"It's an observation. And it explains why your last three relationships imploded."
Grant frowned. "They didn't implode. They ran their course."
"Jessica. Tara. Sloane." Emmy ticked them off on her fingers like a prosecutor listing charges.
Grant paused. "Wait. How did you know Sloane and I broke up?"
"Please." Emmy's expression went flat. "She went live during the bouquet toss at the wedding. And I overheard her in the bathroom talking about all the exotic locales you were going to take her to during the off-season. The Maldives. Santorini. A yacht in Monaco." She raised an eyebrow. "Do you even own a yacht?"
"No."
"She seemedveryconfident about the yacht."
Grant winced internally. Sloane had been beautiful and ambitious—with her own career as an architect, he'd thought. But they'd only been casually dating a few months when she'd started dropping hints about their "future"—mostly featuringher, spending his money, on the imaginary yacht. Their spark in the bedroom had burned out almost before it caught, and after the wedding, he'd ended things without losing sleep over it.
"She wasn't—" Grant started.
"She wasn't right," Emmy finished. "None of them were. They were all performative women. Great for a red carpet. Terrible at Sleepy Sunday." She met his eyes. "You can't exhale with someone who's constantly checking her angles. You need someone grounded. But not boring."
Grant rubbed his jaw. He certainly wasn't bored now. "You're going to pry into every corner of my life, aren't you?"
Emmy smiled sweetly. "You already signed the contract."
"Fine. Pry away." Grant leaned back, crossing his arms. "But turnabout's fair play. What about you?"
Emmy's smile flickered. "What about me?"
"Last I heard, you were seeing someone. That guy from the—what was it? The startup thing?"
"Venture capital." Emmy's voice went carefully neutral. “Nathan. We broke up."
"When?"
"Four months ago."
Grant raised an eyebrow. "West didn't mention it."
"West doesn't know everything about my life." She reached for her water glass, and Grant caught the slight tension in her fingers. "It wasn't serious."
"You dated him for almost a year."
"And yet." Emmy took a sip, set the glass down with precision. "Here I am. Single. Professionally focused. Living my best unattached life."
Grant watched her. Twenty years. He knew when she was deflecting.
"What happened?"
"Nothing dramatic. We wanted different things." Her smile was too bright, too practiced. "Turns out I'm not great at the whole relationship thing. Which is ironic, given my career choice."
"Emmy—"
"Those who can't, teach." She said it lightly, like a joke, but something flickered behind her eyes. "Or in my case, those who can't stay in a relationship longer than eight months become professional matchmakers. It's basically the same skill set, just... applied externally."
Grant didn't laugh. "Eight months is your ceiling?"
"Apparently." Emmy shrugged, but the gesture was too casual, too controlled. "Owen was eight months. Nathan was eleven, but the last three were mostly inertia. Before that—" She stopped herself, waved a hand. "Ancient history. The point is, I'm much better at analyzing other people's patterns than my own."
"That's—"
