Page 1 of Reckless
One
Last Single Standing
Kelly
I knew I was in trouble the second I hit the bridge into Virgin Cove.
Compound, they called it.
I laughed to myself.Persian palace was probably truer.
And I was about to walk in there as the only woman in my friend group without a man attached to her.
Again.
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel.“You’re going in there,” I told myself.“You are going to eat, drink tea, survive the friends who are now all married or coupled, and not once look pathetic.”
I glanced at my reflection.“Convincing,” I muttered.“Really sold that.”
My phone buzzed in the passenger seat.
Britney: Maman is already making enough food to feed a small nation.
Me: Good.I’d like to emotionally eat my way through being everyone’s favorite leftover.
Three dots appeared.
Britney: You’re not a leftover.Also if you say anything filthy at the table Pedar is right there.
I snorted.
Me: You say that like it’s ever stopped me before.
She didn’t answer, which meant she was already inside and too busy being one half of a terrifyingly competent power couple to keep texting me.
I tossed the phone back down and drove through the open iron gate.
The house spread wide instead of tall, all pale stone and enormous windows catching the evening sun.Four wings.Two stories.Terraces.Gardens.A long curving drive.Beyond it, stables, a sweep of lawn, and the glitter of the private cove.Somewhere farther down, out of sight, were yacht docks and a helipad, because being rich enough to ruin my blood pressure also meant needing several ways to arrive dramatically.
I parked beside a lineup of luxury cars that probably cost more than my entire apartment building and cut the engine.
For a second I sat there, hands still on the wheel, staring at the house.
It wasn’t the money that got me.
Okay, some of it was the money.
But mostly it was the family.
Every time I came here, I got punched in the chest by the same thing.The warmth.The noise.The way everyone was always touching, hugging, kissing cheeks, calling each other joon and azizam and habibi like affection was part of the oxygen in the place.The way Roxanne and Parvis had somehow built something enormous and extravagant without making it feel cold.
I loved that about them.
I also hated it a little.
Because it was hard to be the only unattached woman in a room full of that much belonging and not feel like the one kid who showed up to school picture day in the wrong shirt.
“Get over yourself,” I told my reflection in the rearview mirror.“I look fine.”
