The weekend came before Lesley had time to process it.
Saturday morning sunlight slipped through the glass windows of the family home, spilling across her bedroom floor and creeping slowly toward the bed. Lesley barely noticed. Wrapped beneath her blanket, she was warm, comfortable, and determined to stay there for as long as the morning allowed.
Then a sudden weight landed on her.
"Wake up!"
Lesley's eyes flew open.
"Ouch! Leanne!"
Her sister laughed, still sprawled across the bed as if she hadn't just nearly crushed her.
"Hey, wake up! Breakfast is ready!"
Lesley groaned and shoved at her shoulder.
"Go away."
She pulled the blanket back over herself and turned away, hoping that would be enough to make Leanne give up.
It wasn't.
A moment later, the blanket was yanked from her body.
"Leanne!"
"Get up."
A hand closed around her arm and tugged.
Lesley resisted for half a second before another pull dragged her upright. Her hair fell messily across her face, and she blinked against the morning light as she sat on the bed.
She slowly turned toward her sister.
The look she gave her could have stopped a less determined person.
Leanne only grinned.
"Get up. Mom cooked breakfast, so you better move, sleepy pants."
She released Lesley's arm and headed for the door.
Lesley watched her leave, then let out a long sigh.
There was no point fighting it.
After washing up and changing, she finally made her way downstairs.
The smell of breakfast reached her before she entered the kitchen. Warm toast, coffee, and something buttery filled the air, familiar enough to make the house feel exactly as it always had on Saturday mornings.
Her family was already seated around the dining table.
"Come on, let's eat, honey," her mother said.
Lesley gave her a small smile and took the empty seat beside her.
Across the table, Leanne was busy spreading butter over a slice of toast, dragging the knife across it with far more concentration than the task required. At the head of the table, her father sat with his usual cup of black coffee, already looking like he had been awake for hours.
Lesley had barely reached for her plate when her father's attention settled on her.
"How did the final inspection go at the Blue Moon Hotel?"
"It went well, Dad." Lesley reached for a piece of toast. "Everything was running smoothly. No hiccups, no delays."
"Good."
Her father took a sip of coffee before lowering the cup.
"But I heard you're still working after office hours. Don't overdo it.
Lesley paused.
"I won't."
She tore off a small piece of toast.
"I just have a lot of things that need immediate attention. I had to put in some overtime."
Her father studied her for a moment, then nodded.
"Just make sure you know when to stop."
"I will."
The conversation moved on, but Lesley's attention shifted when her father mentioned a familiar name.
"I heard Daphne is going back to Paris and won't continue handling their business. Is that true, Leanne?"
Leanne looked up from her toast.
"Yeah. Her contract with the agency was renewed last week."
Lesley kept her eyes on her plate.
Daphne was going back to Paris.
She should have felt relieved.
Instead, an uncomfortable thought settled in the back of her mind.
Would Daphne really leave without apologizing to Denisse?
Her father continued, apparently unaware of where Lesley's thoughts had gone.
"I really thought she'd help her father with their business. I thought the Blue Moon project might change her mind about modeling and push her toward becoming an executive."
"Maybe she's just not meant for the corporate world, Dad," Leanne said. She glanced toward Lesley. "Right, Lesley?"
Lesley looked up.
"I think so."
She took a sip of water before continuing.
"She was good at what she did, but I think she was still trying to figure out what she really wanted to focus on. Maybe she was never interested in their business in the first place. Maybe she just wanted the experience."
Her fingers tightened slightly around the glass.
Or maybe the project had been nothing more than a convenient excuse to force her way back into my life.
The thought came sharp and unwelcome.
Daphne had known exactly what she was doing. She had found a way into Lesley's life, into her trust, and eventually into the fragile space between her and Denisse.
And now that she hadn't gotten what she wanted, she was simply leaving.
Lesley lowered her gaze.
How could someone walk away so easily after leaving so much damage behind?
She wanted to be angry with Daphne.
But every time the anger rose, another thought followed.
She should have been more careful.
She should have noticed the signs.
Daphne had been their client, nothing more. Lesley had kept her distance from the beginning. And somehow, despite that, Daphne had still found a way to get close enough to hurt them.
Lesley's stomach tightened at the thought.
Denisse had been the one who paid for it.
The conversation at the table continued around her, but the words blurred together until Leanne's voice pulled her back.
"Enough about Daphne. Dad, weren't you going to have us check out that yacht you're looking at?"
Lesley blinked and looked across the table.
Her father nodded.
"That's right. Lesley, I need you to accompany your sister tomorrow. I have a business meeting, so I can't go."
Lesley stared at him.
"Why me?"
Leanne immediately answered.
"Because out of everyone here, you're the only one who actually knows anything about vehicles." She pointed her butter knife at Lesley. "And I'm guessing that includes a gigantic yacht."
Lesley gave her a flat look.
A yacht.
Of course.
She leaned back in her chair and considered arguing, but the thought of spending the morning with Leanne was easier than another day alone with her own thoughts.
"Fine."
Leanne smiled, satisfied.
"Perfect."
Lesley shook her head and reached for her coffee, already wondering what she'd gotten herself into.
-
Later that afternoon, the porch had settled into the quiet warmth of the day. Lesley sat with a cup of tea between her hands, letting the heat seep into her fingers while the faint clink of porcelain drifted through the stillness. Somewhere beyond the yard, a lawn mower hummed and faded, leaving only the occasional rustle of leaves overhead.
Leanne took the chair across from her, setting down her own cup.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
Then Leanne glanced at her over the rim of her tea. "Are you relieved that Daphne is going back to Paris?"
Lesley's fingers tightened around the cup.
Paris.
The word should have brought relief. Daphne would be gone. Out of the city, out of reach, out of the tangled mess she had left behind.
Instead, Lesley found herself staring at the tea swirling faintly beneath the surface, unable to settle on a single feeling.
"To be honest…" She paused, searching for something that sounded less complicated than the truth. "I don't know what to feel anymore."
Leanne waited.
"There's a part of me that's relieved. She'll stay out of my life for good, and maybe that's better." Lesley swallowed. "But there's also this stupid hope that she'll stay long enough to apologize to Denisse."
The confession hung between them.
Leanne studied her for a moment, her expression softening.
"And what about you?" she asked. "Aren't you going to apologize to Denisse? Aren't you going to try to win her back?"
Lesley went still.
The question slipped beneath every defense she had built and found the one place she had spent weeks refusing to look.
Her.
Denisse.
Lesley lowered her eyes to her tea.
God, she wanted her back.
The thought came so quickly it hurt.
She wanted to walk up to Denisse's door. She wanted to hear her voice again, even if it was angry. She wanted to tell her that she was sorry, that she had been sorry every day since everything fell apart. She wanted to reach for her face, press a kiss to her lips, and ask her to forgive what might never be forgivable.
But wanting something did not mean she deserved it.
So Lesley stayed where she was.
Maybe this was what she deserved.
Maybe carrying the weight of what she had done, letting it gnaw at her in silence, could somehow balance the pain she had caused Denisse. If Denisse had spent nights hurting because of her, then perhaps Lesley had no right to seek comfort simply because she missed her.
She had turned punishment into something almost sacred.
And she kept finding new ways to hurt herself with it.
There had been the afternoon she hovered over Denisse's name on her phone, her thumb resting above the call button. She could still remember the cool weight of the phone in her palm, the ridiculous pounding of her heart.
One tap.
That was all it would have taken.
Her thumb had moved toward the button.
Then stopped.
She had locked the screen instead.
There were nights when she opened their conversation and stared at the screen long after the room had gone dark, the pale glow washing over her face.
I'm sorry.
Delete.
I miss you.
Delete.
Can we talk?
Delete.
Sometimes she wrote paragraphs, pouring out everything she had been too afraid to say aloud. She would read them again, her chest tightening with every sentence, before deleting the entire thing and setting the phone facedown beside her.
Silence was easier.
At least, that was what she told herself.
Once, she had run into Gigi.
Lesley had almost asked.
How is Denisse?
The question had already risen to her lips when she caught herself. She forced a smile instead, said something meaningless, and returned to her office before Gigi could notice the way her composure was beginning to crack.
And then there had been the drive.
She had driven all the way to Denisse's hometown with no real plan beyond seeing her.
The roads had grown familiar as the miles passed. Lesley had gripped the steering wheel tighter and tighter, her stomach twisting with every turn. By the time she was halfway there, she had imagined a dozen versions of what might happen.
Denisse opening the door.
Denisse refusing to speak to her.
Denisse looking at her with the same eyes Lesley had once known better than anyone.
She had gotten close enough to make the possibility real.
Then she turned the car around.
She drove home without ever seeing her.
Across the porch, Leanne watched the silence settle over her sister again.
"You two cannot deny the fact that you both caused each other so much pain," she said quietly. "She was hurt, and so were you."
Lesley's thumb moved slowly along the rim of her cup.
"You can't blame her wholly," Leanne continued. "But you can't take all the blame yourself, either."
Lesley said nothing.
The tea had gone lukewarm.
She could feel the faint roughness of the porcelain beneath her fingertip as she traced the same circle again and again.
Leanne leaned back in her chair. "You may have hurt each other."
She paused.
"But don't forget that the two of you love each other, too."
Lesley's hand stopped.
For a long moment, the only sound was the rustling of leaves above them.
Love.
She had tried so hard to make the word disappear beneath everything else. Beneath guilt. Beneath anger. Beneath the things they had said and the things they had done.
But there it was.
Still there.
Quietly waiting beneath all the hurt she had spent so long using as a reason to stay away.