Page 8 of Angels Are Falling

Silence befell us, and Amelie’s lashes dropped like someone who had just found out that Santa Claus wasn’t real. In my peripheral vision, Amelie set her champagne flute down. Carefully. Like she was afraid the sound would shatter the moment. There was a finality to the word marriage, leaving no hope for a jilted lover. My sweet wife’s empathy worked overtime. She collected other people’s heartbreaks like they were hers to carry. She’d always been like that.

“That’s so sad. I-I mean, maybe not for her if she loves her husband, but… It’s just so sad.” Amelie had already built a fantasy around Kai’s love story and didn’t know how to console him or herself.

I inwardly chuckled at the pitiful look she wore. Amelie badly wanted everyone else to be as madly in love as we were.

Kai laughed, catching on to the fact that Amelie was rooting for his love story to come true. “Don’t look so devastated. Otherwise, I’ll have to show up at her doorstep and beg her to leave her husband.”

“Do you think she would?” she asked curiously, surprising me. Amelie was usually all about the sanctity of marriage.

She winced belatedly, realizing the same.

Kai was the only one not to react. “No,” he said with conviction, as if he had run a prediction simulation and artificial intelligence had declared the outcome. Or perhaps he had tried, and it didn’t go his way.

I wouldn’t mind meeting the woman who wouldn’t leave her husband for Kai Cavendish. Now, that was true love.

“You sound certain,” Amelie commented.

“I am. She isn’t that kind of woman, and I wouldn’t have loved her if she were.”

It was a heavy comment. The irony of it made me want to laugh, though the moment was somber. Kai Cavendish loved a woman because she was loyal and honorable. It was also the reason why he couldn’t be with her.

Amelie, the forever romantic, tsked. “What do you plan on doing? You can’t be single for the rest of your life just because she is married.”

“That’s no way to live.” I couldn’t help offering the unsolicited advice.

Kai’s expression softened while his words were carefully chosen and delivered slowly. “I never said that’s what I planned on doing.”

Amelie perked up. “Good. I say out with the old and in with the new. Maybe we can set you up with someone.” She started listing her college friends who now lived on the West Coast, none of whom she’d had the time to meet up with. We worked too damn much for reunions.

Not that it mattered. A man like Kai Cavendish had endless options. If he wanted to date, a girl would be delivered to him within seconds. Hadn’t Amelie noticed all the women staring at him from downstairs?

But I wasn’t about to burst my wife’s bubble. I spoke only after she listed every female she knew in alphabetical order. “Okay. You don’t want to remain single, but you haven’t given dating a chance either. I’m guessing you’ve thought of a third option.”

Amelie’s finger traced the rim of her glass in slow circles. She was thinking. I could always tell when she was thinking; she went still except for that one small motion.

Kai watched us thoughtfully. When he finally spoke, he wasn’t looking at me. “Let’s call that option a work in progress.”

Amelie’s finger stopped tracing the rim of her glass. A beat of silence. Then she smiled, the small, tight expression that wasn’t really a smile, as Kai handed her the dessert menu.

I couldn’t tell you why that bothered me.

Chapter

Two

STEFAN

As dinner wound down, the kids cried and begged to stay longer because they hadn’t used the chocolate fountain enough or counted all the fish in the koi pond. I wanted to tell Bella not to cry because we could return for her birthday next month. Except I couldn’t make such promises.

Kai wasn’t bothered by their pleas. He left the table to talk the restaurant into staying open and soothed Bella with the information. She was overjoyed and threw her arms around his neck. Then he proceeded to faux wrestle with the twins as they grabbed his legs.

The twins and Bella had been wary of outsiders since our parents’ death. Despite seeing him weekly, Bella screamed whenever she saw our mailman. Yet Kai had won them over, and they acted familiar around him. Power and money had erased their past trauma. What child would have crippling anxiety in a setting designed to cater to your every whim?

Amelie was relaxed as well. With a glass of wine in hand and her head leaning back, she listened to the background music. When was the last time my wife had a few minutes to unwind with fine wine?

I was the only one on edge.

I shouldn’t have brought my family here and teased them with a lifestyle I couldn’t replicate. The thought left me depressed and feeling like a failure. I resented my responsibilities, but what I resented most was my inability to give them everything their hearts desired.