Macavity perched on the other side of the table, engrossed with his plate of tuna.
My phone rang, and I put Beatrice on speakerphone.
“Mera.” What she said was a garbled sob of words tumbling into each other to form a continuous wail.
A fist of shock hit me in the gut, and I dropped my croissant into the hot chocolate. Beatrice sounded hurt—more than hurt. She sounded worse than she did when her dad had died.
“Slow down.” I picked up the phone and placed it to my ear. “What’s happened?”
“Christian,” she cried. “He’s ghosted me.”
I locked gazes with Macavity, not sure what on earth this meant. The cat blinked, his green irises narrowing.
“Start from the beginning,” I said. “Where are you?”
She hiccuped. “Home.”
I pulled back the phone and checked the time. Eight-thirty. If Beatrice wasn’t on the train, whatever happened had to be bad. “What did Christian say?”
“I went to his flat, thinking we would go out for dinner,” she said through sobs. “He let me in, saying he’d already eaten.”
My brow furrowed. “Okay, so you got a takeaway?”
She made a spluttering sound. “He told me to order something for myself and didn’t even offer me his Deliveroo app!”
I chewed the inside of my cheek, wondering why a guy would invite a girl to his home and make her buy her own food. “What happened next?”
“I couldn’t just get something for myself, so I ordered for both of us. He wolfed his down in front of the TV and didn’t even offer to pay his share.”
“He sounds like a dick.” I stuck my finger in the warm chocolate and placed it in my mouth, barely tasting its rich flavour.
“The worst part was that after we had sex missionary style, he turned away and asked me to leave.”
All the chocolate lodged in my windpipe, and I lurched forward, croaking worse than a psychotic toad. “What?”
“His eyes were so cold,” she said, her voice trembling. “At first, I thought something was troubling him, and I asked if he was alright.”
My fists thumped at my chest, King-Kong style. “What did he say?”
Beatrice let out a shuddering sob. “That not everything was about me.”
A bitter taste formed in the back of my throat, and I stared down at Macavity, whose face remained buried in his plate of tuna.
What Beatrice described reminded me a little of my own experience, although my relationship unfolded over years and culminated in cold eyes and a frosty dismissal.
“Christian sounds fickle.” I cleared my throat. “Sorry you had to go through that.”
“He didn’t even walk me out to my Uber,” she said.
I shook my head, my heart sinking at the notion that that men everywhere were the same. In the past three years of living vicariously through Beatrice, I’d thought that human men were kinder than supernatural males since neither party was magical or could treat the other as lesser because of a lack of status.
It looked like things were the same everywhere.
“Have you spoken to him since?” I asked.
“I texted to ask how his meeting went. Just to give him the benefit of the doubt.” She paused to blow her nose.
Holding my breath, I waited for her to continue. This had to be where he either called or texted back to say it was over.
“Do you know what he said?” Beatrice asked.
“No?”
“That one date doesn’t make a relationship, and I should stop bothering him.”
I stared down at the phone. “What?”
She laughed. “Psycho, right?”
“At least you got to see his awful personality before you could fall in love.” I cringed as I said the words. They seemed so clinical and callous given that Beatrice was still crying about Christian, but I meant what I’d said.
She’d been seeing this guy for less than a week, and he’d pursued her every day with a fervor that had swept her off her feet. My relationship had extended for years. Years of courtship, years of getting to know each other, and years of sweet promises.
He had promised me everything—marriage, children, his crown, and even given me a ring he claimed had belonged to his mother.
For the time we’d been together, his personality had intertwined with mine because we’d met while I was young and still impressionable. We even shared similar tastes in food and coffee and wine because he was the one who introduced me to fine cuisine.
Hearing Beatrice explain how Christian denied they’d even had a relationship was an echo from my past. Christian had pursued Beatrice and made plans for Halloween and Christmas.
He’d even invited her to his apartment, just like how that vampire had bought me the gown, dressed me in jewels, only so I could look like an overdressed clown and get rejected in front of Logris high society.
“How could I have been so stupid?” she asked.
I exhaled a long breath. “Did he give you any indication he was lying?”
“No.”
“From everything you told me, he was pursuing you,” I said. “He sounds like a man with a sadistic streak and a short attention span.”
She sniffed. “On some level, I knew he was too good to be true. A sexy banker who wasn’t boring?”
“Some people would say that about tax accountants,” I said.
Beatrice chuckled. “I probably dodged a bullet. Imagine getting a shitty text like that after being with him for months.”
My chest tightened, and I lowered my gaze to the bowl of hot chocolate. There was no need for me to picture a situation like that because I’d lived it. Lived it for the past three years, endured the betrayal, recurring memories, and bouts of fury that arouse from those harsh words. If it hadn’t been for Istabelle, I might never have survived it.
“That would be devastating.” I picked up the croissant, letting a trail of chocolate seep back into the bowl.
Just as I was about to place it in my mouth, Macavity raced across the table, snatched the pastry, and jumped down to the wood floor.
I glowered at his retreating back as he darted into the bathroom. What the hell was his problem?
“Why don’t we meet for lunch?” I said. “While the food’s cooking, I can perform a sound bath and wash that man out of your aura.”
Beatrice let out a pleasured groan. “That sounds heavenly. Can we move it to dinner instead? I don’t want to sleep alone tonight.”
I inhaled a deep breath, my spirits lifting with the hope that this time next month, Beatrice would have written Christian off as a loser who couldn’t be honest about his intentions. “Sure.”
“Thanks, Mera,” she murmured. “I really needed that. The next time someone acts so keen, I’ll slow things down and take time to get to know them.”
My face broke out into a grin. “Brilliant.”
Beatrice sighed. “I wish I could be as strong as you.”
After she said goodbye and hung up, I couldn’t help but think she was wrong. True strength was about taking chances, even though the price of that might be getting hurt.
Beatrice embodied that sense of courage. Me? I was too busy trying not to dwell on past hurts to give myself the opportunity for new love.