vices, and white powder in a public restroom was not one of them. If anything, Sarah was more straitlaced than most, a chronic rule follower.

Gathering himself, he leaned forward again, stepped closer,feeling his front press against Gem’s back. He had to bend down low—lower than he did with Sarah—to get to her ear.

“That’s not nice,” he chided, as chiding as he could sound with the volume of his voice cranked up to the max.

He thought he caught her looking momentarily chagrined before she shrugged. “Sorry,” she shouted back, remorselessly.

As if on cue, Sarah returned, looking peppier than she had the entire night, even earlier at dinner.

“Hey, baby!” she greeted him, throwing her arms around his neck. “Miss me?”

For some insane reason that Ethan would never be able to explain even if he’d been given a hundred chances, he turned to look at Gem in that moment rather than respond to Sarah.

She hadn’t been expecting him to look at her then; he could just tell. There was something unguarded about her expression, something powerful and painful, that told him the perpetual “Julia” mask had dropped slightly. It was a face he rarely saw on her—somewhat vulnerable and fragile, eyebrows furrowed, eyes slightly larger, lips pursed in an emotion he couldn’t identify. Whatever she was looking at, it made her unhappy. Unsure.

And her gaze was directed at Sarah.

Sarah, who may have been slightly tipsy—or, the devil on his shoulder whispered,under the influence of something else—was sober enough to catch her boyfriend do a full-body turn and expression check of another woman milliseconds after she’d thrown her arms around him.

Sarah looked between the two of them, her expression souring, red lips curling in a sneer.

“You know what?” she said, her voice a bit too low for the volume of the club but loud and clear in Ethan’s mind. “Fuck this.”

Turning on her heel, she stalked out, weaving through the masses of people before disappearing from his vision.

He watched her go, knew he should go after her, knew that if he didn’t, he might as well kiss her goodbye right then and there—metaphorically, of course, since he was certain she would never let him actually kiss her again—but there was something that didn’t allow him to move. Something that made his feet stay glued to the floor, that kept his body immobile.

He turned to look at Gem.

She was staring at him carefully, the mask back up again, her expression inscrutable. He opened his mouth to say something, but no sound came out.

She looked at him for another minute, or maybe just a few seconds that felt like an eternity, before slowly shaking her head, turning around, and walking away as well.

21

Present day

Julia looked morecarefully at their new guest, trying to place her through the haze of familiarity she embodied.

She was obviously famous—she had that polished look of someone whose beauty defied reality. Like Katy, there was a glow about her that could only be achieved with thousands of dollars in facials and subtle cosmetic surgeries.

After the thought crossed her mind, Julia immediately felt bad about lumping Katy in with the celebrity in front of her, because Katy certainly had a realness about her—and no clear indication of cosmetic surgery—that this older woman could only dream of achieving. In fact, the only way she would be able to do so would be with a time machine, since no amount of surgery could ever replicate youth.

Still, despite the veneer of artificiality, she was stunningly beautiful. Her honey-brown hair fell over her shoulders in smoothly curated starlet waves. Her curves were cinched in awhite silk belted top with a cream-colored blazer, legs encased in loose-fitting light-colored pants that exuded wealth. Even her running shoes seemed expensive, glowing white as if they had never touched the ground outdoors, with sparkling star embellishments on the sides.

She was talking to Norman—commandinghim seemed more accurate—pointing to her car as a driver appeared to be struggling to pull out a large suitcase and another woman emerged from around the back.

This person screamednormal, which was even more apparent when she went and stood next to their unexpected guest, in her own blazer and pants. Hers, however, were obviously not as tailored or expensive. A black polyester blend with a white T-shirt underneath and jeans that looked similar to the ones Julia was wearing. Her brown hair was tied back in a low ponytail, and her face was nondescript—neither distinctly pretty nor ugly, just extremely forgettable.