The kind of smile I hadn’t seen since yesterday.
I stiffened.
She wasn’t just pretty. She was the kind of woman men wrote songs about. Full and plush and wide open. The opposite of me in every way.
Where I was tall and willowy—an aesthetic that lived somewhere between Vogue editorial and vaguely intimidating—she was softness and sunshine, the kind of woman you’d want to see in your kitchen at sunrise wearing nothing but one of your old shirts and a smile.
And he was looking at her.
Not touching. Not flirting, exactly. But engaged. Interested.
My stomach tightened.
It was ridiculous. I had no claim. We hadn’t made promises. I’d dragged him into that room and let things spiral because I’d needed an outlet, not a future.
So why the hell did I feel like I’d just been slapped?
Why did my skin itch under my carefully chosen dress, my mouth suddenly dry, my chest hot with something dangerously close to hurt?
Jealousy was beneath me. I didn’t do insecure. I didn’t compare myself to other women. I was in control. Always.
But still … I couldn’t stop staring. Couldn’t stop wondering what she was saying that made his head tip like that. What she’d said to make his eyes soften.
What if she was his type?
What if everything I wasn’t—was exactly what he wanted?
I could no sooner become short, light-skinned, and blessed with big, pillowy breasts than I could become a fire-breathing cello prodigy who summers in Monaco and drinks warm milk before bed. It just wasn’t me. It would never be me.
I was long lines and hard angles. High cheekbones, sharp tongue. Skin the color of burnt honey, hair usually in a sleek twist because curls invited too many hands. I was built for stilettos, not softness. Designed for power, not surrender.
So if he wanted someone soft and sweet and made for spooning? I couldn’t give him that. Not even if I tried.
And if I wasn’t his type—if our time together had been nothing more than a curiosity, moments of heat that passed as quickly as they flared—then what?
What did that make me?
“You’re doing it again.”
Monte’s voice came from just over my shoulder. Warm. Low. Impossible to ignore.
I turned toward him. “Doing what?”
“That thing where your jaw tightens and your eyes narrow and you pretend you’re studying architecture when really you’re burning holes into someone’s soul.”
I huffed, trying for lightness. “I’m fine.”
He tilted his head. “You’re not. But okay.”
I looked away. “She’s not even that?—”
“Don’t,” he said quietly. “You don’t need to compete.”
Something in his tone made me stop. I looked at him fully, really looked, and for a second—just a second—I saw something in his eyes I wasn’t ready to name.
Monte had always been steady. Loyal. The calm beneath my chaos.
But right now, that steadiness carried weight. Something unspoken. Something fragile.
