“Yes. Everyoneabove meknows this is fake. Janine knows. Cooper knows. The front office knows. They signed off on it because it was the quickest solution to get the rumors under control.”
The words shake so hard they barely hold together. I feel naked under the bland hallway lighting, like every hidden part of me is suddenly visible. I feel him step closer, like he’s trying to meet me in the space I’m still too afraid to give.
“But if anyone out there thinks even for a second that it’s real? That I’m involved with a player I’m directly responsible for? Everything I’ve worked for disappears.”
His brow furrows, confused in the way only someone protected by a different world can be.
“This is the exact thing I’m not allowed to want. I deal with rumors and optics for a living. I’ve watched women lose opportunities for less than a look. I’ve seen how fast a ‘professional lapse’ label sticks. And I’ve survived it once already.”
His eyes sharpen at that, but I barrel on before I can lose my nerve.
“If this becomes real—if anyone thinks I let the lines blur—I am the one who pays for it. Not you.”
“Sweetheart, I’m not asking you to risk your job. I’m not asking you to choose me over your career. I’m just trying to understand why you’re pretending that what happened tonight didn’t knock us both off our feet.”
I stare at the ground because looking at him might break me. “Because if I admit it meant something, I won’t be able to walk away. And I have to walk away. For my survival and everything I’ve built when no one thought I could.”
My voice shakes, the words barely hanging on. I know the second I lift my eyes, I’ll see every ounce of what we almost let ourselves have tonight. I’ll see the version of me I got to be for one stolen hour on that dance floor. The version I don’t get to keep.
“Please don’t make this harder.”
The second the words leave my mouth, I wish I could swallow them back down. That’s what makes memove. Before I can apologize or crumble, I reach past him and push open the metal service door.
Cold air hits us as we slip out the back entrance, the door swinging shut behind us. No cameras. No lights. No one to perform for. Just the truth settling between our bodies.
My heels click against the concrete, too sharp in the stillness. Kyle keeps a careful distance, but not far enough that I can pretend he isn’t there. His presence is a heat at my back, a gravity I have to fight with every step. Fighting him feels like ripping the seams of something I didn’t know I’d stitched together.
He slows beside me, waiting, giving me the chance to say anything that isn’t this quiet, devastating retreat. If I open my mouth, the truth will pour out.
“We can’t… we can’t let tonight mean more than it does,” I force out, the words scraping.
“So that’s it?” Kyle exhales, like he’s trying to hold on to something slippery. “We just go back to trying—and failing—to pretend this means nothing to both of us?”
Instead of answering, I open the car door and slide inside. He watches me with an expression so raw it makes my knees go weak, like he’s standing on the edge of something and I’m the only one who can pull him back. But I can’t, not when wanting him feels like setting fire to the version of myself I’ve spent years fighting to become.
I finally manage, in a voice that barely exists, “Please, Kyle… just get in the car.”
He stands there for a heartbeat too long, the words carving something out of him I never meant to take. His jaw flexes once, a tiny fracture in the control he’s been holding on to all night. For one trembling second, I think he’s going to close the door and walk away, leaving me in the wreckage I made.
Instead, he lowers himself into the seat beside me, slow and deliberate, shutting the door with a soft click that feels louder than anything inside the gala.
The town car pulls away from the curb, the driver mercifully silent as the city slides past in a blur of neon and November dark. Inside, the quiet is suffocating. I fold my hands in my lap because if I don’t anchor them somewhere, they’ll reach for him. Kyle stares straight ahead, elbows braced on his knees. In the dark reflection of the window, he looks wrecked in a way he’s trying so hard to hide.
After a long moment, he speaks, barely above a whisper. “You really believe that we can go back to pretending we mean nothing to each other?”
I look down, blinking hard. “I meant what I had to say.”
“That’s not the same thing, and you know it.” He shakes his head, letting out a breath that scrapes between us.
“How?” My voice is frayed. “I’m trying to protect myself.”
“How am I supposed to stop after tonight?” His voice cracks, furious and desperate at once. “After last night. After everything.”
He turns then, finally looking at me, and the devastation in his eyes slams into me so hard my breath stutters. I should look away, protect everything we’re risking just by sitting like this in the dark, but I don’t.
“Just tell me one thing,” he says, softer now, almost afraid to breathe wrong. “When you said itcouldn’tmean anything… did you also mean itdidn’t?”
My heart punches against my ribs because that’s what Kyle heard. That’s what he’s been thinking, that I said it meantnothing. I swallow, the truth burning up my throat like a match I can’t put out.
