“You must have been so unhappy without us.” Jax Hunter’s crystalline blue eyes study me carefully from across the table at the Purple Swan, the club I never thought I’d come back to.

I expected it to be familiar, but everything’s different now. Even the hum of the other people at the tables, here for elaborately plated dinners, dancing, and other delights, has a different tenor. Or maybe I’m only hearing it differently.

The walls have been repainted, a crisp white, with wood paneling at the bottom. They tables are the same, but the centerpieces are understated, heavy things that reflect the candlelight.

It’s like trying on an old jacket that only partially fits. Why did I agree to come here?

“Unhappy? I wouldn’t say that.” I give Jax a cocky grin.

“Oh? Then why have you come crawling back, as if you never left?”

“It’s not as if I never left. My penthouse has been closed down. It’s nothing like I remember. The whole thing is gutted—I’m paying the crew triple to get it done in ten days.”

“Why the rush?”

I give him a look. I’ve known Jax for years, and if pressed, I couldn’t say how I met him.

Probably the Swan, during some drunken, heady night, when I’d ended up at his table. I’d accept his invitations to join the party when I wasn’t busy with women.

He’s married now, happy and lean, and his eyes don’t look quite so tortured as they did when we first met.

“My brother wants me to...expedite the situation.” The Swan is the same shape, but it’s a different place altogether. “Why all the redecorating?”

Jax follows my eyes. “Redecorating? It’s been like this.”

“Since when?”

“You’ve been gone for two years, buddy.”

I check my watch in exaggerated surprise. “Two years? What, did you gut the place in sadness once I moved to D.C.?”

Jax laughs. “No. We cleaned it up after your rowdy ass finally gave us a breather.”

“Touché.”

“I’m here.” Jax’s wife, Cate, sweeps in like a goddess, in something silvery and tight-fitted. “And Eli and Jett are right behind me with—”

“Blackpool!” Jett Brandon might as well be a frat boy in college, yet he’s grown up into a mega-successful owner of a conglomerate that quietly spans the globe. He shakes me by the shoulders, pulling me up out of my seat, and looks me up and down. His voice clamors along with Eli Pierce’s. If that guy isn’t still a walking scandal, I don’t know who is.

“Is it really him?” Eli peers at me through glasses that must be new—or for style purposes only. “He looks different.”

“He looks rugged.” Jett nods approvingly. “He’s been partying. You know it. Look at him.”

Quinn and Angelica, Eli and Jett’s wives, follow close behind, their heads bent together. Angelica’s blonde hair reminds me of a lesser version of Bellamy’s. She perks up when she hears Jett say rugged. “He does not look rugged, Jett. My God.” She gives me a peck on the cheek and slides into a seat at the table, Quinn right next to her, and Jett and Eli push me back down into my seat. Eli’s hands on my shoulders are firm—this is where you belong.

It takes a moment for the thought to crystallize, and when it does, it horrifies me: I belong with Bellamy.

But that’s insane.

I don’t belong with her, any more than I belong in New York City. Both of these things are temporary, false, illusory.

Jax leans back in his seat, his arm curled around Cate’s bare shoulders. He waits until there’s a relative silence, until Eli and Jett aren’t shouting happily at each other about the stock market, and then shoots a question at me across the table. “What’s she like?”

I raise my eyebrows. It’s an old instinct. Buy some time. Think of an answer.

“Bellamy Leighton.” Cate folds her hands under her chin. “It’s a pretty delicious name. Did you really meet her in a coffee shop?” I can hear the question in the undercurrent of her voice, and it offends me. It fucking offends me. I’ve had years of practice making my face obey my commands, making my expression sickeningly charming at will, but right now, it fails me.

“Yes.”

One word. Razor sharp. Cate blinks, her eyebrows lifting, the curve of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “That’s lovely.” Her tone is all olive branch. “When do we get to meet her?”

Jax bolts upright, eyes shining. “Is she here? Did you leave her in your hotel room, you unbelievable bastard?”

I laugh, trying to dispel the web of tension still hovering over the table. I haven’t seen my friends since I left New York City. They’re being decent people, welcoming me back without giving me shit for disappearing out from underneath them. I didn’t want to explain, so I left—and here they are, hosting a dinner for me at the Swan. They’re taking time out of their married, busy, glamorous lives, to be with me, a fraud by order of the President. “I did not leave her in the hotel room. She’s back in the District, packing.”

This is partially true. Bellamy, it turns out, didn’t have much to pack—she’s been frugal about her law school wardrobe and doesn’t like to be weighed down with too many things. She even packs her purses light. So, I’m sure it’ll take her all of five minutes to fold her closet into a suitcase. Everest, on the other hand—she’ll be harder to leave behind for a year. But New York City and D.C. are only a few hours apart. I keep telling her that when she looks mournful over the thought of leaving her best friend.

I get to come back to mine, only...I wish it were under better circumstances. Being back in the city is dredging up a tension I wish I could shake off.

“You didn’t answer the question.” Cate doesn’t betray even a hint of hurt at my clipped response. “When will we get to see your lovely lady?”

“Soon.” I signal to a waiter and he comes running, which is the only thing that feels normal about this place in this moment. “Very soon.”