“Goodbye, Stefan,” she managed to bite out.
And then she turned, his words heavy inside her as she did exactly as he predicted. She made sure she kept her stride little more than an amble as she left the bedroom and headed for the stairs.
She moved through the light and airy house, the sunshine pouring in from all sides feeling like an affront. She wanted it dark and moody to match what she felt inside, but Prague wasn’t cooperating.
But she didn’t need it to rain to do what she needed to do.
She threw open the front door and walked away from Stefan Romanescu and all his simmering intensity, telling herself she had no intention of ever going back.
No matter what.
Because she, by God, was going to have some fun.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THOUGH FUN WAS not her first thought as Indy stood there outside the house, breathing in the summer morning while she tried to take stock of what had just happened.
What she’d just done.
A part of her wanted nothing more than to turn around and race back inside. She’d waited two long years for this and she was bailing already? Surely it made sense to just go back to him and see if she could salvage this somehow—
Salvage what? asked a caustic voice inside her. You know what you’re good at and it’s not this.
She blew out a breath, and started down the road, thinking a nice long walk would suit her perfectly, thank you. It would settle her down and let her think.
Prague glimmered there in the distance as she made her way down the hill, dance music in her ears to remind her that she liked her mood light and her parties never-ending. And it was the beautiful fairytale city it always was, but she hardly saw it. Because she was too busy going over every single thing Stefan had said to her.
Indy had always been a mediocre student. That wasn’t a question. Why had he made it a question? And why now, years after she’d finally graduated, when it didn’t matter what kind of student she’d been in the first place?
Her sister had been the student in the family. And it wasn’t that Indy had set herself up in opposition to Bristol. It was that there was no point competing with her sister for a crown Indy didn’t even want. She’d always thought that Bristol had become serious about her studies to put herself in an unimpeachable place where studying was all she did. Because Indy had been much better at flitting around their small-town schools, doing the popular thing.
There was no point doing things you weren’t good at, was there?
No one’s good at paying bills, Indy, Bristol had cried in exasperation at one point during their time as roommates. I’m not good at being responsible, I just don’t have an option not to be. Why don’t you understand that?
Maybe you don’t have a choice, Indy had replied, hugging Bristol even though her sister tried to shrug out of it, even batting at her a little because Bristol didn’t feel like not being frustrated. But you maybe also love it a little bit at the same time, don’t you?
Bristol had given up. But Indy had taken it as confirmation. She gravitated toward the things she was good at in life and that was why her life was a delight. Bristol might claim to enjoy what she did, but she had sure seemed endlessly stressed out about all of it while she did it, didn’t she? Her grades in high school. Her GPA and course load in college. Her masters and then her doctorate—it was all stress stress stress.
One thing Indy had avoided, as much as possible, was stress.
She couldn’t understand why anyone would want the kind of intensity Stefan had showed her. That just seemed like a whole lot of stress in all the places where life was supposed to be the most fun and she wanted no part of it.
“I’m fine the way I am,” she muttered out loud as she left his street behind.
It took her a while to walk down into the city and when she did, she found herself wandering through the city streets until she found a shop that sold newspapers and magazines in English.
And stopped dead, because there was her sister on the cover of several. Front and center.
Go Bristol, she thought.
She found a place to sit down by the river and read them all through. Then she got her sister on the phone, the way she did as often as she could while Bristol was off adventuring in tabloid splendor. If only for a few moments.
“Did you know that you’re on the front page of every single tabloid there is?” she asked when Bristol answered.
“What do you mean by every tabloid?” Bristol sounded annoyed, but Indy was looking at a whole series of pictures of her face. Soft and open and splashed across the papers—and Bristol was an academic, not an actress. Something in Indy turned over at that. “I’m not comfortable with one tabloid.”
“Then I have some bad news for you,” Indy said merrily. “They’re comfortable with you. And you do know you have a little something called the internet at your disposal, Bristol.”
She laughed, picturing the annoyed expression her sister was certain to be making, off in her Spanish island paradise with one of the richest and most famous men alive. Nice for some, she thought, though she knew she didn’t actually envy Bristol. It was that look on her face in all these pictures, though. It made Indy wish she were different, inside and out.
But she wasn’t. “You can access this exciting new invention with
