“Okay. Then you are on support duty.”
“Perfect. I can be there afterwards or even during. Sing, or cry, or braid hair, or hold a bucket. Whatever she wants.”
Something in my chest pinched and then eased. I hadn’t known this woman two days ago, just listened to her music and thought about the one time I met her in Monaco and she’d complimented me. Now she was offering to sit with me through an uncomfortable examination.
“Merci,” I said quietly. “I will let you know what I need. Right now I think I need… this.” I gestured vaguely at all of them. At the table, the food, the blanket, the stupidly beautiful ocean. “Allof you being here, so it feels less like I am walking into the lion’s den alone.”
“We’re a whole circus,” Marco said solemnly. “We’ll crowd the lion.”
“Also,” I added, “if Henric calls during this visit, no one is allowed to let him say the word ‘uterus’ in my presence, or I will be forced to commit murder, and that would be very bad for my image.”
“Noted,” Ivy said. “Henric’s vocabulary is on a strict need-to-use basis. He needs only three words: ‘yes,’ ‘sorry,’ and ‘resignation.’”
That pulled a shaky laugh out of me. It felt like trying on a familiar jacket after it had been soaked in salt water and tears and left in the sun to dry. Still mine, just a little stiffer.
Callum nudged my plate closer. “Try the avocado toast, mo chridhe,” he murmured. “If you don’t eat, you’ll faint when they take blood and I’ll have to catch you again, and then everyone will mock us.”
“They already mock us,” I pointed out.
“Yes, but then they’ll say we’re dramatic, and that will hurt my feelings.”
“Injured legend,” I sighed. “Tragic.”
Still, I picked up the toast and took a bite, then another and another until it was gone. Only then did I realize I was ravenous, so I reached for my partially-eaten croissant and scarfed that down, too.
The air was warm and soft. A breeze moved through the terrace, ruffling napkins and lifting loose strands of my hair. For a few minutes, the conversation drifted into safer waters—Marco complaining about the stairs all over Milos and how he was on vacation, not “auditioning for a Marvel reboot,” to which Ivy muttered“If the spandex fits…”under her breath.
Then someone—maybe me, maybe not—floated the idea of getting matching tattoos, and Lucy sat bolt upright, danish halfway to her mouth.
“I’ve always wanted one,” she said, eyes sparkling. “But my label wouldn’t let me. Said it made me ‘less wholesome.’”
That spiraled into her telling us about the time they tried to add a“no visible bruises”clause to her tour contract, and Kimi, without missing a beat, deadpanned, “We should add that to Marco’s.”
Callum choked on his tea. Marco flipped him off.
By the time Callum pulled me into his lap, the laughter had softened into something warmer, easier. I tucked my knees to my chest and let my head rest on his shoulder, closing my eyes for a second. He smelled like bergamot and expensive body wash and something older, heavier, masculine. The kind of scent that lingered on sheets and made your stomach flip when you caught it days later.
I let everyone’s voices wash over me. Let the sea fill in the silence.
For a moment, I almost forgot there was a countdown running underneath it all.
The knock came just as Ivy was explaining, in graphic detail, what she would do to Henric’s inbox if he tried to leak anything to the press.
Three sharp taps echoed through the villa, filtering through the open glass doors, polite but firm.
We all stilled.
Ivy was already halfway to the door, muttering under her breath. “If this is the paparazzi, I swear to God?—”
But it wasn’t. It was the official Luminis crew.
The moment she opened the door, chaos spilled in. There were four people total. A doctor in navy slacks and a branded polo, a nurse with a clipboard and tired eyes, a Luminis securityofficer who looked like he was sweating under his earpiece, and the team’s medical compliance liaison—aka the one sent to make everything sound lawful while making it look like they weren’t committing a massive privacy violation.
The Luminis logo was embroidered on all their shirts. Ivy’s eyes narrowed like she was planning arson.
“Shoes off,” she snapped automatically. “And sign this first. You may not speak to any of these individuals until you do.”
She shoved her iPad toward the doctor without even a hello, the NDA already pulled up on the screen. One by one, they fumbled to remove their shoes—awkwardly stacking them near the door—and scrawled their signatures, clearly startled by the welcome committee of half-dressed drivers, an MIA popstar, and one very pissed off PR queen.
