Usual disclaimers apply: I own nothing but this ficlet.

YOU CAN HAVE ONE WITHOUT THE OTHER by Jayne Leitch
2005

Kendall wakes to the knowledge that she is well and truly on her way to becoming Mrs Zach Slater, and ignores the fact that this will *really* make her Mrs Cambias twice over. There's a picture of her and Zach in the society pages the day after Edmund's posthumous award ceremony, and she stares at it while she sips her morning coffee. It must've been taken right after they made their announcement to the assembled guests--most of whom were still reeling from Maria's drunken, vitriolic speech earlier in the evening--because she can't remember standing *that* close to him at any other time. They're both smiling, bright and glossy and smug even in black and white, and Zach has his hand on her waist, his fingers curled loosely on her hip. Beside him, she looks...natural, convincing, like she belongs on the arm of that powerful man with his solid presence and "fuck you" glint in his eyes.

She checks, and sees a similar glint in her own. It matches the one coming off the doorknob-sized rock on her finger.

A knock on the door makes her look up from her study of the picture, and she forcibly squashes the flutter of hope that it might be Ethan. She's trying to train herself to stop hoping for things where he's concerned.

When she opens the door she finds Zach and feels no flutter at all, not even when he pulls her flush against him and kisses her. When they part, she sees the glint still in his eyes.

She hopes he sees the same in hers.

End.

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