These Thin Lines

THESE THIN LINES MILENA MCKAY Copyright © 2023 by Milena McKay This is a work of fiction. Any similarities with real life events are coincidental and unintentional. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. For permission, contact [email protected] Cover and art design by Em Schreiber. PRAISE FOR A WHISPER OF SOLACE When I think of McKay’s writing style, I think of 19th century grand opera. She conveys big, bold emotions within fantastic plots that challenge the reader to come along for the ride. VICTORIA THOMAS, THE LESBIAN REVIEW Damn, this book… Seriously. So. Many. Feelings JUDE SILBERFELD, WWW.JUDEINTHESTARS.COM Every ‘rule’ broken, yet it leaves me breathlessly anticipating what McKay will do with the Lesfic genre next. THE READING ROOM To those who struggled with learning and to those who held their hand along the way… When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow. URSULA K. LE GUIN CONTENTS I. Candle 1. Once Upon a Fairytale 2. Once Upon a Vision 3. Once Upon a Late Night 4. Once Upon a Timely Scheme 5. Once Upon an Unraveling 6. Once Upon a Safe Haven 7. Once Upon a Family Recipe 8. Once Upon a Tennis Match 9. Once Upon a Silver Gown 10. Once Upon an Unwelcome Revelation 11. Once Upon a Well-Attended Ball 12. Once Upon a Parisian Sunset 13. Once Upon a Broken Frame II. Shadow 14. In a Faraway Land of Thorny Memories 15. In a Faraway Land of Stormy Harbingers 16. In a Faraway Land of Entrances Well Made 17. In a Faraway Land of Past Hurts and New Pain 18. In a Faraway Land of Loaned Pleasure 19. In a Faraway Land of Roses and Debts 20. In a Faraway Land of Old Familiar Faces and Undertows 21. In a Faraway Land of Unwanted Conversations 22. In a Faraway Land of Fingertips and Atonement 23. In a Faraway Land of Tuxedos and Realizations 24. In a Faraway Land of Sacrifices and Desire 25. In a Faraway Land of Bedside Confessions 26. In a Faraway Land of Long Overdue Revelations 27. In a Faraway Land of Heroes and Villains 28. In a Faraway Land of Happily Ever After Afterword Acknowledgments About the Author Also by Milena McKay PART I CANDLE 1 ONCE UPON A FAIRYTALE Genevieve Courtenay’s life was a fairytale. That is, if fairytales had a distant and withholding father. And a disinterested and occasionally cruel stepmother. As well as two ignorant and dismissive stepsisters. So, a fairytale… Except unlike most main characters of every such story, Genevieve wasn’t perfect. In fact, she was pretty terrible at, you know, those fabled things that endeared heroines to the readers. You name it, and it was fairly guaranteed that she’d been told she was bad at it. Daughter? Yep, her dad stated every day how completely useless she was. So perhaps he had reasons to be so distant with her. Stepdaughter? Her stepmother reminded her of her ungratefulness on a regular basis. That is, when she could be bothered to notice her at all and wasn’t slugging down expensive wine at other people’s fancy parties. And why would she notice Genevieve anyway? There was nothing remarkable about her. Sister? Well, Gigi and Kylie probably would have agreed with all of the statements above, but they mostly ignored her. Unless she could do something for them. Then her stepsisters snapped their fingers at her. Still, Vi, as she was known to her very few friends, did something very well. So well in fact, that she, on occasion, wished she wasn’t quite as good at it. Because if she were bad at this one thing, maybe she would have shown her stuck-up, blue-blooded, touch-of-royalty relatives the finger and walked away. Vi loved deeply and very well indeed. She was loyal and headstrong in the intensity of her love. Her love for her ungrateful, demanding family, for those few friends she’d collected and lost over the years and now, seemingly, for the one woman she had no business having any kind of feelings for. Because that woman was somebody’s wife and therefore so off limits, she might as well not be on planet Earth. Vi’s heart, however, hadn’t gotten the memo. Not only was its desire out of bounds, the woman was also out of Vi’s league. Hell, Vi’s heart’s desire was out of pretty much everyone’s league. Including her own wife’s. Vi always felt particularly bitter when her mind wandered in that direction, but there was no helping these notions. And no, her thoughts weren’t particularly covetous either. Vi did not want the woman for herself. She was too… everything. Vi’s heart would simply explode in that absolutely impossible scenario. But while she yearned and pined like any of the Brontë sisters’ characters, she also resented the fact that the object of all her longing was living in a complete—in Vi’s opinion—marital mismatch. Simply put, Chiara Conti-Lilienfeld was too good for the likes of Franziska “Frankie” Lilienfeld. It didn’t matter that Frankie was one of the greatest couturiers of her generation. It didn’t matter that the Lilien Haus of Fashion was one of the most progressive and famous brands in the whole world. It didn’t even matter that Frankie was suave and smooth and charming, and very handsome. In Vi’s naïve, twenty-five-year-old eyes, nobody was good enough for Chiara. The fact that Frankie was also Vi’s boss somehow hadn’t registered until after Vi had realized she had fallen smack-in, first lust, then gradually in love with the former supermodel. And once Vi had cottoned on to it, honestly, it was by far the least of her worries. Vi Courtenay was raised to keep bigger secrets, after all. And keep those secrets she did. * * * To her credit, Vi had