Part of Your World, #1
Part of Your World
by Abby Jimenez
Contents
Chapter 17
Overview
Daniel hosts Alexis and her friends while pretending not to know her, honoring her need for secrecy. He distrusts her friends’ attitudes and sees a divide between Alexis and their values. After the friends leave for dinner, Alexis fakes a headache to remain behind, and she and Daniel reconnect privately.
Summary
Daniel narrates hosting Alexis and her two friends at his inn, struggling to maintain the pretense that he and Alexis are strangers. He prepares snacks, maps, and recommendations while honoring Alexis’s request to keep their relationship hidden, despite wishing he could openly show them around town.
Listening from the kitchen, Daniel forms a poor impression of Alexis’s friends. Gabby boasts about firing a nanny, and Jessica appears disdainful and impatient, which clashes with Daniel’s sense of who Alexis is. He reflects on how the friends look like Alexis’s world but don’t act like her.
When the group prepares to walk to dinner, Daniel steps out to catch a moment with Alexis. Alexis sits with a supposed headache while her friends, indifferent, head out. Jessica makes a cutting comment about women’s bodies to Daniel and leaves with Gabby.
Alone, Daniel and Alexis drop the act. Alexis admits she fabricated the headache to stay behind with him. They flirt, confirm they have about an hour before the friends return, and embrace, choosing private intimacy over the facade maintained for her friends.
Who Appears
- DanielInnkeeper and mayor; hosts Alexis’s group while pretending not to know her; skeptical of her friends; reunites with Alexis privately.
- AlexisVisiting under an alias; maintains secrecy with Daniel; fakes a headache so she can stay behind and be with him.
- JessicaAlexis’s friend; scowls at the inn, makes a cutting remark, leaves for dinner with Gabby.
- GabbyAlexis’s friend; brags about firing a nanny; leaves for dinner with Jessica.