Two Can Play Recap Part 14: "The Best Game I Ever Played"

This Two Can Play recap part 14 covers chapters 335–357, with spoilers. This part includes a sensitive medical storyline for Pat; we keep it brief and gentle.

The garden

Celeste drives to Sterling Gardens sure she's about to be let go gently, in a beautiful place, the way you'd put flowers at a funeral. The paths are lined with lanterns and white roses, and she hates every one of them.

Then the lights come on. "Celeste Adams."

Dominic stands in a clearing of white roses in a charcoal suit, and his tie is the exact emerald of her dress. He drops to one knee.

"My Celeste, our love started like a game, but it turns out it was the best game I ever played."

Then he asks her, using her maiden name, to be his wife.

Every feeling she has pushed down all day comes out at once. "Yes. Yes, a thousand times yes." When she jokes that he's making an honest woman of her, he says: "It was always the plan." They run back to the car park laughing like teenagers. Later, looking at the ring: "Celeste Ford. I like the sound of that."

The truth about the recording

She tells him about the recording. He doesn't deny it. He said those words to Julian long ago to provoke him, "but you were already so important to me that I would never have let your reputation be ruined." The coldness, the cancelled lunch and the curt text were all to keep the proposal secret, and the "urgent" call was the garden's manager.

Then he tells her the plan: the biggest engagement party the city has ever seen. Women have been sending offers through their fathers' companies for weeks, and he has turned down every one. "I want the world to know you are the one and only Mrs. Dominic Ford."

Celeste: "I need to find a way to thank Julian and Seraphine for their affair."

Pat

Then Celeste realises she hasn't heard from Pat all day. They find her at home, collapsed and alone, and rush her to hospital.

Pat was pregnant, by Kingsley, and had decided, frightened and alone, not to continue the pregnancy. It went badly. The next morning the doctor delivers unexpected news: the pregnancy is still going.

Dominic spends the night on the hospital couch with Celeste ("Have you forgotten that I am clingy?"), after quietly bringing her favourite pyjamas, toiletries and a hot dinner without being asked. "Goodnight, wifey."

In the morning, Pat sees the ring and shrieks. Then Celeste sits with her and talks about second chances, including her own with Dominic. Pat says her family will never let her forget it. Celeste's answer is the heart of this part:

"Then I will be your family. I can be your sister. And I will be its godmother."

Pat decides to keep the baby. "Go and be happy, godmother."

Granny's condition

Dominic's grandmother calls. She has seen Julian's videos and now "understands" why Celeste left him. She will bless the marriage, on one condition: Dominic must take Imelda as his sworn sister and find her a husband "as good as you", and until then he can't marry Celeste.

Dominic laughs. We find out his answer in the next part.

What we noticed

• The proposal pays off both the book's title and its first chapter. The "game" is named and then redefined as the best thing that ever happened to both of them.
• Dominic's instinct to hide the proposal causes real pain. The book doesn't make him perfect; it makes him someone who apologises properly.
• Pat's storyline is handled with more compassion here than much of the book shows its side characters.

Previous: [Part 13](/posts/two-can-play-recap-part-13-free) · Next: [Part 15](/posts/two-can-play-recap-part-15-the-island-and-the-fortress).