Chapter 1
Four minutes until Derek raises his champagne glass, and my hired date is already veering off-script. “You’re supposed to look arrogant and possessive, Julian, not like you’re reading my eulogy,” I hissed under the roar of the marquee tent, nervously smoothing down my emerald dress. He stood by the bar, nursing a club soda, watching me with eyes so guarded it bordered on unbearable. “Four minutes, Clara,” he whispered, glancing at a scratched leather wristwatch I swore I had seen somewhere before. “Let’s just get through the toast. Then I’m taking you home.”
“Home is a studio apartment on Fourth Street, Julian,” I said, the words clipped and brittle between my teeth. “And my contract with your agency covers three full hours. We have seventy-five minutes left. That means you are still on the clock, and on the clock, you don’t look at me like I’m a ghost.”
Julian didn’t flinch. He stood half a head taller than me, the charcoal cut of his tuxedo fitting his broad shoulders so seamlessly that whoever tailored it had clearly charged more than my monthly freelance retainer. When he had met me at the curb outside the country club two hours ago, stepping out of a black town car with an umbrella already tilted to shield my hair from the October drizzle, I had congratulated myself on my own desperate genius. For two thousand dollars cash—half my savings from archiving the estate papers of the late Judge Albright—I had purchased a shield. A devastating, broad-shouldered, razor-jawed shield.
Except the shield kept looking at me like he wanted to wrap me in a wool blanket and carry me into a quiet room.
“Clara,” he said, his voice a low, gravelly baritone that vibrated right against the base of my skull. It had a strange, resonant timbre that made the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up, not with fear, but with a dizzying, hollow resonance. “I’m doing what you hired me for. I’m standing by your side.”
“You’re standing by my side like an undertaker,” I shot back, keeping my lips barely moving while flashing a blinding, practiced socialite smile toward a cluster of women across the parquet floor. “Look at them. That’s Derek’s sister and her little sycophants by the ice sculpture. They’ve spent the last six months waiting to see if I’d crawl into a hole after Derek announced this damn engagement party. I told you what the brief was. I gave it to you in the car.”
“You gave me a lot of instructions in the car,” Julian murmured softly.
“Then follow them!” My voice dropped an octave, tight with panic. “I said possessive. I said confident. I said touch my waist like you can’t stand being four inches away from me, and if someone asks what you do, you say you manage international logistics and you’re taking me to Lisbon next month. You’re supposed to make Derek feel like a stepping stone. A cheap rehearsal before the real thing.”
Julian took a slow sip of his club soda. The wedge of lime bobbed against the ice. I hadn’t seen him touch a drop of alcohol all evening, even when the white-gloved waiters offered flutes of vintage Dom Pérignon on silver trays. When I had asked him about it earlier, he had merely said, *I need a clear head when I’m with you.* At the time, I thought it was agency policy. Now, it just felt unnervingly deliberate.
“Derek isn’t looking at you, Clara,” Julian said gently. There was no mockery in his tone, only an agonizing, patient gravity that grated against my raw nerves. “And even if he were, you don’t owe him a performance.”
“I owe *myself* this,” I snapped, digging my manicured nails into the satin of my clutch. “I gave that man three years. Three years of organizing his life, tolerating his mother, editing his pitch decks, and smiling while he told everyone at brunch that I was ‘finding myself’ as an archivist. And then he dumped me over a cold text on a Tuesday afternoon because I was ‘too fragile’ for his trajectory. You don’t understand that kind of humiliation, Julian. People who look like you don’t get discarded.”
A shadow crossed Julian’s face—something ancient, dark, and profoundly tired. He opened his mouth as if to say something heavy enough to crack the floorboards beneath us, then closed it.
Instead, he reached into his breast pocket, drew out a small, plain white envelope, and slipped it toward the pocket of my clutch.
I looked down. It was the envelope of cash I had handed him in the back of the car. The seal was still unbroken.
“What is this?” I hissed, pushing it back toward his chest.
“Keep it,” he said quietly.
“Excuse me? No. Absolutely not.” My heart spiked against my ribs. “We agreed on the fee. I don’t take charity from men, Julian, and I especially don’t take charity from people I’m employing. Take your money.”
“I don’t want your money, Clara.”
“Then why did you accept the booking?” I demanded, glaring up at him. The tent heaters were humming overhead, blowing dry, artificial warmth across the room, but my fingertips were freezing. “Your agency rep—or whatever that service is called—said you were their highest tier. Discreet. Unflappable. If you don’t want the cash, what are you doing here?”
Julian stared down at me. Under the glow of the crystal chandeliers suspended from the marquee’s vaulted canvas, his eyes were the color of rain-soaked slate. There were faint, silver-threaded lines at the corners of them, lines that suggested he had spent years squinting into harsh light or carrying burdens in silence.
“I’m here because you called,” he said simply.
“That’s literally a job description!”
“Then let me do the job,” he countered, his voice dropping into that rhythmic, soothing cadence again. “Breathe, Clara. Drop your shoulders. You’re holding your breath in your throat.”
I hadn’t even realized I was doing it. My shoulders were pinned to my ears, the muscles in my neck coiled like steel wires. I forced an exhale through my nose, irritated that an escort had clocked my physical tension before I had.
Before I could retort, a server passed by carrying an enormous decorative pedestal topped with an arrangement of white lilies and blooming gardenias. The heavy, sweet, suffocating fragrance hit the air like a wall of syrup.
Before the scent could even register fully in my nostrils, Julian’s hand was on the small of my back.
He didn’t ask. He didn’t hesitate. With an effortless, fluid pivot, he turned my body away from the corridor, stepping directly between me and the floral arrangement. He blocked the airflow with his broad frame, creating an immediate, physical pocket of neutral air.
“Julian? What are you—”
“Turn toward the terrace doors,” he murmured in my ear, his breath warm against my temple. “The cross-breeze is better there.”
I froze. A prickle of cold sweat broke out across my forehead.
“How did you know?” I whispered, staring at the lapel of his tuxedo.
“Know what?”
“Gardenias.” My voice shook slightly. “They trigger my vestibular migraines. Within ten minutes of smelling them, my vision tunnels. I didn’t put that in the agency form. I know I didn’t, because I only wrote down Derek’s name, his fiancée’s name, and what suit you should wear.”
