Rain soaked my shoes as I rounded the Brooklyn street corner.

My boyfriend was pressed against a town car, a woman in Chanel curling manicured fingers into his threadbare collar.

"Sloane," he sighed, looking more inconvenienced than guilty.

I walked away with an eviction notice and twenty-three dollars to my name.

"This billionaire's wife-search pays five grand just to apply," my roommate shoved her phone at me.

"He demands a Yoshi main with a strawberry allergy who drinks instant coffee."

I stared at my lukewarm mug.

The faceless CEO wasn't auditioning strangers.

***

SLOANE’S POV

My boyfriend cheated, I got fired by a nasty boss, and now my landlord's kicking me to the curb.

Looks like I'm about to be homeless.

The kind of red on the eviction notice screams, “Get your broke ass out of my building before I call the police.”

One suitcase. Only Twenty-three dollars left.

“Fuck,” I whispered.

The apartment—if you could call this shoebox with a hot plate an apartment—looked like a crime scene where the victim was my dignity.

My room's a wreck, kind of like my life.

I actually managed to cook some spaghetti in the middle of this dump, but then I tripped and it went flying everywhere — and that's when I finally broke down.

One month ago. Rain slicking the sidewalks of Brooklyn.

My soaked ballet flats squelching toward the basement apartment Dane and I had shared for two years. Two fucking years.

Through his “artist” phase.

Through his “I need space to find myself” phase.

Through his “I’m between jobs but my vision is priceless” phase.

I rounded the corner and stopped.

Dane. My Dane. The man who couldn’t afford a haircut but somehow always had money for artisanal pour- over coffee.

He was pressed against a town car, lips fused to a face of woman who smelled like Chanel No. 5 and generational wealth even from twenty feet away.

Her manicured fingers curled around his threadbare collar.

He didn’t push her away.

He looks so happy — the smile that completely disappeared during our two years together.

And back when we first met, that was exactly how we smiled at each other.

So what the hell happened to us?

The worst part? When his eyes flicked open and met mine over her shoulder, he didn’t look guilty. He looked… inconvenienced. Like I was a pop-up ad he couldn’t close fast enough.

“Sloane.” His mouth shaped my name like I was a stranger.

The woman turned. Diamonds at her throat. Hair that cost more than my monthly rent. She looked at me like I was a trash just discarded away.

I said nothing. What was there to say? Congratulations on your upgrade, hope she enjoys your morning breath and your inability to load a dishwasher?

I just turned and walked. The rain hid the tears. No one can see me like this, all broken and pathetic. Small mercies.

When I saw those flowers, yes, the ones my boss, who always sexually harasses me, forced me on —

The memory dissolved, replaced by yesterday’s fresh disaster.

My boss Mr. Hendricks. Fifty-four. Married. Gut that strained his button-down like a pregnancy announcement. He’d cornered me by the water cooler, breath sour with tuna salad, and said, “Sloane, sweetheart, a girl with your assets shouldn’t be wasting them in an entry-level position.”

His hand found my waist.

My palm found his cheek.

The slap echoed through the entire floor. Coworkers’ heads popped up over cubicle walls like startled meerkats.

HR called me in before my hand stopped stinging. No severance. No reference. Security escorted me out with my sad little desk plant and my dignity still vibrating in my fingertips.

Worth it, I’d thought then.

Now, staring at an eviction notice and a suitcase that held everything I owned, I was slightly less convinced.

The door burst open.

“Sloane!”

Piper exploded into the room like a glitter bomb had gained sentience. Her phone was clutched in her hand, screen glowing, eyes wild with that manic energy she usually reserved for sample sales and true crime podcasts.

“Jesus, Piper.” I pressed a hand to my chest. “Ever heard of knocking?”

“No time.” She shoved the phone inches from my face. “Read. Now. Your rent is saved.”

I squinted at the screen.

BILLIONAIRE HEIR DECLAN VANCE LAUNCHES NATIONWIDE SEARCH FOR “PERFECT WIFE”

Beneath the headline: a photograph. A man’s silhouette against floor-to-ceiling windows, city skyline bleeding into dusk behind him. No face. Just broad shoulders, dark hair, and a suit that probably cost more than my entire undergraduate degree.

“Absolutely not,” I said, turning back to my suitcase. “Some rich asshole wants to audition women like livestock? Hard pass.”

“Five thousand dollars,” Piper said.

“I said No! ”

“How is this any different from being a hooker? ”

“I’m sorry, I misspoke.” She grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. “Five thousand is what you get for submitting the application. If you get selected for the first round of in-person interviews, it’s fifty thousand.

And if you actually win?” Her voice cracked. “Sloane, the contract is worth millions.”

I blinked.

Come on. You have no choices, poor girl.

“Five thousand just for applying?” My voice came out smaller than I wanted.

“Guaranteed. It’s in the fine print. I already read the whole thing.10 times.” Piper was scrolling now, her acrylic nails clicking against the screen. “Okay wait, this is the weird part. The guy has this list of… requirements.”

“Requirements?”

“Yeah, like—” She cleared her throat. “Height must be exactly five-foot-four. Severe strawberry allergy. Non- negotiable.”

Strange requirements. What the hell is wrong with this billionaire?

“Mario Kart main must be Yoshi,” Piper continued, frowning. “Average race score not exceeding fifty points.

Drinks instant coffee specifically, with exactly two and a half pumps of generic vanilla syrup. No brand names.”

I stopped breathing.

My hand moved, slow and involuntary, toward the mug on my nightstand. Lukewarm instant coffee. Two and a half pumps of the off-brand vanilla goo Piper had gotten me as a gag gift last Christmas.

“Piper.”

She kept reading. “Let’s see… must prefer sleeping on the left side of the bed. Must sing off-key in the shower. Must have a weirdly specific hatred for the font Comic Sans.”

“Piper.”

She looked up.

I pointed at the mug. Then at myself. Then at my Switch Lite sitting on the pillow, Mario Kart cartridge still inserted, my Yoshi stats staring back at me with their pitiful forty-seven-point average.

“No fucking way,” Piper whispered.

“This can’t be real.”

“It’s real. It’s—Sloane, this is you. Every single detail. Down to the vanilla syrup. Down to the font hatred.”

She grabbed my shoulders. “Do you know what this means?”

“That I’m a cliché?” My heart was hammering now, a wild, ridiculous hope blooming behind my ribs. “That somehow my entire personality was written by a billionaire’s lonely assistant?”

“It means,” Piper said, her grip tightening, “the universe finally stopped shitting on you.”

I stared at the phone. At the silhouette. At the promise of five thousand dollars just for existing in the precise, weird, specific way I already existed.

Dane’s face flickered through my mind. His inconvenienced expression. The Chanel woman’s dismissive glance.

Mr. Hendricks’ tuna breath. The sting of unemployment.

The eviction notice. That fucking red.

“Give me the phone,” I said.

Piper handed it over without a word.

My thumbs moved faster than they’d ever moved. Name: Sloane Beckett. Age: 24. Height: 5’4”. Allergies:

Strawberries (anaphylactic). Coffee preference: Instant, two-and-a-half pumps vanilla. Mario Kart main:

Yoshi. Score: Never above 50.

I didn’t let myself think about how a stranger could know these things. I didn’t let myself wonder about the silhouette in the photo or the shape of those shoulders or the nagging feeling that something about this was too perfect, too precise, too designed.

I just hit Submit.

The screen flashed green.

APPLICATION RECEIVED.

I looked up at Piper, my chest tight, my blood hot, my future suddenly not a black hole of despair but a question mark printed on a check for five thousand dollars.

“I’m getting that money,” I said. “I don’t care what I have to do. I don’t care who this Declan Vance is. I’m getting that fucking money.”

Piper grinned.

And somewhere, in a penthouse I couldn’t imagine affording, a silhouette that didn’t know my name yet was about to learn it.

Whether he wanted to or not.

SLOANE'S POV

The Hamilton-Vance Tower didn't just scrape the sky. It owned it.

I stood in the lobby, craning my neck at a chandelier that probably cost more than the GDP of a small island nation, and felt my one good pair of heels—scuffed at the left toe, resoled twice—sink into carpet so plush it might as well have been made of angel wings.

"Name?" The receptionist didn't look up. Her cheekbones could have cut glass. Her voice could have frozen vodka.

"Sloane Beckett. I'm here for the—"

"Fourth floor. Ballroom C. Next."

She thrust a numbered placard at me—47, lucky me—and turned her attention to the woman behind me.

That woman was draped in Valentino, trailing a personal stylist and what appeared to be a small emotional- support poodle wearing a diamond collar.

I gripped my placard.

The elevator ride was a masterclass in comparative self-loathing. Six other women crowded in with me. One was adjusting her Cartier bracelet. Another was practicing her "genuine, approachable smile" into a compact mirror. A third was on the phone with someone named "Father," confirming that the jet would be waiting at

Teterboro "should this little pageant prove beneath us."

I looked at my reflection in the polished brass doors.

Discount suit. Navy blue. Bought at a Macy's clearance rack three years ago for a job interview I didn't get.

My hair was behaving mostly, which was a minor miracle. No diamonds. No poodle. No jet.

"First time?" The Cartier woman glanced at me, eyes sweeping my outfit like it was a biohazard.

"First and last," I said. "I'm just here for the participation check."

Her laugh was a tiny, dismissive puff of air. "How adorable. You actually think you'll make the first round."

The elevator doors slid open before I could respond.

Ballroom C was a slaughterhouse disguised as a debutante ball.

Rows of velvet chairs. Crystal chandeliers dripping light onto a sea of designer gowns. A stage at the far end.

And everywhere—everywhere—women who looked like they'd been genetically engineered for this exact moment. Cheekbones. Collarbones. Hair that cascaded in waves requiring professional lighting.

I found my seat and tried not to breathe too loud.

A woman two chairs over was reviewing a leather-bound dossier on Declan Vance's "known philanthropic interests." Another was doing vocal warm-ups, trilling soft scales under her breath.

My preparation, by contrast, had consisted of a Google search that yielded precisely three photographs—all silhouettes or partial profiles—and a Wikipedia page with exactly one sentence: "Declan Vance is the CEO of

Vance Industries, a privately held conglomerate."

His net worth was listed as "undisclosed."

Which is billionaire-speak for more than you can possibly imagine, peasant.

"Ladies."

A woman in a severe charcoal suit strode onto the stage. No smile. No warmth. A tablet clutched in one hand like a weapon. "I am Ms. Kruger, Senior Vice President of Candidate Acquisition. You will each receive a questionnaire. You have ninety minutes. Answer honestly. Attempts to anticipate preferred responses will be flagged by our AI and result in immediate disqualification."

A murmur rippled through the crowd.

"Questionnaire?" The Valentino woman from the elevator raised a manicured hand. "When does the runway portion begin? I was told there would be a swimsuit category."

Ms. Kruger's expression didn't flicker. "This is not a beauty pageant. Mr. Vance is seeking a life partner, not a centerfold. The questionnaire is the entirety of today's assessment."

I almost laughed.

Fifty pages.

It was fifty fucking pages.

The booklet landed on my lap with the weight of a university textbook. Questions upon questions upon questions. Multiple choice. Fill-in-the-blank. Short answer. Scenarios so bizarre I had to read them twice.

Question 14: Your partner arrives home at 2 a.m. after a catastrophic business meeting. He has not eaten in fourteen hours. What do you prepare?

The Cartier woman's pen flew across the page. I caught a glimpse of her answer: "My private chef, Jean-

Claude, would prepare a five-course tasting menu with wine pairings from the cellar. Truffle risotto to start

—"

I wrote: Grilled cheese. Extra butter. Burnt on one side because that's how the pan always tilts on my stove.

Question 27: Your partner's favorite shirt has acquired a hole in the left sleeve. It cost approximately

$11,000. Describe your approach.

My pen hovered.

Dane's face flickered through my mind. Not the Dane who kissed the Chanel woman. The Dane from before.

The one who'd come home from the garage, grease-stained and exhausted, his favorite band tee torn at the elbow. I'd spent an hour stitching a tiny dinosaur over the hole. A cartoon T-Rex with orange thread and googly proportions. He'd laughed for five minutes straight, then worn it three times that week.

I blinked the memory away.

On the questionnaire, I wrote: I'd sew a dinosaur over the hole. A really ugly one. With orange thread.

Question 31: Describe your ideal Sunday morning.

Instant coffee. Lukewarm by 9 a.m. because I forgot I made it. Left side of the bed. No alarm.

Question 42: You are playing Mario Kart. Your opponent, a child of approximately eight years, is winning.

Do you let them win?

Absolutely not. But I'm still losing because I'm terrible. Yoshi can only do so much.

Question 55: List all known food allergies.

Strawberries. Anaphylactic. EpiPen lives in my purse.

Question 61: You discover a new cafe. What is the first thing you order, and how do you modify it?

Large black coffee, two and a half pumps of vanilla syrup. The cheap kind. If they only have name-brand syrups, I leave.

Around me, women were sweating. Literally sweating. One was hyperventilating into a silk handkerchief.

Another had requested a second booklet after claiming she'd "made a strategic error" on Question 9— something about preferred opera composers.

I finished in forty-seven minutes.

I didn't check my answers. I didn't strategize. I just wrote what was true, handed the booklet to Ms. Kruger, and sat back in my chair.

The five thousand was all I needed. One more round—the guaranteed in-person interview bonus—would be fifty thousand. That was the number I kept in my head. Fifty thousand dollars. Six months of rent. Breathing room. A chance to find another job without panhandling outside a bodega.

"Time," Ms. Kruger announced.

The booklets were collected. The women around me started whispering, comparing notes, fretting about their answers. I heard someone moan, "I said I'd call the dry cleaner for the wine stain, do you think I should have said the tailor?"

I closed my eyes and imagined my bank account with a comma in it.

---

DECLAN'S POV

“Notify her immediately. She gets the black card.”

Hayes blinked. "The VIP pass is reserved for the final round. If we accelerate the timeline—"

"She gets the black card." Declan's voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. "And the fifty-thousand-dollar deposit.

Transfer now. Before she leaves the building."

"And the others?"

"Clear them out." Declan moved closer to the glass. His reflection ghosted over her image—Sloane, sitting in that cheap navy suit, completely oblivious to the fact that she'd just won a game she didn't know she was playing. "I've found what I wanted."

Hayes hesitated. "Sir, her profile indicates she's recently unemployed. Recently single. Her bank account currently holds twenty-three dollars. She may interpret this as—"

"Good." Declan's mouth curved. Not a smile. Something sharper. "Desperate women don't run."

---

SLOANE'S POV

Ms. Kruger returned to the stage with an expression I couldn't read.

"Ladies." Her voice cut through the chatter. "The results are in. Mr. Vance has made his decision."

The room went silent. Women straightened. Smiles locked into place. The Cartier lady fluffed her hair.

"The winner of today's selection event—" Kruger paused, glanced at her tablet, and for the briefest moment, her professional mask cracked. Something like disbelief crossed her features before she controlled it. "Is candidate forty-seven. Sloane Beckett."

The silence that followed was the loudest thing I'd ever heard.

"OMG, Excuse me?" someone hissed.

"This hick?! Must be a mistake," the Valentino woman said.

My phone buzzed.

I looked down. A notification from my banking app. A deposit. Fifty thousand dollars.

Not five thousand.

I stared at the screen so long the numbers blurred.

"I'm sorry," I said, standing on legs that didn't feel entirely attached to my body. "The participation bonus is —I thought the deposit was five thousand?"

Ms. Kruger's smile was a thin line of something I couldn't name. "The participation bonus was for candidates who are not selected. You, Ms. Beckett, have been selected. Fifty thousand is the first-round advancement bonus. Additional compensation will be discussed at your final-round interview."

The Cartier woman stood up so fast her chair toppled backward. "This is absurd. She's wearing off-the-rack.

She doesn't even have a stylist. Her shoes are scuffed."

"My shoes are fine," I said, but my voice came out distant.

Because I'd just looked up.

Past the stage. Past Ms. Kruger. At the far wall of the ballroom, where a massive panel of black glass reflected the chandeliers and the chaos and my own wide-eyed expression. Something about that glass.

It was too dark.

Too reflective.

I squinted. And for a fraction of a second, I could have sworn I saw movement behind it. The faintest shift of a silhouette. Broad shoulders. Dark hair.

Then Kruger was pressing a black card into my palm—matte finish, gold lettering, VIP stamped in a font that screamed old money—and the moment dissolved.

"Your final interview is scheduled for Friday. Details will be emailed." She turned to the rest of the room.

"Everyone else, please exit to the elevators. Security will escort you."

The protests erupted behind me as I walked toward the door. Outrage. Confusion. Someone was crying. The poodle was barking. I didn't look back.

The black card was cool against my fingers.

Fifty thousand dollars was warm in my bank account.

This billionaire doesn't just have bad taste, I thought. He's a full-on creep.

Then my phone buzzed again—rent payment reminder: PAID—and the thought evaporated like cheap vanilla syrup in hot coffee.

I clutched the black card and walked out.

SLOANE'S POV

The training room smelled like desperation and expensive potpourri.

Mrs. Whitmore circled us like a vulture in Chanel, her thin frame cutting through the sunlight that streamed through floor-to-ceiling windows. A leather-bound book balanced on each of our heads. Not a paperback. Not a hardcover. A tome. The kind of leather-bound monstrosity that old men in smoking jackets read while ignoring their wives.

"Ladies." Her voice was cut glass. "A Vance wife does not slouch. A Vance wife does not fidget. A Vance wife moves through a room like water—silent, invisible, essential."

I wobbled.

The book tilted left. My neck screamed. My spine was staging a revolt.

"Ms. Beckett." Mrs. Whitmore materialized behind me, her breath cold against my ear. "Your posture suggests you're preparing to throw a punch, not greet a duke."

"The duke might deserve it."

Someone gasped. The Cartier woman from the elevator—Tinsley, I'd learned, because of course that was her name—shot me a look of pure venom.

Mrs. Whitmore didn't flinch. She just pointed to the door. "Corridor. Now. Reflection time."

Reflection time. As if standing in a hallway with my nose against wallpaper would somehow make my spine less working-class.

I didn't run. But I didn't walk slow either.

The corridor outside was empty. Marble floors. Gold leaf trim. Oil portraits of dead Vance ancestors glaring down at me like I'd personally insulted their bloodline. I lasted approximately forty-five seconds before my feet started moving on their own.

I'd memorized the employee passages by day two. The service elevator with its scratched buttons. The back stairwell that smelled like industrial cleaner. The hallway behind the kitchen where the air conditioning actually worked. And somewhere, if I turned left at the broken water fountain and right at the dead potted plant—there.

The vending machine glowed like a beacon in the dim light.

I pressed my forehead against the glass. Black coffee. Bottom row. Three dollars and fifty cents. I fished a crumpled five from my blazer pocket—this ridiculous silk thing they'd made me wear, cream-colored, already stained at the cuff—and fed it into the slot.

The machine whirred. Gurgled. And stopped.

My coffee sat there. Hanging. Inches from the drop tray.

"No," I whispered. "No, you piece of—"

I kicked it. Hard. The impact vibrated through my heel and the machine didn't even rattle. Just hummed at me, smug and indifferent.

Twenty-three dollars in my bank account. Old Sloane would have wept. New Sloane, the one with fifty thousand dollars she couldn't technically access until "contractual obligations were fulfilled," still had exactly twenty-three dollars and now a vending machine was robbing her blind.

A hand reached past my head.

I froze.

Barely an inch from my ear. Long fingers, a dusting of dark hair, a sleeve rolled to the elbow revealing a forearm that belonged on a statue. And the can dropped with a hollow clunk.

"Stuck?"

The voice hit me before I turned around.

Low. Familiar in a way that made my stomach clench before my brain understood why.

I spun.

And there he was.

Dane.

Dane.

Standing in a dim employee corridor in the Hamilton-Vance Tower, sleeves rolled up, shirt untucked at the waist, top two buttons undone. His tie hung loose around his neck, yanked to one side like he'd been trying to strangle himself and gave up halfway through. His dark hair was disheveled. His jaw was sharp enough to cut.

For three full seconds I couldn't speak.

"You," I finally managed.

"Hello, Sloane."

He said my name the way he used to. Slow. Deliberate. Like it was something he was holding in his mouth to see how it tasted.

My brain was doing gymnastics. Reconciling the man I'd last seen kissing a Chanel heiress against a town car with this man—this man, in a corporate tower, looking like he'd just stepped out of a boardroom meltdown.

"Wow." The word came out half-laugh, half-snarl. "Dane. Holy shit." I looked him up and down, cataloging every detail. The shirt. The watch. The way he stood, one shoulder propped against the vending machine, crowding my space without even trying. "From the garage to the Hamilton-Vance security team? That's a career trajectory."

His mouth twitched.

"Or wait." I tapped my chin. "Valet? You're parking cars now? Those suits are rented, right? Because the last time I saw you, your rent was three months late and your only suit jacket had a mustard stain."

Something moved behind his eyes. A flicker. I couldn't read it.

"Something like that," he said.

"You don't deny it?"

"Would it matter if I did?"

His voice was different. I couldn't place how. Lower, maybe. Or just more controlled. The old Dane would've fired back already, wounded ego flaring, face twisting into that defensive pout I knew too well. This Dane just watched me. His stillness was unnerving.

"Does your sugar mommy know you're here?" I crossed my arms. "The Chanel woman. Rich, blonde, diamonds at the throat. Or have you already moved on to a new mark?"

His jaw tightened.

"She know you're working two jobs to keep up appearances? Or is the valet gig just for fun money?"

"Sloane."

"Because I've gotta say, Dane, I didn't think you had it in you. Holding down a job. Any job. The man I lived with couldn't load a dishwasher without a pep talk."

"Are you done?"

"No." My chest was tight. Heat crawling up my neck. "I'm not done. You show up here, in my hallway, looking like—" I gestured at him, this whole infuriating package, the rolled sleeves and the sharp jaw and the way he smelled, which I was noticing now despite myself. Something dark and expensive. Sandalwood?

Vetiver? Why did a valet smell like a niche fragrance counter? "—like that. And you just say my name and expect—what? What exactly do you expect, Dane?"

He pushed off the machine.

The motion brought him closer. Too close. He was taller than I remembered—easily six-three—and I had to tilt my head back to keep eye contact. His chest was right there. Solid. Visible through the thin white cotton.

I put a hand up without thinking. My palm met muscle and stopped. Flat against his sternum. The heat of him bled through the fabric. I could feel his heartbeat. Steady. Too steady.

"Moved in for the view?" His voice dropped. "I know the security team doesn't pay much. Had to get creative."

The bastard was using my words against me.

"Creative," I repeated, aiming for disdain and landing somewhere breathless. "Right. Because sneaking into a billionaire's wife-search as a parking attendant is definitely a solid life plan."

He stepped forward.

I stepped back.

The vending machine was suddenly against my spine, cold and humming and unyielding. His arms came up on either side of my head. Not touching. Just there. Palms flat against the glass. Caging me in.

"The wife-search," he said, looking down at me, "is a circus. You know that, right? Rich asshole can't find a date, so he makes a game show out of it."

"Says the valet."

"Says the man who's watched you for—" He stopped. His eyes moved over my face. "You really believe in this.

The black card. The training. The curtsy lessons."

"It's not about belief. It's about fifty thousand dollars."

"So you are desperate."

The words landed like a slap.

I shoved at his chest. He didn't move. Not an inch. His hand caught my wrist, fingers wrapping around the delicate skin where my pulse hammered, and he just held it. Not hard. Not rough. His thumb moved—once, twice—against the inside of my wrist.

"Don't," I said.

"Don't what?"

"Touch me like you know me."

"I know you better than anyone."

"Bullshit. You knew the version of me that paid your rent and believed your lies. You don't know this version.

The one who's about to get rich off some mysterious billionaire's very specific checklist."

His eyes narrowed. "Checklist?"

"You haven't seen the news? Declan Vance wants a woman who drinks instant coffee with two and a half pumps of vanilla. Who plays Yoshi. Who's exactly five-four. And I'm perfect for him. I'm literally his dream girl on paper." I laughed, sharp and jagged. "So while you're downstairs parking his cars, I'll be upstairs marrying him."

The silence that followed was strange.

Too long.

Too loaded.

"Dane?" My wrist was still in his grip. His thumb had stopped moving. "What?"

"Sloane." His voice had changed again. Something urgent underneath it. Something almost—desperate? "The woman. That day. The one you saw me with. She wasn't—"

"Don't." The word ripped out of me. "Do not dare stand here and explain her to me. I saw you. I saw your face. You looked right at me and you didn't stop. You didn't chase me. You didn't call. For a month, Dane. A month."

"She's my—"

"Mr. Vance!"

The voice echoed down the corridor.

I twisted in his arms. Hayes—the nervy little guy from the IT department, always hunched over a tablet—was standing at the far end of the hallway, pale as a sheet, eyes wide as saucers.

"I've been looking everywhere for you, sir, the board meeting has reconvened and Ms. Kruger is—"

He stopped. Registered the scene. My back against the vending machine. Dane's arms caging me in. Our faces inches apart.

"Am I interrupting?" Hayes squeaked.

"Yes," Declan said.

"No," I said at the same time.

I ducked under his arm. My wrist slipped from his grip. The air where his body had been was suddenly cold.

"Go to your meeting," I said, not looking at him. Straightening my blazer. Smoothing my hair. "Go park a car.

Go do whatever it is you do now. I have curtsy lessons to fail."

"Sloane."

I walked.

My heels clicked against the marble, past Hayes, past the dead potted plant, past the oil portraits and their disapproving glares. I didn't run. Running would mean he mattered.

But my wrist was still warm where his thumb had been.

And I could feel his eyes on my back until I turned the corner.