My legs crossed over one another; I sit on my bed and take notes on Alexia's interview this afternoon.

"I can't explain what had come over me that night," she mused. "In his books, Owen said that Honor was drunk, but a lot of our experiences got blended into that character. He and Inez were drunk. Adrian snuck them whisky and a few innocent kisses led to her first time ever, but there was never anything innocent about Lucca and I. Everything was always so..."

My alarm cuts through the audio, alerting me that it's time for dinner. In the books, Honor couldn't cook to save her life, but I'm choosing to be polite to my host. Maybe poke around what seems editable and sneak some food from the guest pantry after she's fallen asleep.

Setting my equipment to the side, I head out the door and stroll down the long cream and gold-glinted hall with the ornate red carpet leading a path. It takes about ten minutes to reach the kitchen and check my Apple Watch. I am just in time.

At least, I thought I was.

My senses are overwhelmed as my eyes are met with a banquet neatly arranged around the small round kitchen table. Alexia smiles as she announces she didn't know what I wanted to eat and so she made a variety of dishes.

Smoked king salmon, southern fried chicken, rice and peas, steak au poivre with red wine pan sauce, and roasted potatoes. Sancocho, a variety of breads, and a bowl of fresh strawberries acting as the centerpiece.

It smells amazing. It looks incredible. I can't imagine that she made all of this herself let alone in four hours with time to glam up in a low-cut black dress with her curls pulled back in one of those messy buns that take way too much effort.

"You... made this?" I ask as I gravitate to the table across from Alexia.

An amused smile curls at Alexia's lips as she elegantly flutters into her seat, plucking a strawberry from the bowl, and bringing it to her lips.

"We're the only one's here," she says before taking a small bite.

Her eyes trail my body as I pull out my seat. Suddenly feeling very underdressed in a baggy T-shirt and sweats that swallow my small frame.

I didn't realize this would be a whole affair. My body is tense as I wonder if she's judging me, a smirk at her lips as Alexia finishes off her strawberry in another bite before telling me to sit.

I crash down without hesitation. A smile on her face, Alexia asks if I will be eating some of anything as she leans over giving me an accidental peek at her breasts while she quickly piles my plate family style.

"I uh–" I look down at the food in front of me. My cheeks warm to the touch. "I guess so. You um–"

I hesitate to tell her that at that angle I can see her large caramel mounds. I shouldn't be looking there. She will think I'm a creep.

"In the books–" I divert.

"Like I said," Alexia muses as she retakes her seat, serving herself as much as she had me and now I feel guilty because like it or not, I know there's no way I can eat this much. "Honor is a blend of Owen and myself. Yes, my brother and I are close, but I'm not exactly a relatable character."

There's a slyness to Alexia's words that I cannot place as she informs me that Owen is the wreck in the kitchen. The writer raised at his mother's skirt until he was five when he was then sent to live with his grandparents in England while his mother consulted for the Louvre Museum here in France and she traveled with her father for his cooking series.

"For better or worse, I am my father's legacy," Alexia explains. "He wanted a daughter as elegant and refined as the woman he fell in love with, while simultaneously being the son he had wanted. That's why they named me Alex, which I had changed to Alexia when I was a teen. Owen was an accident and my dad never treated him like anything else. I was the physical manifestation of my parents' love story so they poured into me equally. I can cook with the best of them. I was an art prodigy, I play six instruments and speak several languages. I am the pageant dog," she says, a bitter edge in her tone as she takes a bite.

Alexia smiles softly at her delectable work, swaying slightly as I sit watching her, unsure how to respond. She seems so... unhappy. Which I suppose with the year she's had makes sense, but pageant dog? Really?

"Are you religious, Lilah?" Alexia asks as she continues to eat. "If that's the case, you can pray if you like, but I'm not going to wait for you. My father-in-law was a pastor. He weaponized a faith that I never fully subscribed to, to keep me in a situation I should have left years ago. But feel free to pray over your food if you like."

Alexia's passing statement fills my mind with so many questions it doesn't seem like she's in the mood to answer at the moment. My mouth opens and closes, but words don't seem to form, until a passing statement leaks out.

"Lucca's agnostic," I declare.

"Is there a question?" Alexia smiles at me, but as usual, it doesn't reach her eyes.

"Well, Lucca is agnostic. Owen was too until he found his faith. In the books, Levi is a staunch atheist, while Honor..."

"I never said I don't believe in God," Alexia smiles as she cuts into her steak. "I've just come to believe that God doesn't care what we eat, who we fuck, and wouldn't give passes to horrible people due to a hail mary in the last quarter. But if you're asking... I'm pretty sure the religious guilt was Inez," Alexia nods.

"Did Inez...?"

"No," Alexia forces a smile. "No, that was me and I didn't feel guilty about it. I felt guilty for not feeling guilty, if it makes sense. I was raised Catholic, just like Lucca and Inez. My family never missed church. I knew what I was supposed to feel and believe I just didn't. And that scared me."

"Did it... affect your relationship...?" I tread lightly. "With Inez, that is."

"No," Alexia declares without hesitation. "Not back then anyway. I think it just confused her, but Inez's faith made her a humanist. She understood we all have our reasons for everything and the more flaws she saw in someone, the more she wanted to love them. It's why she and Owen lasted so long."

I tread lightly. Alexia has already made it clear she is fiercely defensive of her brother, but unless I'm misunderstanding, it sounds like she feels Inez's love was wasted on Owen.

"From what the others say... they were very happy..." I say.

Alexia looks me in the eyes as if I had said the most stupid thing she had ever heard.

"Who can be truly happy with an addict?" Alexia questions. "You try with them. You're there with them through all the steps and then they relapse, and you're supposed to understand. You're supposed to love them and sometimes even hold their secret. You blame yourself for not seeing the signs. You make it your burden to bear and then you do it over and over again until you die, you give up, or if you're lucky, they actually change."

Alexia's words feel... harsh. Owen, Lucca, my mom dealt with addiction. Lucca never went back. He won't even taste test the foods he cooks with wine just to be sure. Owen, had a long journey but he's been sober for a few years and my mom...

I would like to think she would have made it through the darkness. I would like to think had that last OD not taken her life, she would have been thriving. They're not burdens. They're people deserving of love.

"Is something wrong?" Alexia questions.

"You don't know what you're talking about," I whisper.

"Is that so," Her smile feels disrespectful as she takes a bite.

"Yes," My jaw tenses as I speak in a hushed whisper. "You didn't go through the steps. Lucca quit cold turkey for you. That takes willpower and strength no one can understand. But it doesn't make those who can't weak or burdens. You have never been burdened. You and your family turned your backs on Owen while Lucca, Inez, and their family were with him every step of the way–"

"And what did it get them?" Alexia questions. "Inez is gone. Yes, Owen wasn't driving that night. Yes, she had her aids off. But if he wasn't at that bar, she'd be alive. Go further, if he didn't cheat on her with Adrian after all the years she had loved him and been there for him every step of the way. I wouldn't have been so disgusted by him," Alexia snarls, tears dotting the edges of her intense eyes.

Alexia cuts into her food with savage aggression. Her indignance spilling from her lips as she says, "You can never be honest with people like Owen. Because the world just decided that if you're angry, or tired and they don't take it well, everything that happens is your fault. And who knows. Maybe I could have seen things from his side. I mean, I cheated on the love of my life, for a man I knew was my soulmate. It was a similar circumstance. It was a similar age. Maybe had I not been the one on the other fucking side I would have thought it wasn't a selfish fucked up thing to do."

Alexia tosses down her fork and knife. Her eyes blazing with fury as she confesses, "I told her."

"What?" I can't help but whisper.

"I told her," Alexia confesses. "Lucca and I may have been over. Owen and I were definitely on a tightrope but Inez was my sister. I love my brother but I had always wanted a sister and she was the best anyone can ask for. She was sweet, understanding, intelligent, kind. The kind of woman who could concur the fucking world had she not wrapped her identity into a fucking man."

I don't think Alexia is talking about Inez. Not entirely anyway. Her anger feels too personal. Her eyes juggling tears as she pinches her nose refusing to let them fall.

"Inez came to me about Owen. It was months after I told him about himself and I guess for my brother that was an excuse. Men will always find an excuse. When Justice cheated on me the first time, he said it was the stress of losing the baby. When he did it again, with an aid working on his campaign, he said it was because after that betrayal I couldn't fucking touch him and he was lonely," Alexia says with a sarcastic pout.

Alexia confesses that her marriage was filled with countless infidelities that were swept under the rug. Justice's parents shielded him and forced her to pray with and for her husband who had actively led a crusade against those he found immoral.

Alexia bitterly laughs as she says around the time Inez had come for her with help for Owen, she was over her relationship. She had wanted to leave Justice and start over but he had quietly come out to their families as a sex addict. Even her parents who had shunned Owen for his addiction and shamed Alexia for her sexual history, sympathizing with the governor.

"I was trapped," Alexia says with a pained smile. "But Inez wasn't. I thought telling her would make her see it. See that there was no changing someone who can't take accountability for what they had done to ruin everything, but she told me that she knew."

Alexia seems confused by her own words. Confused how Inez could know she was being betrayed by two people she loved and quietly accepted the dynamic between them. It enraged her. I'm sure she was speaking to herself when she told Inez she was an idiot.

The tears streaming down her cheeks as Alexia laughs through her pain, I don't know what to say to her. I don't know how to comfort her.

"Those were my last words to my sister," Alexia speaks in a hushed whisper. "I called her an idiot for loving someone in a way that I still don't understand. I love my brother. I wished I never said what I said to him, maybe if I didn't he wouldn't have been at that bar. Maybe Inez wouldn't have switched off her aids. Maybe–"

Owen had admitted to sticking his hands in Inez's face as she drove. He admitted to confessing his wish to die and that was why Inez had stopped the car at the intersection that night.

She couldn't see the horn from the truck barreling down the road. Owen could only guess she thought the look of horror on his face was due to an accidental confession. Inez was killed instantly while Owen was left to recover.

Alexia takes a sweeping breath as she wipes her eyes fixed down at her plate.

"I um..." She pushes out her seat and stands to announce. "I need to work up an appetite," Saying nothing more as she leaves the room.

Wc:2273

Thank you for reading The Sluts Guide to Romance. Don't forget to like, share and comment to tell me what you thought about the chapter.

Looking for a new ONC read? Check out How to Poison Your Husband by C.M.F Wright

Down on her luck after murdering her husband, Ivelle has no choice but to follow in her late mum's footsteps and become a villain. Her first customer: an unhappy lady betrothed to a prince with more loose screws than Ivelle's defunct hardware store. But as Ivelle guides her client through her validated Twelve Step Plan For Poisoning Your Husband (Satisfaction Guaranteed!), she realizes all is not as it seems with the kooky prince. Will she sacrifice her morals to kill an innocent man and secure her client's future, or will she be forced to part with a metric f*ckton of gold? And why does an irritating detective named Ferlock Polmes keep trying to mess with her plans?