“They like you, right?”
“Gage thinks so,” Bea said, unconvinced.
“My aunt and uncle have to appear stoic,” Georgie explained. “But they’re actually soft.”
Bea’s face must have looked somewhere between surprised and mildly disbelieving.
“It’s true. Once, when I was fifteen, I burst into tears at a gala because I’d left my heels at the hotel. Aunt Elena gave me hers and walked around barefoot all night like it was completely intentional.”
Bea smiled, faintly. “Wow. That’s actually kind of bad-ass.”
“It was,” she agreed. “Not one person dared to comment.”
Bea took a bite of orange, dabbing at her chin where some juice had dripped.
“I saw his old bedroom,” Bea said. “Everything about it—his desk, the bookshelf, the layout, trophies lined up like they were earned on schedule—was so…Gage.”
“He’s been in training for decades,” Georgie said. “You should’ve seen him at sixteen, explaining estate liquidity while the rest of us were trying to flirt.”
Bea tried to picture him. A smaller, but no less serious version of the man he was now. The image was adorable, but also made her ache.
Georgina looked over, one knee drawn close. “Can I ask something without you overthinking it?”
“You can try.”
“How do you feel about London?”
Bea blinked. “You know about London?”
“Not officially.” Georgina was sheepish. “I know they’re keeping it quiet—share price, succession optics. But I may have eavesdropped on my father and Uncle Victor talking about it in the wine cellar.”
Bea laughed. It was so on-brand she almost wanted to give Georgie a sticker for consistency. It was a relief, though, that someone here finally knew.
“Honestly? Excited. Terrified. And everything in between.”
“Which way do you lean most days?”
“Most days I want to say yes without thinking,” Bea said. “But then there are moments when I can’t breathe when I imagine it.”
“Sounds like a big, glitteringmaybe,” Georgie said.
“More like a half-panickedprobably,” Bea corrected with a smile.
The car was parked nose-in to a hedge, side windows tinted dark. The world outside was soft with late sun. Inside, it was warm and quiet.
Just the hum of the engine and the pulse in Bea’s throat.
They were early. Not by much, but long enough to be unsupervised.
Bea shifted in her seat, adjusting the strap of her dress where it had slipped off her shoulder. “Are you sure this isn’t too much?”
His gaze dragged from her legs, folded neatly in his direction, up to her collarbone, her mouth, her eyes. Then he reached over and slid the strap back into place. Thumb grazing her skin. Possessive. He didn’t pull away.
Bea’s chest tightened. Every nerve sat up straighter.
“You wore this for me,” he said, voice low. “So no. It’s not too much.” The words landed in her stomach like a drop of heat, sharp and low. She could feel it coiling, pooling.
“Gage,” she warned, but without much bite.
