I'm standing under a line of white spotlights in the penthouse suite of the Halcyon Hotel, trying not to breathe on the dress. The fabric is a cool, weightless thing that clings in all the places a camera loves and a rib cage hates. The stylist keeps saying, "Shoulders back, Isla. Chin up, Isla," as if posture is a cure for every kind of problem, including the low‑grade nausea rolling behind my ribs.
"Almost done," Linda says, pinning the last section of the hem. She's tiny with a razor bob and sensible shoes; her whole vibe says she can fix anything with pins and tape. "Turn—slowly."
I turn. The mirrored wall throws me three versions of myself: one with smudged mascara from earlier, one with fresh lipstick, one I barely recognize. The dress is satin with a sharp square neckline and a narrow waist that pretends I've slept in the last week. I haven't. In three days I'm supposed to walk down an aisle made of orchids and money and marry Adrian Blackwell, heir to Blackwell Industries, future king of Ravenwood's glass‑and‑steel jungle. The press has already named it The Merger Wedding. Like my hand is a contract and the ring is a signature.
My phone buzzes on the marble console. Hazel has texted:
Where are you? I'm downstairs. Tell Adrian I brought the champagne.
I type: Still fitting. He's in the suite. Come up.
A second later she writes: Elevator. 90 seconds. Don't cry. Your eyeliner is illegal.
I force a smile at myself. I look calm. That's a lie I'm good at—calm, unbothered, bulletproof. The truth is rattling around in my chest like loose change.
I step off the little platform. "I'm going to check on Adrian," I tell Linda, lifting the skirt carefully so I don't step on eight thousand dollars of last‑minute adjustments.
"Two minutes," she calls, already sweeping pins into a tray. "We'll re‑check the train when you're back."
The suite's living area is all marble and glass. Floor‑to‑ceiling windows look over Ravenwood's river—black water, silver boats, the skyline like a row of knives. There are fresh lilies on the table and two open garment bags with tuxedos pressed within an inch of their life. One is Adrian's. He has a narrow waist and long arms, swimmer's shoulders. He's particular about sleeves and buttons and the shine level on his shoes. He looks like money even when he's half‑awake. People trust that look. Investors, journalists, judges. Me.
"Adrian?" I call, soft at first. I don't want to sound like I'm checking up on him. We've had enough of that.
No answer. The bedroom door is closed. There's a line of light along the floor.
I knock once and push it open.
At first all I register is the smell—sweet perfume cutting through the hotel's citrus air freshener—and then the sound, a choked laugh that isn't his. The room is pale wood and gray linen, sunlight poured all over the bed. The sheets are a mess. There's a shock of gold hair on the pillow and an arm flung out, a slim hand with pale pink nails tracing a line down Adrian's chest.
My stomach goes tight, then hollow. For a second my brain misfires, invents other explanations. Maybe it's a stylist pinning a button. Maybe it's housekeeping. Maybe I'm dreaming.
Then the girl laughs again and turns her head, and I stop lying to myself.
Sofia.
Her hair is the kind that always looks blow‑dried even after the rain. She's wearing nothing but a silk camisole that would be a top on me and is a suggestion on her. Adrian is shirtless, propped on one elbow, mouth at her neck. His eyes flash to mine like a camera catching light. He doesn't jump away. He doesn't look guilty. He looks annoyed, like I've walked in on him sending a delicate email.
"Isla," he says, voice low, calm, the voice he uses when a board member is about to vote the wrong way. "This isn't what—"
"Stop." The word comes out flat. My throat feels raw, like I swallowed gravel.
Sofia sits up, tugging the sheet with a small, practiced movement so it covers exactly what the camera would have blurred. Her eyes are soft blue and wet at the edges, mascara making shadows beneath them. She looks at me the way she looks at photographers—vulnerable, breakable, innocent. She is none of those things.
"It's not what you think," she whispers.
I hear Hazel's feet in the hallway, fast and light, a knock on the outer door, a click as she lets herself in. She's humming the chorus of some pop song off‑key. "Isla? Where are you? We're toasting your—"
She walks into the bedroom behind me and stops dead. I see us in the mirror—me in white, her in a red blazer with gold buttons, a bottle of champagne dangling from her hand like a weapon. The cork hits the carpet.
"Tell me I'm not seeing this," Hazel says, but her voice is flat, too. She sees exactly what she's seeing.
Sofia's lower lip trembles. "Adrian was upset," she says, like she's explaining a broken vase. "You were late, and the press keeps… and then he told me about the board, and—"
"And your clothes fell off?" Hazel snaps.
"Get out," I say. It's the same voice I used the first time an investor called me "kiddo" in a meeting. My eyes stay on Adrian. "You. Bathroom. Now."
He doesn't move. He slides off the bed, unhurried, and pulls on the first shirt his hand touches. The collar is open, the sleeves still creased from the hanger. He looks at me like I'm a volatile stock he can stabilize. "We can talk here."
"No," I say. "We can't."
He walks into the bathroom and I follow, closing the door so I don't have to hear Sofia breathe. The mirror over the sinks throws back a very clean, very white room and two people who used to be a team. I rest both hands on the marble and wait for my voice to obey me.
"You were supposed to pick up the ring," I say, finally. "That was your one job this morning."
"I did," he says. "It's on the dresser."
"And then you decided to celebrate."
He meets my eyes in the mirror. His are gray, a little darker than usual. He hasn't shaved. There's a cut on his knuckle I didn't notice before. "I was talking to her about the foundation event," he says. "You were late. Then you didn't answer your phone."
"So you used your mouth on her throat for punctuation?"
He rubs his jaw with two fingers, buying time. "Don't do this."
I turn to him. "Do what?"
"Make it a scene." He lowers his voice. It's almost a purr, which is how he gets donors to double their checks. "You know how the press is. You know what they want. If you melt down, you'll give them a lifetime supply."
I laugh. It sounds like barked air. "You think I care about the press when you just—"
"I didn't sleep with her," he says. His hands are up, palms out, like he's facing a gun. "I swear to you."
"That's your defense?"
"It's the truth. We were… it got messy. But I didn't—"
"Your mouth was on her neck."
"I was drunk," he says.
"It's noon."
"From last night." He drags a hand through his hair. It's dark blond and pushed back, still damp from a shower that didn't clean anything. "We were with Moira—your aunt—until two. They kept pouring. You know how she gets before a gala."
"So you were drunk last night, and this morning your solution was to invite my former best friend over and put your mouth wherever you wanted."
"Stop saying mouth." He says it like the word itself is the problem.
The nausea creeps higher. "Get dressed," I say. "We're not talking about this in a hotel bathroom."
"You're wearing a wedding dress," he says. "Where were you going to talk about it? The hallway?"
"Get dressed."
He doesn't move. His eyes slide past me to the door as if he can see through it to Sofia's silhouette. "She needed someone," he says, soft. "You cut her off."
"She slept with my fiancé," I say. "I trimmed the guest list."
"That was months ago. You told me you forgave. You told me we were past it."
I hold his stare and breathe slow. "I told you I chose to move forward for the merger. That's not the same thing."
There's a knock, quick and hard. Hazel doesn't bother with polite taps. "Isla?" She doesn't wait. The door opens a crack and her glare slides through it. "Do we need to call security, or are we handling this with elbows?"
I turn the lock with a click. "Give me a minute," I say without looking at her.
"Adrian," she says, because she has never been afraid of titles, money, or men with cufflinks. "If you have any sense left, you'll shut up and listen."
He raises both brows. "Hazel—"
"Shut. Up." She cuts her eyes toward me, voice lower. "Two paparazzi are already in the lobby. Somebody talked."
"Who?" Adrian says.
Hazel's mouth twists. "Take a wild guess, Mr. My‑Phone‑Has‑No‑Passcode."
Sofia. Of course. The girl who cries prettier than anyone I know also knows exactly where to point a camera.
I straighten. "Here's what's going to happen," I say to Adrian. "You're going to tell her to leave. Then you're going to put on a suit. We are going downstairs in ten minutes, separately. We will give them a photo: two people who are very boring and very in love and couldn't possibly have had a fight about anything, ever."
"We are not lying for your optics," Hazel mutters.
"It's not for optics," I say. "It's for the stock."
Adrian studies me, measuring. He's good at that. You don't get to be the heir to half the city without a radar for angles and weak spots. He can tell I mean it. He also knows me well enough to know what comes next if he doesn't cooperate.
He nods once. "Fine."
I open the bathroom door. Sofia is sitting on the edge of the bed like a sad doll. She pulls the sheet up to her collarbone with both hands and gives me a look that would break the internet. "I'm sorry, Isla," she whispers.
"Get dressed," I say. "Use the other bathroom."
She flinches like I hit her. Her eyes flick to Adrian, and for a split second there's something bright there—triumph, maybe. Then it's gone. She slides off the bed and pads to the second bathroom, pale legs, perfect pedicure, perfume trailing like fog.
I feel Hazel at my shoulder. "Say the word," she says under her breath. "I'll throw her shoes down the elevator shaft."
"Please don't," I say. "They're probably sponsored."
I walk to the dresser. The ring box sits where Adrian said it would, a matte black square with a small logo that has launched wars on gem markets in at least three countries. I open it. The diamond catches light from the window and cuts it into pieces. It's shaped like a teardrop. I close the box.
Linda knocks on the suite door and calls, "Isla? We need to repin the train."
"Two minutes," I say. My voice is steady. I slide the box into my clutch and look at the woman in the mirror again. She looks tall, composed, expensive. She looks like a headline.
Hazel squeezes my upper arm, quick, a shot of real human contact in a room full of curated surfaces. "You okay?"
"No," I say. "But I will be in ten minutes."
"You want me to take the champagne to Sofia's head?"
"Let it breathe," I say.
We laugh once, both of us, the sound harsh and necessary.
The elevator ride down is a small, silent war. Adrian stands beside me, buttoned into black with a white shirt so crisp it looks new. He smells like cologne he keeps at the office for unplanned meetings and planned lies. The doors open on the lobby, which is a garden of lilies and glass, and immediately cameras pop. The sound is like dry rain.
"Isla! Over here! Isla!"
"Adrian, are you excited for Saturday?"
"Isla, rumor is you changed the venue—true or false?"
I angle my body toward Adrian like people in my position do when they love the person next to them. He places a hand at the small of my back like men in his position do when they own the person next to them. We are very good at this.
"Beautiful, Isla," someone yells. "Give us the smile!"
I show them a polite version. Not teeth. Not joy. Photographers call it a "boardroom smile." It says we closed a deal and nobody died.
We pause by the velvet rope because if you run, you feed the wolves. If you stand still, you give them a picture and they go find meat elsewhere.
"Three days," a reporter sings. She's the kind who wears neon blazers and scalps reputations on morning TV. "What's the mood?"
"Grateful," Adrian says, and his voice is velvet again, smooth and weighty, the sound that convinces bankers to sign. "We're grateful for our families and our team. We're excited to celebrate with Ravenwood."
I nod, eyes soft. "And very ready to get back to work on Monday." That line is for markets. It says I'm not disappearing into honeymoon fog while the city does numbers without me.
"Isla," the neon blazer says, leaning past the rope. "One quick question. Word is your maid of honor is… under consideration."
I keep my face where it is. "Our party is finalized."
"So not Sofia Marlowe?" Her smile has teeth.
My jaw tightens before my brain can stop it. Adrian's palm presses gently at my back, a warning. I lift my brows like the question is silly. "We don't discuss guests in the lobby."
"Last one," someone else says. "Is it true the Voss board is pressuring you to sign a prenup with the Blackwells?"
"Every responsible person uses contracts," I say. "Next."
Hazel appears like a small hurricane in red. "We're late," she says, cutting the rope with a smile and a staff badge she probably printed on our office machine. "You can have them at the gala Friday, but right now they belong to me."
We move. A valet swings a door, a driver closes another, and the car is a quiet black box with chilled air and the faint smell of leather and new money. As the door shuts, the last thing I see is a photographer standing on a planter for a better angle and a security guard pulling him down by his ankle. Welcome to Ravenwood: if you don't fall, someone will help.
The driver pulls away. I breathe out slowly, like I've been under water.
"Handled," Adrian says, checking his reflection in the window.
"Temporarily," I say.
He leans back, wrist draped on the seat, phone in the other hand, thumbs moving. He texts like he lives: fast, confident, confident again. "I'll get ahead of it," he says. "If anything pops, I'll kill it. We give them the rehearsal dinner shots tomorrow, the charity gala Friday, then the wedding Saturday. They won't have space to—"
"Stop," I say.
He looks up.
"Don't spin me," I say. "I'm not the press. I was there. I saw you."
He shifts, the easy pose tightening by an inch. "I told you. I didn't sleep with her."
"You didn't have to."
We ride in a silence that weighs more than the car.
"Look," he says finally, softer. "You and I—this is bigger than… than a moment. We both know what Saturday means. For the Voss name. For Blackwell. For the city."
"For the share price," I say.
"For all of it," he says, not ashamed. "You're not just my partner. You're the best thing that ever happened to my company."
"You mean to you."
"Those are the same thing," he says, like that's romantic. "We build. That's what we do. Since day one. You and me against every person in a suit who said you didn't belong."
I stare at the skyline. The river is a ribbon of dark glass. On the far bank, RavenCorp's tower cuts the sky into neat, expensive rectangles. A name in silver letters crowns it: RAVEN. In this city, the buildings spell out the last names of men who won.
Hazel clears her throat. "Isla. Say the thing."
"What thing?" I ask.
"The thing you say when you need him to shut up and listen," she says. "Say it like you mean it."
I turn back to Adrian. His face is open in that controlled way—relaxed jaw, steady eyes, an expression that tells cameras he is reasonable. He is a man who can watch a ship sink and sell you a cruise.
"You owe me a life," I say.
For a second his expression cracks. Just a hairline fracture. He hates that sentence because he knows exactly which life I mean.
I mean the night the Stormline Tower fund threatened to pull its term sheet because they didn't want "the orphan" anywhere near the Blackwell board. I was nineteen and a legal nobody with a good suit. I spent forty‑eight hours in a room with men who talked like they invented oxygen, pushing numbers across a table until they admitted mine were better. They signed. Adrian kept his board seat. His stepmother's mouth folded into a thin line for the first time in her life.
I mean the month I sat on his couch with a broken ankle and a laptop, rewriting talking points while he learned to say sorry without choking. I mean the charity galas I turned from selfie pits into actual math, the articles I fed to friendly reporters, the fires I put out with a spreadsheet and a dry voice until people forgot there was a fire at all.
He leans forward, elbows on his knees. "Don't weaponize our history," he says.
"Stop making it a weapon," I say.
He rakes a hand through his hair again, pushing it back. "We're going to dinner with your aunt tonight. We're going to smile. We're going to talk about orchids. Then we're going to sleep. Separately," he adds, like that helps. "Tomorrow we'll do the Gala of People Who Pretend To Care. Friday we'll toast with people who actually do. Saturday we'll get married. When we're home, we'll handle this."
"You think this is waiting politely in a drawer until we get back from the honeymoon?"
"I think the only way out is through," he says. "And you know I'm right."
Hazel watches me in the rearview mirror like I'm a bomb she's learned to defuse with a cupcake and a very sharp pin. "We can also cancel the wedding," she says, helpful as always.
"No," Adrian says instantly, and the sound is iron. "We do not cancel."
I look back out at the skyline. The RavenCorp tower glints in the sun like a blade. People call its CEO a lot of things—cold, brilliant, dangerous, a machine in a tailored suit. I've never met him. I've met his effects. When he buys a company, other companies stop sleeping. When his name shows up on the guest list, waiters tie their bow ties tighter. His face is on the cover of magazines with headlines like THE MAN WHO EATS MARKETS FOR BREAKFAST.
Damien Cross.
I swallow the name and the thought that comes with it. Because if Adrian is a weather system—a thunderstorm that blows up and passes—Damien Cross is a pressure front. People recalculate their lives around fronts.
By the time we reach the boutique again, Linda is waiting with a smile that twitches at the edges. "Everything okay?" she asks, voice bright, as if she hasn't seen a push alert on her phone yet.
"Perfect," I say.
"Lovely," Adrian says, and kisses my cheek for the cameras that probably followed us, then walks down the hall to take an important call that will involve him saying nothing for ten minutes and someone wiring us three million dollars.
I step back onto the platform. Linda crouches, working, efficient and gentle. Hazel stands behind me, arms folded, one foot tapping like she's drumming up blood pressure.
"Breathe," Linda says softly.
I let the air out. "Pin it. Make me bulletproof."
"As requested." She smiles for real this time and whispers, "He is an idiot."
"Thank you," I say.
A shadow crosses the doorway. A staffer whispers, "Ms. Voss? The Halcyon concierge sent up a guest. He says he's here by appointment."
"I have no appointments," I say without turning.
"He said he called this morning. About a joint press statement for Saturday." The staffer clears his throat. "From RavenCorp."
Hazel and I say, "What?" in perfect harmony.
The staffer steps inside and tries to be invisible. "He's in the foyer. He insisted you'd prefer to see him here, not downstairs."
"Who?" Hazel demands, already moving.
The staffer swallows. "Mr. Cross."
Linda sticks a pin in air instead of fabric. "As in… Cross?"
Hazel's eyebrows are in her hairline. "As in silver‑letters‑on‑the‑river Cross."
I step off the platform before Linda can protest. "Tell him I'll be out in one minute," I say. I grab the white blazer hanging on the chair and slide it over the dress, hide the sharp neckline and the ribs that are pretending to be fine.
Hazel leans in. "If he's here to poach you on your almost‑wedding week, I will bite him."
"Please don't bite a billionaire," I say. "We can't afford the dental bills."
"Then I'll bite his PR girl."
"Probably titanium," I say.
We walk down the hall. My heels click on marble like a metronome I didn't set. The foyer is a small forest of floral arrangements. A man is standing with his back to us, hands folded loosely, looking out the window at his own name across the water. Black suit, clean lines, shoulders that make tailors weep, a posture that says he doesn't ever wonder whether he belongs in a room.
He turns when he hears our steps.
In person, Damien Cross doesn't look like the magazine covers. He looks real, which is worse. His hair is cut short at the sides, longer on top, dark enough to be black under this light. His skin is pale with an olive undertone that makes him look like he doesn't get sick. His jaw is a straight line; there's the tiniest nick along the left side, like he shaves with knives and wins. His mouth is unsmiling. His eyes are gray like metal—flat when he's thinking, bright when he's decided.
"Ms. Voss," he says. His voice is low and unforced, the type that carries without trying. "Thank you for seeing me."
"You didn't give me a choice," I say.
Hazel slides in front of me half an inch, which is what she does in rooms with men who treat boundaries like optional settings. "We didn't schedule this," she says.
He glances at her—one clean, respectful sweep—and then back to me. "I sent a note this morning," he says. "You didn't respond."
"That usually means no," I say.
"I've been told I don't respond well to no," he says, and it should be smug but somehow isn't. It's a data point.
"Make it quick," I say. "I have pins in my skirt and a florist who thinks peonies can solve structural problems."
He nods once, accepting the terms of the conversation I just set like he was waiting for them. "Three minutes. I'll start with the reason I'm here: not to recruit you. Not to hand you a pen. Not to talk about board seats or mergers. I'm here to keep you from bleeding out on the lobby floor."
"Not dramatic at all," Hazel mutters.
He looks at me, not her. "Two hours ago," he says, "my comms team flagged a packet pushed to six outlets. It included a narrative you won't enjoy reading and three stills from a hotel bedroom you'll recognize."
My spine goes ice‑cold. Hazel's breath turns into a swear word.
"Who sent it?" I ask.
"An address we've seen before on smaller plays," he says. "One of Blackwell's boutique firms. They like to pretend they're independent. They aren't."
"Of course," Hazel says. "Tell me something I don't know."
Damien's eyes stay on me. "You can ride the wave and pretend it's rain," he says calmly. "Or you can step out of it. I'm offering the umbrella."
"Which is?"
"A joint statement. RavenCorp is hosting the gala Friday. We position you as our keynote partner. We own the narrative before they do." He pauses. "Or we wait, and in three hours your name trends with a word you don't want next to it. Your call."
"What's in it for you?" Hazel asks. "Besides the joy of controlling oxygen."
He doesn't even blink. "Competence," he says. "I prefer to do business with competent people. When my competitors humiliate themselves for sport, the market gets noisy. I like quiet."
I hold his stare for a beat. He holds mine. It's like a very polite arm‑wrestle.
"Why me?" I ask.
"Because you don't blink when men throw numbers at your head," he says. "Because you're efficient. Because you don't cry for the cameras. Because—" he tilts his head slightly, watching my face— "you're about to decide if you'd rather be angry or effective, and I prefer partners who choose effective."
Hazel whispers, "I hate that he's right."
He checks his watch. The watch is thin and black and definitely costs more than my dress. "Your three minutes are up," he says.
"You used them well," I say.
He inclines his head, almost a bow. "Send your team to my office in an hour. We'll draft the language. One condition."
"Of course," Hazel says. "Here we go."
"You arrive Friday on my arm," he says to me, clean and simple. "It kills the story before it breathes."
Hazel makes a choking sound. "Absolutely not."
I look at Damien Cross and think about the cameras in the lobby, about the ring in my clutch, about the girl in my bathroom who smiles for microphones. I think about a sentence I said in the car—You owe me a life—and how I am so tired of debt.
"Fine," I say. "On one condition of my own."
He waits.
"I pick the headline," I say. "And I don't have to smile."
A corner of his mouth moves like it almost wants to be a smile and thinks better of it. "Deal."
He steps back, gives me a full, unhurried nod, then turns and leaves as if the hallway belongs to him. It does, for thirty seconds, because everyone lets him. The door shuts soundlessly behind him.
Hazel exhales like a swimmer breaking the surface. "We're doing this?"
"We're doing this," I say.
"This is insane."
"So is marrying a man who can't keep his mouth off other people," I say. "At least this version pays."
Hazel looks at me, and in her eyes I see it click into place—the revenge, the revenge that looks like strategy, the strategy that looks like survival. "Okay," she says. "We do it. I'm calling legal. I'm calling Mariah from PR. I'm calling your aunt so she doesn't stroke out when she sees you next to a different billionaire on Friday."
"Please use the word keynote a lot," I say.
Hazel is already typing. "On it."
Linda appears at the end of the hall holding pins like scalpels. "Isla," she says gently. "Are we okay?"
I turn back toward the fitting room. "We will be."
I step onto the platform again. Linda kneels and lifts the train. My phone vibrates on the vanity. A banner flashes: ADRIAN: We need to talk.
Hazel reaches for the phone and swipes the message away like lint. "Later," she says. "You have a date with a thousand cameras."
I stare at my reflection—white dress, white blazer, steady eyes I earned—and choose. Not angry. Effective.
"Pin it," I say. "Make it sharp."
Linda smiles and does her work.
Linda's fingers work quickly, smoothing the satin into obedient folds. The pins bite at the fabric with soft clicks. Hazel leans against the mirrored wall, her phone wedged between her shoulder and ear as she barks instructions to our PR team like a general in four-inch heels.
"No, not that photo," she says. "The one from the award ceremony last quarter—yeah, the one with the emerald dress. Crop out the guy on her left; he looks like he's mid-sneeze."
Linda glances up at me. "The blazer's a little bulky over the dress. You want me to remove it for final photos?"
"Leave it," I say. "I like the armor."
Hazel covers her phone's mic. "Mariah says if you're walking in with Damien Cross on Friday, we need to leak it ourselves first. Controlled burn. That way the story is ours before anyone else gets the match."
I think about that. The image of me on Damien's arm will send the gossip feeds into cardiac arrest. But it will also shove Adrian's little hotel scandal down the page where it belongs—buried under something shinier.
"Do it," I say.
Hazel grins like a wolf. "Done."
By the time the pins are secure and Linda's satisfied, my phone is a graveyard of missed calls from Adrian. Ten, twelve—he's persistent when he feels something slipping.
Hazel scrolls through them, unimpressed. "He's going to get repetitive strain injury from dialing."
"Let him," I say.
The car ride back to my apartment is quiet, except for Hazel giving updates to PR and security. I watch Ravenwood slide past the tinted glass—tower after tower, all steel, glass, and ambition. The city doesn't care about heartbreak. It cares about headlines and quarterly returns.
When we pull into the underground garage, my building's night manager is waiting by the elevator. He's young, maybe twenty-two, and looks nervous. "Ms. Voss, there's someone waiting for you upstairs. Says he's an old friend."
Hazel's brows draw together. "Name?"
He checks his clipboard. "Didn't give one. Said you'd recognize him."
My gut tightens. "Describe him."
"Tall, blond, expensive suit, gray tie," the manager says.
Hazel exhales through her teeth. "Adrian."
"Of course it is," I mutter.
He's leaning against my door when we step out of the elevator, hands in his pockets like he owns the hallway. When he sees me, he straightens, offering that boardroom-smooth smile that melts investors and hides bruises.
"We need to talk," he says.
Hazel plants herself between us. "No, you need to leave."
"Hazel," I say quietly, touching her arm. She hesitates, then steps aside but stays close enough to swing if necessary.
Adrian studies me for a moment. "You look… busy."
"That's one word for it," I say, unlocking the door and pushing it open. "You have two minutes."
He follows me inside. The apartment smells faintly of peonies from the arrangement the concierge sent up this morning. He doesn't sit, just stands in the middle of the living room like a man trying to negotiate in enemy territory.
"I made a mistake," he says.
"Which one?" I ask.
"Don't—" He exhales, raking a hand through his hair. "Sofia means nothing. She came by to—"
"To what?" I step closer. "To remind you how good betrayal feels?"
His jaw tightens. "I panicked. The pressure, the board—"
"You've been under pressure since you could tie your own tie," I cut in. "That's not an excuse."
For a moment, the mask slips. I see the flicker of fear. Not fear of losing me—fear of losing the optics, the merger, the headlines about power couples.
"I heard you met with Damien Cross," he says, voice flattening.
"That was quick," I say. "Did Sofia text you from my bathroom?"
His eyes flash. "You think he's on your side? He's not. He'll use you to hurt me, and when he's done, he'll walk away."
"Maybe," I say. "But at least he's honest about wanting something."
"And what do you want, Isla?" His voice softens. It's the voice that used to pull me back into arguments I should've walked away from. "Do you want me gone?"
I think about the hotel room, the cameras, the smell of her perfume on his skin. I think about Damien's gray eyes and the word effective.
"Yes," I say.
It lands between us like a gavel. His mouth opens, then shuts. He looks at me for a long moment, then nods once, sharp and final, like signing a deal he doesn't like.
"You'll regret it," he says.
"Maybe," I reply. "But not tonight."
He leaves without slamming the door. The quiet he leaves behind is heavier than the conversation.
Hazel emerges from the kitchen with two glasses of wine. "I couldn't hear everything, but I heard enough. He's spiraling."
"Let him," I say again.
She hands me a glass. "To Friday?"
"To Friday," I agree, clinking mine against hers.
The wine is cold and dry, and for the first time in weeks, it tastes like possibility.
I wake early the next morning to the sound of my phone buzzing on the nightstand. It's a message from an unknown number.
Friday's dress code is black tie. I'll send a car at 6:30. — D.C.
I stare at it for a moment, then type back:
I pick the headline. And I don't smile.
A reply pings almost instantly:
Understood.
I set the phone down, lie back against the pillows, and let the city's early light creep across the ceiling. Three days ago, my life was scripted: marriage, merger, media tours. Now, the script is burning, and I'm holding the pen.
And maybe—just maybe—I'm about to write something better.