Page 9 of The Route to You

But that’s not supposed to be how you feel about your fiancé.

She sat back in her chair as she watched Evan circulate, smile on his face as he greeted friends from Cornell he hadn’t seen in years. Like he was still running for office. He was everything she’d been told she should marry—old money, well-connected, handsome, and effortless in rooms like this.

And apparently sleeping with someone named Tasha.

Not that she hadn’t suspected. Hadn’t turned a blind eye the first time she’d wondered whether his overnight trips were as solitary as advertised. Hadn’t convinced herself, when she’d fought with him about the phone with the password she didn’t know, that he wouldn’t lie about something like a security measure. The security clearance excuse was easier than pushing would have been.

“No one is forcing you to be with him,” Penny had said when Sloan had confessed her reservations about the relationship. “But keeping track of what might make you happy is exhausting sometimes, Sloan.”

Like worrying made her high-maintenance.

But that had been back when she and Penny actually talked about things. Before every conversation with Penny felt stilted and awkward with a giant elephant hiding in the corner of their relationship.

Sloan pressed her thumb against the giant diamond on her ring finger. Had it been an act when he’d given it to her? Not just him, but her reaction? Her yes to his proposal. The engagement party. The week-long bachelorette celebration with her friends on his family’s private island in the Caribbean.

Or had she just been great at not asking questions?

Was I just pretending? Refusing to admit what I knew?

In the end, Penny was right. No one had forced her to be with Evan. But Penny didn’t know Evan the way Sloan did, either. She couldn’t possibly understand what Evan was like when he was on the hunt—and, man, Evan had been on the hunt when he’d decided he wanted Sloan. He’d pursued her relentlessly. Heaped lavish presents on her. Flown her off to exciting destinations.

Falling in love with him had been easy, but a little bit like getting sucked into a whirlwind.

“You holding up all right?” Cheyenne asked, dropping into the chair beside her that Evan had unoccupied over twenty minutes ago. Felicity had built generous gaps between courses that gave him plenty of time to work the room and Evan was making the most of it. Fine by her. It allowed her to stay at the sweetheart table alone, rather than schmoozing when all she wanted to do was throw up.

No one else seemed to even mind that she wasn’t partying. A lot of these people were Evan’s friends and family anyway. And the ones that weren’t were mostly Dad’s friends from San Francisco. Not a single friend from when they’d lived in Nashville.

Her best friend might be the only one who could read the look on Sloan’s face, though Cheyenne wouldn’t know how to interpret it, either.

Sloan swallowed a careful sip of champagne, half considering confessing and showing Cheyenne the envelope she’d folded and stashed into her purse. But if she did that, if she told anyone about what she’d been given, she’d be forced to confront it in a way she wasn’t sure she was ready to.

“Just a bit . . . jittery, I guess.”

Cheyenne smiled. “That’s how I felt the night before my wedding, too. A little sick.” She laughed. “Of course, the tequila didn’t help. But everyone gets cold feet. You’re just nervous about the crowd tomorrow.”

And that was true. Sloan had never been comfortable in front of large crowds. Unlike Penny, who lived for the spotlight and actively sought out speaking engagements as the head of PR at Dad’s company, Actaeon Tech.

But she has no idea what’s really making me sick.

And Sloan wasn’t ready to tell her, either. The first person she needed to talk about it with was Evan—who was also the last person she wanted to talk to right now. Things like this could be faked, of course, and she couldn’t help wondering if that’s what he’d say. But just as much as it disgusted her to see those pictures, she was also pretty sure they were real. And the text exchanges, with dates and information that only Evan would know . . .

Politicians don’t have reputations for being saints, now do they?

Her mouth dried and she swallowed another gulp of champagne.

Sloan flicked a glance at Cheyenne. “Seafood was a bad idea tonight. I’m feeling a little sick.”

Cheyenne flipped her perfect long blond waves over her shoulder. “I always say that seafood when you’re in the middle of landlocked territory is a bad idea. If it’s not on the coast, don’t trust it. A ski resort in Vail? No, thank you.”

Sloan grimaced. Vail. The location had been Evan’s idea. He’d spent most of the week on the slopes with his friends.

So why had she let Bernice book her wedding for an exclusive luxury ski resort in Vail? Because she had no backbone?

Or because she hadn’t really cared? It wasn’t like she could have the cozy wedding Mom and Dad had told her about—the stories Sloan had begged for at bedtime as a little girl. Mom wasn’t here. Penny and Dad barely tolerated Sloan.

That life wasn’t possible, and this one was . . . comfortable. Really comfortable.

Have I just been settling for comfortable this whole time? Is that what I’ll continue to do?