Nico POV
The last guest leaves at midnight, and I help Mona carry glasses to the kitchen while she chatters about the evening's success. Her voice sounds distant, like she's speaking through water. I nod at the right moments, make the appropriate sounds of agreement, but my mind is elsewhere.
"Did you see how happy everyone was?" Mona rinses champagne flutes under the tap, her movements efficient and content. "And Harper looked so beautiful tonight. I think she's finally getting over that disaster with Marcus."
The glass I'm holding nearly slips from my fingers. "Harper. Right."
"She's been working so hard lately. I worry about her sometimes." Mona glances at me over her shoulder. "You'll love her once you get to know her better. She's going to be your sister-in-law soon."
Sister-in-law. The words hit me like a physical blow. I set the glass down carefully, afraid I might shatter it.
"I'm sure she's wonderful," I manage.
We finish cleaning in relative silence, Mona humming softly while I stack plates with mechanical precision. When she announces she's ready for bed, I follow her to the bedroom, we are both too tired for sex, so we cuddled until she disappears into the bathroom, and I sit on the edge of the bed, staring at my hands.
Three weeks ago, these hands traced the curve of a stranger's spine in a Vegas hotel room. Tonight, they shook that same woman's hand while she smiled at me with practiced politeness and called me a pleasure to meet.
The bathroom door opens, and Mona emerges in her silk pajamas, skin glowing from her skincare routine. She slips into bed beside me, curling against my side like she has dozens of times before.
"Thank you for tonight," she whispers against my shoulder. "For being so patient with everyone's questions, for letting me show you off. I know parties aren't your favorite."
"It was fine." I wrap my arm around her, feeling the familiar weight of her head on my chest. "Your friends seem nice."
"They are. And they all adore you already." She tilts her head up to look at me. "I'm so lucky."
The words twist in my chest like a knife. "Mona..."
"I love you," she says simply, then closes her eyes and settles back against me.
I stare at the ceiling, listening to her breathing slow and deepen. Within minutes, she's asleep, completely at peace. Completely trusting. Completely unaware that the man holding her spent the entire evening trying not to stare at her best friend.
I count ceiling tiles. Seventeen across, twelve down. Two hundred and four total. I count them again. And again. Sometime around three AM, I give up and slip out of bed, padding to the kitchen for water I don't need.
The living room still smells like Mona's vanilla candles and the roses Harper arranged in crystal vases. I sink onto the couch where Harper sat earlier, where she folded napkins with shaking hands while avoiding my eyes.
Harper.
Even her name feels dangerous now. For three weeks, I've been haunted by memories of a woman who understood me without explanations, who saw through my careful facades to something real underneath. I told myself it was just fantasy, a beautiful dream that had nothing to do with my real life.
But she's not a dream. She's Mona's best friend. She's the woman who's going to plan our wedding, who'll stand beside Mona as she walks down the aisle, who'll be part of our lives forever.
I drop my head into my hands, pressing my palms against my eyes until I see stars.
"You're pushing your eggs around like they personally offended you."
My mother's voice cuts through my fog, and I look up to find the entire family staring at me across the Sunday breakfast table. My father sits at the head, reading the LA Times with his usual intensity. My mother hovers by the coffee pot, concern etched in the lines around her eyes. My younger sister Maria picks at her toast, clearly entertained by my obvious distress.
"Sorry." I force a forkful of scrambled eggs into my mouth. "Just tired."
"Late night celebrating?" Maria grins. "Mona must be over the moon after last night."
"She is." I reach for my orange juice, buying time. "The party was... nice."
"Nice?" My father folds his newspaper with a sharp snap. "Your engagement party was nice?"
"It was great, Papa. Really. Mona's friends are wonderful, and..."
"You've been staring at that plate for ten minutes." My mother settles into her chair, fixing me with the look that could extract confessions from stone. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong."
"Nicolò." My father's voice carries that tone that brooks no argument. "You look like a man walking to his execution, not planning his wedding. Are you having second thoughts?"
The question hangs in the air like a challenge. Maria stops chewing, suddenly interested. My mother's eyebrows rise toward her hairline.
"No," I say quickly. "Of course not. Mona's perfect. She's exactly what..."
"What we want for you?" My father's eyes narrow. "Or what you want for yourself?"
The distinction hits too close to home. I've been living my life according to what other people want for as long as I can remember. What my parents want—a stable marriage to a successful woman from a good family. What Mona wants—a committed partner who'll give her the fairy tale she's dreamed of. What everyone expects—the dutiful son carrying on family traditions.
"It's the same thing," I lie.
"Is it?" My father leans back in his chair, studying me with the intensity he usually reserves for reviewing restaurant receipts. "Because you seem troubled, son. Pre-wedding nerves are normal, but this..." He gestures at my face. "This looks like something else."
"Vincent," my mother warns softly.
"No, Chiara. If our son is about to make a mistake..."
"I'm not making a mistake." The words come out sharper than intended. "Mona is wonderful. She's kind, successful, beautiful. She loves me. What more could I want?"
"Passion," Maria says quietly. "You could want passion."
The word hits me like a slap. I think of Vegas, of Harper's hands in my hair, of the way she looked at me like I was the only person in the world. Of the way my entire body came alive under her touch, like I'd been sleepwalking through my life until that moment.
"Passion fades," my father says, but his tone is gentler now. "Respect, compatibility, shared values—these things last."
"Did it fade for you and Mama?" I ask.
My parents exchange a look across the table, one of those wordless conversations that come from thirty years of marriage. My father reaches for my mother's hand.
"No," he admits. "It didn't."
The silence stretches uncomfortably. Maria clears her throat.
"Maybe you should talk to someone. A priest, or..."
"I'm fine." I push back from the table, my appetite completely gone. "I just need more coffee."
I escape to the kitchen, but even there, I can't outrun my thoughts. The restaurant feels like a museum of my childhood, every corner holding memories of the boy who dreamed of something different. The pass-through window where I used to watch my father command the kitchen like a general. The corner booth where I did homework while the dinner rush swirled around me.
I remember bringing Harper up during our night together, how I'd told her about feeling trapped by expectations. How she'd looked at me with such understanding, like she knew exactly what it meant to live someone else's version of your life.
"You seem like you're carrying the weight of the world."
Her voice, soft and knowing. The way she'd touched my face, traced the line of my jaw with her fingertip.
"What would you do if you could do anything?" she'd asked.
I'd told her I'd travel. See the world beyond these four walls, beyond the life mapped out for me since birth. She'd smiled and said maybe I should stop asking permission and start taking what I wanted.
Now I'm standing in the same kitchen, engaged to a woman I respect but don't love anymore, haunted by a stranger who turned out to be the most important person in my fiancée's life.
The irony is so cruel it takes my breath away.
"Nico?" Mona's voice makes me jump. I turn to find her standing in the doorway, still in her pajamas, hair mussed from sleep. "Your mom called. She said you left breakfast early?"
"Just needed some air." I lean against the stainless steel counter, trying to look casual. "What are you doing here?"
"Checking on you." She approaches slowly, like she's afraid I might bolt. "You were so restless last night. Tossing and turning, mumbling in your sleep."
My blood runs cold. "What did I say?"
"Nothing I could understand. But you seemed... upset." She stops in front of me, close enough that I can smell her shampoo. "Are you okay? You've been different since the party."
"Different?"
"Distant. Like you're somewhere else." Her eyes search my face. "Did something happen? Someone say something that bothered you?"
Yes. Your best friend happened. The woman I fell in love with in Vegas happened. The person I can't stop thinking about happened.
"No," I say instead. "Nothing happened."
"Are you sure? Because you barely talked to anyone, and when you did, you seemed..." She pauses, choosing her words carefully. "You seemed like you were performing. Like you were playing a role."
She's not wrong. I spent the entire evening acting like the man she thinks I am—attentive, charming, grateful for her friends' approval. But underneath, I was drowning in guilt and desire and the terrible knowledge that I was living a lie.
"Maybe I'm just nervous," I offer. "About the wedding, about changing everything."
"Oh, honey." Mona's face melts with sympathy. She reaches up to cup my cheek. "Is that what this is about? Because we don't have to rush anything. We can take our time with the planning, make sure everything feels right."
The tenderness in her touch makes me want to confess everything. To tell her about Vegas, about Harper, about the way my heart broke when I realized what I'd done. But looking at her face—trusting, loving, completely unaware that her world is about to implode—I can't find the words.
"I love you," she says softly. "And I want you to be happy. If you need space, if you need time..."
"I don't need space." I cover her hand with mine, hating myself for the lie. "I just need to adjust to the idea of being engaged. Of being... yours."
"You've been mine for months," she says with a smile. "This just makes it official."
She rises on her tiptoes to kiss me, and I kiss her back, trying to feel something other than hollow guilt. But all I can think about is how different this feels from kissing Harper. How Mona's lips are softer but somehow less real, how her touch is familiar but doesn't set my skin on fire.
When we break apart, she rests her forehead against mine.
"Better?" she asks.
"Better," I lie.
But as she wraps her arms around me, I catch my reflection in the window behind her. I look like a man standing at the edge of a cliff, knowing he's about to jump but unable to step back from the ledge.
Because the truth is, I'm not getting better. I'm getting worse. Every moment I spend pretending to be the man Mona deserves, every second I spend not thinking about Harper, every breath I take without admitting what I really want—it's all making me more of a stranger to myself.
And somewhere across the city, Harper is probably having the same sleepless nights, fighting the same impossible battle between duty and desire.
The only difference is, she's better at hiding it than I am.