Page 115 of Angels Are Falling

Instead, it was something quieter and far worse. They had a whole language going that didn’t need any words and left no room for a third person. It was evident in the way she’d glance up at him mid-sentence, just to check he was there. The way his eyes were already on her when she did, like they’d never been anywhere else, like the rest of the table, the food, the guests, me, was background noise.

They were lost in each other, and she was looking at him the way I was looking at her.

With love.

Chapter

Thirty-Four

STEFAN

It was Amelie’s birthday.

I should have already known Kai would pull out all the stops, but I was still shocked by the scale of the party. Our backyard had been transformed. String lights crossed the whole sky. There was a real pit smoking low at the far end, long farmhouse tables with rustic centerpieces, forty or fifty people, cake, music, and a relaxed atmosphere.

It was the exact party I had thrown for Amelie, that time she came home from college on her birthday, because it was everything she liked. A backyard barbecue with too much food, people she loved, family time, and lots of noise.

Once, I had a yard she loved. I had a house she loved. I had the exact life she’d always wanted since she was a child, and I’d spent my time apologizing for how ordinary it was and reaching past it for something that glittered.

Now, the glittering man was giving her back the ordinary. How ironic. He’d reached into my chest and taken out the one thing I’d never understood was the treasure.

Her work friends were here, too. I was introduced to the ones I’d never met—Christian, Jo, her boss, Dr. Joseph Kwon, and some other nurses I half recognized.

Amelie’s best friend, Rose, had flown in with Caden, who orbited his wife the same way Kai orbited Amelie—fierce, audacious, never more than a step away.

Everyone was happy. Everyone was here for her. And in the middle of all of it was Amelie, in a teal dress, happy and glowing. I’d brought birthday gifts. I’d carried them out, plus a card I’d spent an embarrassing amount of time writing and rewriting. I just wanted to give them to her. Maybe a hug. I had barely seen her since I returned.

I started across the yard toward her.

I didn’t make it three steps before I saw the thing that had been keeping her from me.

Kai was at her side and stayed there, a fixed point she moved around, and that moved with her, his hand at the small of her back—a gesture I’d once used to steer her gently through rooms, except where mine had been habit, his was possessive. When Christian pulled her into a hug, Kai didn’t tense, exactly, but his attention sharpened, tracked it, and eased only when Kai dragged her back and tucked her against him. A man I didn’t know offered her a drink, and Kai materialized at her elbow with one already in his hand before the stranger finished the sentence. He never raised his voice, never made a scene, but there was a current coming off him, a low standing charge that said mine to the entire yard without him having to say a word, and the yard, somehow, had agreed. People angled their bodies away from Amelie. They were the ‘it couple.’ It was the most settled fact at the party.

I was still standing there with my arms full of gifts when Lucy, Matt, and Ruby closed in on me from either side and turned me, gently but unmistakably, away from her.

“Hey, man,” Matt said, low, an arm around my shoulders. “We need to talk to you.”

“Later. I’m just about to give Amelie her birthday presents. I want to see her open them.”

Matt and Ruby traded a look over my head, the kind of look that meant you do it; no, you do it.

“Listen, babes,” Ruby started, sliding her hand into the crook of my arm. “Probably not a great idea to do that right now. Especially in front of all these people.” She said it carefully, watching my face the way you watched someone you were about to hurt. “They might get the wrong idea if you give her all these gifts in front of her husband.”

“I am her husband.” My voice was low to keep it from shaking.

Matt winced. He glanced at Ruby, then at Lucy, and a decision passed between the three of them. “Right, but maybe don’t lead with that today. Not with this crowd.”

Lucy stepped in, soothing. “Stef. Love. These people know Amelie’s already married to Kai. They think you’re just the ex.”

The yard tilted very slightly. “Just the ex,” I repeated.

“The amicable ex,” Ruby offered smoothly like that helped.

“You already agreed to it, and it’s important that we stick to the story. Everyone thinks you two split a while back,” Lucy reminded me, even though I hated the lie she had concocted.

Agreeing to a story in a conference room was one thing. Standing in my own backyard while it walked around wearing my life was another.

“They think you and Amelie had an amicable divorce and have been co-parenting under one roof since you have joint custody of the kids. You’re on good terms. Very modern, very civil. Nobody’s looking sideways at it because the story’s clean. How would it look if her ex-husband now gave her a bunch of expensive gifts in front of her current husband? It’s unseemly.”