Chapter 2

Julian didn’t blink. His expression remained a fortress of calm, though I caught the subtle twitch of a muscle in his jaw.

“You mentioned it in the car,” he lied smoothly. “When we drove past the florist on Elm.”

“Did I?” I pressed the heel of my palm against my forehead. A dull, rhythmic throb was pulsing behind my right eye, making the chandeliers smear into streaks of gold. Did we drive past Elm? Elm Street was on the other side of town. But the car ride was already getting hazy, like trying to remember a movie I had watched through frosted glass. I remembered getting dressed. I remembered the sickening panic of opening Derek’s invitation. I remembered sitting at my desk with the phone in my hand, dialing the agency number scribbled on a torn slip of yellow notepad paper...

*Had* I told him? I must have. I was rambling in the car. I was terrified of falling apart in public.

“You did,” Julian affirmed, his fingers lingering on my back with a steady, grounding pressure that felt so natural it made my chest ache. “You said white flowers make you sick to your stomach. Come on. Drink some water.”

“I don’t want water, I want a drink,” I muttered stubbornly.

A passing waiter offered a tray of champagne flutes. I reached out, desperate for the sting of alcohol to drown out the sudden, cold buzzing in my skull. But as my fingers closed around the slender crystal stem, my hand gave a sudden, violent tremor.

The glass tipped. The golden liquid lurched toward the rim, about to drench the front of my three-hundred-dollar emerald silk dress.

Before gravity could finish the job, Julian’s hand shot out.

His reflexes were instantaneous, almost terrifyingly instinctive. His left hand caught the falling flute by the stem, steadying it without spilling a single drop, while his right hand encircled my wrist.

Not with the tentative grip of a stranger, but with an absolute, practiced familiarity.

His long fingers curved around my pulse point. His thumb found the exact hollow between the two tendons of my inner wrist, pressing down with firm, steady pressure—the exact acupressure spot my college roommate used to tell me about, applied with the precision of a surgeon.

“I have it,” he said softly, handing the flute back to the wide-eyed waiter with a curt nod of dismissal. “I’ve got you, Clara.”

I looked down at his hand around my wrist.

His skin was warm, slightly rough from calluses along the pads of his fingers, and against my skin, his touch carried an electric, shocking shockwave of safety. My nervous system, which had been screaming at high alert for the past forty-eight hours, suddenly went dead quiet. It was the physical equivalent of coming inside from a blizzard into a room with a roaring fire.

It was wrong. It was completely, fundamentally wrong.

You do not feel safe with a man you hired off the internet two hours ago. You do not feel your racing heartbeat slow down simply because a paid escort touches your radial artery.

“You can let go now,” I whispered, my throat dry.

Julian hesitated for a fraction of a second. Slowly, reluctantly, his fingers slid away from my wrist, leaving behind a phantom trail of warmth.

As his hand dropped, his tuxedo sleeve rode up an inch, exposing his watch.

It was an antique Omega Seamaster, with a faded navy dial and a worn, dark brown leather strap that had softened to the texture of butter. The stainless steel bezel bore a distinctive, crescent-shaped scratch right across the four o’clock marker.

A wave of intense, nauseating déjà vu slammed into me.

I stared at that scratch. My mouth opened, but no words came out. I had seen that scratch before. I knew the exact feel of that leather band. In my mind’s eye, for a split second that vanished like smoke, I saw that watch sitting on a nightstand next to a half-empty mug of chamomile tea and a stack of leather-bound historical journals.

*No. That’s absurd.*

“That watch,” I croaked, pointing a trembling finger.

Julian froze. He pulled his cuff down with a casual, deliberate tug, concealing the face. “What about it?”

“Where did you get it?”

“It was a gift,” he said quietly, his voice tight. “A long time ago.”

“From who?”

“Clara, please.” There was a crack in his armor now, a raw, bleeding edge of vulnerability that frightened me far more than his aloofness. “Don’t do this to yourself right now. Look ahead.”

I snapped my head around.

Coming toward us down the central aisle of the marquee, parting the crowd like a smug, tailored wedge, was Derek’s inner circle.

Leading the pack was Greg Thornton—Derek’s closest friend from their corporate venture capital days, a man whose entire personality was built around six-figure bonuses and casual cruelty. Trailing beside him was his wife, Vanessa, clad in champagne lace, scanning the room like a hawk looking for wounded mice.

My stomach dropped straight through the floor. The momentary mystery of Julian’s watch evaporated, replaced by the sheer, cold terror of social execution.

“They’re coming,” I hissed, stepping closer to Julian. “Julian, this is it. Please. Play the part. Put your arm around me.”

Julian didn’t move immediately. He looked at the approaching couple, his grey eyes turning to ice. A dangerous, lethal stillness settled over his frame—the kind of stillness that belonged to an apex predator sizing up an annoyance.

“Is that Derek?” Julian asked, his voice dead and flat.

“No, that’s Greg. His best friend. Derek is over by the stage with... with her.” I couldn’t bring myself to say the fiancée’s name. “Greg is worse. Greg was there the night Derek packed his bags. Greg laughed when Derek told me I needed to grow up and get a real corporate career.”

A muscle in Julian’s jaw leaped. Slowly, deliberately, he raised his arm and draped it across my shoulders.

He didn’t do the light, polite escort-hover. He drew me in against his side with an unyielding, heavy possessiveness that knocked the wind right out of me. His chest was solid against my shoulder, smelling of sandalwood, clean rain, and the faint, unmistakable scent of cedar.

I clung to his lapel with one hand, plastering on the brightest, most porcelain smile I could muster.

“Well, well,” Greg’s voice drawled as he stopped three feet in front of us, swirling a glass of scotch. His eyes raked over me, from my styled auburn curls down to the emerald hem, lingering with a patronizing smirk. “Clara Albright. We all placed bets on whether you’d actually show. Derek was convinced you’d be hiding under a duvet in that tiny walk-up of yours.”

Vanessa gave a sharp, high-pitched titter behind her manicured hand. “Oh, be nice, Greg. It’s brave of her. Really brave. Most women wouldn’t have the stomach to attend their ex-fiancé’s celebration after the way things... ended.”

The word *ended* hung in the air like a slap. My face burned, the heat crawling up my neck in humiliating waves. I opened my mouth to deliver the biting, rehearsed line I had practiced in the bathroom mirror twenty times, but the words withered on my tongue. The old, familiar paralysis seized my throat—the same paralysis that always gripped me whenever Derek’s friends turned their collective gaze on me like a magnifying glass over an ant.

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