“I suppose that’s better than vicodin and vibes,” I grumbled.
His brows pulled together. “What?”
Car doors slammed outside. Voices drifted faintly from the entry, overlapping and familiar—Marco’s dramatic volume, Ivy’s sharp reprimand, Kimi’s low, amused rumble, and one new thread of sound, higher and a little breathless. Lucy’s American vowels rounded out the mix.
“Well,” I said, standing so fast my barstool scraped back. “Time to be très chillée.”
“You’ve never been chill a day in your life,” Callum teased, rising more slowly.
“And yet,” I said, smoothing my hands down the romper, “I am about to fool an entire Grammy-nominated virgin and three professional liars. Watch me.”
He stepped in front of me before I could bolt for the door, adjusting the strap of my romper where it had slipped, fingers warm on my shoulder.
“Hey,” he said quietly. “One more thing.”
“What?”
He dipped his head and kissed me, slow and sure, right there in the soft kitchen light. No tongue, no heat, just a grounding press of mouths that saidthis is realandthis is oursandwhatever comes through that door doesn’t get to take this away.
When he pulled back, my lungs felt steadier. My hand was still in his.
“Now we’re ready,” he said, just as a sharp knock echoed through the villa.
The knock hitthe villa like a goddamn gavel.
For half a second, I considered ignoring it.
Aurélie stood in that black romper I’d picked from her side of the closet—bare legs, bare feet, tan lines crisp across her back, ring glittering on her finger. Her lips were kiss-drunk, eyes soft, shoulders finally loose instead of strangled with tension.
Behind us, pasta sauce simmered, wine was open, and sea air drifted through the open doors.
Everything in me said,leave it. Let them stand on the doorstep and wonder. Let the world wait another hour.
But this was the deal.
So I kissed her, slow and sure in the kitchen light, because if I was going to open the door to the chaos, I wanted that taste in my mouth.
Now we’re ready, I’d told her.
It was a lie. I was never going to be ready to share her again. But she steadied under my hands, and that was enough.
Another knock, louder this time.
“Right,” I muttered, squeezing her fingers once before I let go. “Showtime.”
The foyer felt smaller than it had any right to. I could hear them before I saw them—Marco’s too-loud commentary, Ivy hissing something that sounded like a threat, Kimi’s low reply, a higher voice I hadn’t heard in person yet but recognized instantly from press clips and the late-night late-season interviews Aurélie had watched like study tapes.
Lucy. Also known as Harper Rose, a virgin pop princess with a Grammy nomination and a massive, deranged fanbase.
Great. “Gathered the whole goddamn zoo, did they?” I grumbled.
Aurélie snickered. “Sounds like it.”
I scrubbed a hand over my jaw, rolled my shoulders back, and opened the door.
They were all there on the step, framed by the last light of day and the warm spill from the entryway behind me.
Ivy in black leggings and a fitted black tank top, hair yanked into a no-nonsense knot, eyes already sharp and assessing like she was scanning for threats. Marco stood beside her with a duffel slung over one shoulder, sunglasses still pushed up on his head in full Italian peacock mode, grin wide enough to be trouble. Kimi was off to the side, one hand in his pocket, the other wrapped around the handle of a designer suitcase he looked mildly irritated to be holding.
