Meghan’s gaze sharpened on me. “And who are you, Amelia?”
I thought of my parents at the table, the kitchen light too bright. My father correcting himself in front of me. My mother apologizing when she’d snapped. The unspoken rule that we did not lie in that house, not even about small things.
“I’m someone who’s built her entire life on telling the truth,” I said. “So the idea of hiding any of this from my editor feels like … treason.”
“And yet,” Camille said gently, “you did, right?”
I met her eyes. “Yeah. I did.”
Hazel reached over and squeezed my hand. “That’s not you betraying yourself,” she said. “That’s you adding nuance.”
We laughed, the tension easing.
Meghan shook her head, half in disbelief, half in awe. “Seven Charleston Danes,” she muttered, circling back. “Seven Montana Danes. Fourteen men wired like that.”
The number hit me all over again—not just as trivia, but as a future. A whole ecosystem I hadn’t known existed, and now I was somehow orbiting it.
And Levi …
The thought brushed against something deep in my chest—warm, unsettling, a little dangerous. I wasn’t planning a wedding. But the possibility didn’t feel like a foreign language anymore. More like a word I recognized but wasn’t ready to say out loud.
They all looked at me.
“I haven’t thought about a wedding,” I said quickly. It wasn’t a lie. Not consciously. “I only just stopped hating him.”
Hazel’s smile was kind. “Yeah,” she said. “But if you ever do think about it? Just know you’ll have a small army of women ready to help you pick flowers.”
I smiled, too, warmth unfurling under my ribs. For the first time since I got the tip that brought me here, I felt less like an outsider pressing her face against the glass and more like … someone being invited in.
These women had their own orbits. Their own histories. Careers and identities that didn’t vanish just because they’d fallen for Danes. They’d all had to renegotiate their relationships with truth, with power, with safety.
And they hadn’t lost themselves.
Maybe I didn’t have to, either.
As the meal went on—course after course appearing and disappearing, Meghan hovering at the edge of the table like a general surveying a battlefield—we traded stories.
They asked about Ontario winters and why Canadians apologized so much. They told me about the first time they’d seen Dominion Hall, the first time they’d realized the Danes weren’t just rich, but dangerous. We laughed until my sides hurt, even when the stories weren’t entirely funny.
Meghan watched me throughout, sharp eyes taking in more than I said. At one point, when the others were arguing about whether Portia would allow a non-white wedding dress, she leaned in.
“Whatever you decide about the story,” she said quietly, “whatever you write or don’t write—don’t let them convince you that loving him means you have to set yourself on fire to keep him warm.”
My throat tightened. I thought of Levi on the yacht, saying he didn’t want me to give up too much for him. The way he’d looked almost … afraid when I’d told him I’d kill the story if it meant protecting him.
“Yeah,” I said softly.
When we finally stepped back out into the Charleston sun, full of fish and tart and too many feelings, the Battery glitteredin front of us—water slapping softly against the seawall, live oaks casting dappled shadows over the promenade.
Hazel linked her arm through mine. Camille took my other side.
“You good?” Hazel asked.
I looked back at the house that held Meghan’s restaurant. Then I looked ahead, toward where Dominion Hall waited, full of secrets and Danes and choices I hadn’t known I’d have to make.
“I’m afraid,” I said honestly.
Camille squeezed my arm. “Good,” she said. “It means you understand what’s at stake.”
