Page 19 of Temporary Vows

“I’ll be fine.” Levi smirks. “Now, let me introduce you to my girls.”

Levi fans the pages out like playing cards and slides the first profile toward me.

Staring back is a brunette with sharp cheekbones and a résumé full of charity boards and Ivy League degrees.

“Meet Amy. She’s charity obsessed and a trust-fund angel,” Levi announces. “Perfect for photo ops and Christmas cards.”

I give the picture a cursory glance. Given that Montgomery was so heavily into his charity work, picking a woman who does the same thing would feel like a mockery and make me look worse. “Next.”

Levi smirks and reaches for the second. A woman with jet-black hair and a smile so practiced it could be trademarked.

“This is Francine. Media darling, very religious and runs a foundation for… something.” He squints at the header. “Sea turtles?”

“Thrilling,” I deadpan.

Knox huffs a laugh under his breath.

The third and fourth follow just as quickly—perfect women on paper, polished within an inch of their lives. All wrong. All forgettable. Then Levi slides the fifth page across the desk, and everything slows.

She’s a blonde with a soft mouth, green eyes that hit like a punch to the gut.

Not the same shade as the girl I’m thinking about, not the same shape, either, but close enough that something under my ribs goes taut.

The air shifts. My jaw clenches before I can stop it.

Levi is still talking, saying something about her being “wife material with a capital W”, but his voice fades under the static roaring in my ears.

Because I stare at the picture before me, and I can’t help but seeher.

Elodie Harper.

Knox notices my pause. “You like that one?”

I look away and straighten before either of them can read too much into it. “No,” I say too quickly, too flat. “She just looks familiar.”

Levi smirks. “Familiar good or familiar trouble?”

My cold glare answers for me.

He raises his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. Moving on.”

He grabs another batch of headshots from his file and repeats the same process, but I don’t move on. Not internally.

Not when a stranger’s photo just dragged Elodie’s ghost right back into my head.

I think of her in that coffeehouse, and for the millionth time, I wonder what happened to her.

She’s what now?

Twenty-five?

When her family lost their business, she would have just left high school. And would have still been the dreamer.

She wanted to be an English teacher. For as long as I can remember, she was obsessed with the classics and poetry.

The door swings open without warning, yanking me out of my thoughts.

I’m stunned to my core when Parker Vale strolls in as if the place belongs to him—no knock, no courtesy, just that polished, aristocratic swagger he must have learned at whatever pretentious London boarding school spat him out.