Matched to Her Rival

Dax.

He’d come to apologize, talk, yell at her. She didn’t care. Anything was fine as long as he was here. Hungry to see him again after three miserable days, she swung open the door.

Her heart plummeted.

It was Dannie, dressed to the nines in a gorgeous winter-white cashmere coat, matching skirt and heels. Next to her stood Juliet, the new princess of Delamer, wearing a T-shirt and jeans, of course.

“What are you doing here?” Elise glowered at Juliet. “You’re supposed to be on your honeymoon.”

The princess shrugged delicately and waved a hand full of bitten-off nails. “It was a working honeymoon and you need me more than His Royal Highness. I left my husband in New York with a host of boring European diplomats. I miss him already, but I owe you more than I can ever repay for giving me back the love of my life.”

“I need you?” Elise glanced at Dannie. “You called Juliet and told her I needed her?”

“Yes, yes I did.” Dannie bustled Juliet into the house, followed her and shut the door, then held up two bags. “This is an intervention. We brought wine and chocolate since you never keep them in the house.”

The heaviness Elise had carried since Dax left returned tenfold. “No chocolate for me. But wine sounds pretty good.”

The silence had been deafening. He’d ignored her text messages, even the funny ones. He hadn’t called. At first she’d thought it was merely pride, which was why she kept reaching out. But he really didn’t want to talk to her.

“Come on, Elise. Live a little. When a man acts like an ass, chocolate is the only cure,” Dannie called from the kitchen where she’d gone to fetch wineglasses and a corkscrew.

Tears welled up and the ugly-cry faucet let loose. Dannie flew into the living room and enfolded Elise in a comforting embrace while Juliet looked on helplessly.

Murmuring, Dannie smoothed Elise’s hair and let her cry. Sobs wrenched Elise’s chest, seizing her lungs until suffocation seemed more likely than a cease-fire of emotions.

Her life had fallen apart. But her friends were here when she needed them.

“It’s okay, cry all you want,” Dannie suggested. “The endorphins are good for you. It’ll help you feel better.”

“I know.” Dabbing at her eyes ineffectively with a sleeve, Elise sniffled and gave up. “But they don’t seem to be working.”

“Maybe because Dax is more of an ass than regular men?” Juliet suggested sweetly.

Dannie bit back a snort and Elise choked on an involuntary laugh, which led to a fit of coughing. By the time she recovered, the tears had mostly dried up.

“It wasn’t working because it’s my fault. I’m the problem, not Dax,” Elise confessed.

They might be soul mates, but obviously there was more to it than that. Happily ever after didn’t magically happen, and being matched was the beginning of the journey, not the end. And she had no clue how to get where she wanted to be. That’s why she couldn’t hold on to Dax, no matter how much she loved him.

Everything he’d accused her of was true.

“That’s ridiculous.” Dannie tsked.

“I’m not buying that,” Juliet said at the same time. “It’s always the man’s fault.”

Elise smiled at the staunch support. She’d had a hand in these two women’s becoming the best they could be, in finding happiness with the men they’d married, and it had been enough for so long to be on the sidelines of love, looking in from outside, nose pressed to the glass.

At least then she hadn’t known what she was missing.

“Dax has a hard time trusting people,” she explained. “I knew that. Yet I didn’t tell him we were matched and he took it as a betrayal.”

More than a betrayal. She hadn’t trusted that he could love the real her. He’d been gradually warming up to the idea of soul mates, putting his faith in her, and she’d forgotten to do the same.

“So what? When you love someone, you forgive them when they mess up,” Juliet declared. “People mess up a lot. It’s what makes us human.”

“And sometimes, you have to figure out what’s best for them, even when they don’t know themselves,” Dannie advised. “That’s part of love, too. Seeing beneath the surface to what a man really wants, instead of what he tells you he wants.”

“And sometimes,” Elise said quietly, “love isn’t enough. Sometimes, you hurt the person you love too much and you can’t undo it. That’s the lesson here for me.”