"Thank you."
"Annoyingly good. As in, I'm annoyed by how good you look. It's inconsiderate."
His mouth curved. He crossed to me, turned me by the shoulders so I faced the mirror, and stood behind me—his chin just above my head, his hands resting on my hips. We looked at our reflection together. The man in the suit and the girl in the black dress. The architect and the barista. Seventeen years of difference visible in the silver at his temples and invisible in everything else.
"We clean up okay," I said.
"We do." He pressed a kiss to my bare shoulder. "Ready?"
No. I was not ready. I was carrying a dying coffee shop, a repaired apartment I hadn't told him about, and enough anxiety to power a small city. But the man behind me had just landed the biggest contract of his career, and tonight was supposed to be a celebration, and I was not going to ruin it with my baggage.
"Born ready," I lied.
He didn't believe me. I could tell by the way his gaze lingered on my face in the mirror. But he let it go, and I loved him for that, and I hated myself for needing him to.
The Ashford home was different at night.
I'd been here once before—the gala, weeks ago, when I'd walked through the front doors in an emerald dress and almost hyperventilated from imposter syndrome. That night, the house had been full of a hundred strangers and I'd hidden behind Callum's hand on my back.
Tonight, the circular drive held four cars. The front doors were open, warm air spilling out into the February cold. No valets. No staff in black tie. Just a lit entryway and the sound of piano music drifting from deeper inside.
Eight people. Nowhere to hide.
Callum parked. Came around. Opened my door—a habit I'd stopped protesting and started enjoying, which said things about me I wasn't ready to examine.
"Remember," he said as we walked up the steps. "Just be?—"
"If you say 'be yourself' I'm going home."
"I was going to say 'be charming.' Which you are without effort."
"Nice save."
Eleanor Ashford met us at the door—a tall, immaculately maintained woman in her fifties who air-kissed like a European and assessed like an auditor. She wore cream silk and a smile that never quite reached her eyes, the hostess who made you feel observed rather than welcomed.
"Willow. Lovely to see you again." Her gaze swept my dress, my hair, my shoes—a full inventory completed in under two seconds. "Callum, congratulations. Richard is thrilled." She ushered us through the foyer with the practiced choreography of a woman who'd hosted a thousand of these evenings and kept score at every one.
Richard Ashford stood by the fireplace, bourbon in hand, looking exactly how a sixty-two-year-old billionaire should look: confident, weathered, andvaguely amused by everything. He clapped Callum on the shoulder and said the thing Callum had spent two years waiting to hear.
"It's yours, Callum. The contract. Effective Monday."
And just like that, the reason for our arrangement was fulfilled.
I watched Callum accept—gracious, humble, saying the right things about the team and the vision and the partnership. Graham, who'd arrived before us with a date I didn't recognize—a redhead in a green dress who seemed both charming and faintly terrified—raised his glass in a toast.
I raised mine too. Smiled. Clinked. Played the part.
But the math was running in the background, adding and subtracting in ways I couldn't stop. The contract was the deal. The deal was the arrangement. The arrangement was the reason I was standing in this room, in this dress, holding this man's hand.
Now what?
We mingled. The guest list was small—the Ashfords, Callum and me, Graham and his date, and an older couple I was introduced to as the Harringtons, longtime friends of Richard's who ran a property development firm. Seven people. The dinner table was set for eight.
"Are we expecting anyone else?" Eleanor asked,checking her phone. "Oh—yes. Jessica confirmed late. She should be here any minute."
I felt Callum's hand tighten on mine.
Not a squeeze. A flinch. The involuntary contraction of a man who'd just heard a name he wasn't expecting.
