"God, Sophia, everything about you is perfect. I'll never get enough of you. I can't stay away."
"I'm staying at the Four Seasons tonight. With the girls."
"Oh." My chest feels tight. One night shouldn't feel like this much of a loss.
"I promised them a girl's night."
I nod. "It's ok. We can survive one night apart," I joke.
She leans her head into my chest as she groans like she's not sure she will survive, and that makes my heart skip a beat.
"We should get back out there, or people are going to figure out we're both missing, and that's how rumors start," she says, straightening her dress.
I laugh as I follow her down the hallway, but she's not wrong.
"Grant?" She turns slightly toward me. "Geneva seems lovely. I can see why you're such good friends."
"Sophia…" I catch her hand, just for a moment, hidden in the shadows of the alcove. "Before I forget to tell you, you look beautiful tonight."
She squeezes my fingers once before letting go.
I watch her walk away, elegant and poised, everything a leading lady should be—and everything I'm falling for.
thirty-one
. . .
Sophia
The morning lightstreams through floor-to-ceiling windows. Everything is cream and gold, from the plush carpet under my bare feet to the silk throw pillows scattered across what might be the deepest, softest couch I've ever sunk into. But even surrounded by all this luxury, my mind keeps drifting back to Grant's house, with its lived-in comfort and the way morning the sun hits the kitchen counter just right.
I curl deeper into the oversized armchair with my legs tucked under me and wrap both hands around my coffee mug. The warmth seeps into my palms as I let myself have this moment—this moment where I'm happy, maybe even a little in love.
Somewhere down the hall, I can hear Stella humming in the shower and the soft click of someone's heels on marble, probably a housekeeper.
"There you are." Blair's voice is soft as she pads into the living area in hotel slippers, her dark hair pulled into a messybun. She looks impossibly fresh for someone who was dancing until two o'clock in the morning. "I thought I heard someone out here."
"Just got up," I admit as she settles onto the couch across from me, sinking into its cloud-like depths. The Los Angeles skyline stretches out behind her, already hazy with morning light.
As Blair studies me over the rim of her coffee cup, a knowing smile tugs at her lips. "You disappeared with Grant last night."
I take a slow sip of coffee. "You're going to think I'm crazy."
She tilts her head. "Try me."
I exhale and set my cup down on the glass table. "I keep telling myself this thing with Grant is casual, that I want it that way. But last night, I…" I shake my head, swallowing against the lump forming in my throat. "I said those things in my speech, and it felt like I wasn't just saying them to a room full of people. It felt like I was talking to him. And to myself."
Blair doesn't rush me, doesn't fill the silence like most people would. She just waits.
I press my fingertips against my temple. "It's so easy with him. I don't have to try. I don't have to be anything other than who I am, and he still…he just…" I let out a short, breathless laugh. "He looks at me like I matter. Like he sees something in me that I haven't even let myself see yet."
Blair leans forward, and the morning sun catches the diamond on her left hand—the promise of a future that is already so certain for her. "Maybe it's time to take your own advice from the speech, then?"
"I'm scared." The confession falls from my lips before I can stop it.
Blair's expression softens. "It's fucking terrifying."
I nod, staring down at my hands. "It's not just the idea of falling for him. It's everything that comes with it. His daughter. Geneva. His whole world that already exists and works without me in it. What if I walk into it and ruin it? What if I can't fit?" I look up at her, my chest tight with the weight of it. "What if I let myself hope, and it all falls apart?"
