Chapter Text
Penelope Featherington could map Colin Bridgerton’s dating history more accurately than her own life goals. Not because she was obsessed—God forbid she become the cautionary tale of the pathetic girl mooning after her best friend’s older brother—but because Colin made it so easy.
Three months ago: a Pilates instructor named Bella.
Six weeks after that: a bartender from that rooftop launch party.
Last week: someone Penelope could only describe as “an influencer in mostly beige clothing.”
He rotated women the way Spotify curated playlists—vaguely themed, predictable around holidays, and over just as she was starting to remember their names.
Not that Penelope compared herself to them.
(…much.)
She adjusted the strap of her satchel as she entered the Bridgerton townhouse through the side entrance—because she was so familiar with the place that no one questioned it anymore—and immediately heard his laugh.
Of course.
The kind of laugh that did ungodly, stomach-flipping things to her, even though she had built metaphorical sandbag walls against such nonsense around age fourteen.
She was twenty-four now. Mature. Unflappable.
She could handle Colin being home unexpectedly.
She could handle Colin and some gorgeous yoga-bending woman being home unexpectedly.
She marched into the kitchen like she had every right to be there—which, to be fair, she did. Eloise had summoned her under the dramatic threat of “if you don’t come help me stage an intervention about Mum’s obsession with seasonal decorative gourds, I’ll fake my own death.”
But Eloise was nowhere in sight.
Colin was leaning against the island, sleeves rolled to elbows, grinning down at his phone. Alone.
Good.
Bad.
Dangerous.
He looked up at the sound of her bag thudding onto the counter. And just like always, his posture shifted—the swagger melting into something softer, warmer.
“Pen,” he said, smile curving slow and genuine. “Didn’t know you were coming by.”
He always said her name like it was a secret.
She hated that about him.
She loved that about him.
“I was summoned,” she said dryly. “Your sister insisted on a seasonal crisis.”
“Ah,” he nodded gravely. “The gourds.”
They shared a solemn look as if discussing war.
He pushed himself off the counter, sauntering over. Penelope very pointedly looked anywhere but his forearms.
“You eaten?” he asked, reaching for the cupboards.
She blinked. “That depends. If I say no, are you about to offer to cook?”
He gasped. “You wound me. I make an excellent omelette.”
“You once set toast on fire.”
“Once. And in my defense, the toaster was possessed.”
She snorted, but her chest did that awful glowing thing she refused to name.
He was like this with everyone—easy, charming, magnetic. But with her… there was something else. A stillness, an attention, like she wasn’t background noise.
And he didn’t even notice.
He was now pulling pans out with dramatic flair. “Sit. Let me feed you.”
“Colin—”
“Sit,” he said again, gentle but firm.
And because she would walk into traffic if he asked nicely enough, she obeyed.
She sat and watched the man she had quietly loved since she was old enough to understand yearning, wondering—not for the first time—if he would ever look at her the way he looked at women he’d forget in a month.
Probably not.
But that didn’t mean she’d settle for someone who looked at her less.