Wayright.
It hooked like it had a personal vendetta against the service industry, careening off a beverage cart with a spectacular crash—champagne flutes exploding in a spray of crystal and Veuve Clicquot, ice cubes skittering across the manicured grass like fleeing witnesses, a server in a bow tie achieving approximately three feet of vertical clearance with the reflexes of a man who'd seen liability lawsuits and wanted no part of them.
Silence.
Then nervous laughter from the crowd.
Emmy's face went scarlet. Not pink, not flushed—scarlet, the shade of mortification that came from your worst fears being confirmed in front of an audience with camera phones. Grant could already see the captions writing themselves:When your swing is as bad as your love lifewith a crying-laughing emoji.POV: You peaked in mini golf.
The influencer was already tapping at her phone. Grant could practically see the hashtags forming.
And Tyce roared with laughter.
Not with her.Ather. He pulled Emmy against his side, grinning at the crowd like they were all sharing a deliciousjoke at her expense. "Isn't she adorable? I told her to stick to matchmaking."
You told her not to be boring, Grant thought. His spine went cold.
A few people chuckled. Polite. Uncomfortable. The kind of laughter that recognized cruelty and chose politeness over confrontation. Emmy's smile was frozen, brittle—the smile of someone who knew she'd been set up and couldn't say so without making everything worse.
Grant took one step forward.
Then stopped.
Because if he shoved through the crowd and threw her over his shoulder, it would do nothing to quell the viral surge. It would feed it. The kindest thing he could do for Emmy right now was stay out of shot.
Because Emmy was already apologizing—to the server, to the event coordinator, to anyone within earshot. "I'm so sorry, let me help—" She was reaching for scattered ice cubes, trying to right an overturned champagne bucket, her voice high and tight with mortification.
The clipboard woman was unmoved. "Please, Ms. Woodhouse. We have staff for this."
Tyce materialized at Emmy's elbow, steering her away from the wreckage with his hand possessive on her lower back. "Come on, let them handle it. These things happen."
They didn't happen. Not to people who belonged here. And the way Emmy's shoulders curved inward—she knew it too.
She didn't look at Grant. Didn't even glance his direction.
But he'd seen her face in that split second before the swing. The silent plea.
She'd looked at him. And he'd done nothing.
He stood there, fists clenched, watching them walk away, and hated himself almost as much as he hated Tyce Duke.
Grant found her two hours later.
The tournament was winding down—final holes being played, sponsors packing up their branded tents, the clubhouse bar filling with people pretending their golf games had gone better than they had.
He'd spotted Sabine near the eighteenth green about an hour ago, gliding toward the Lululemon influencer with the focus of someone used to cleaning up other people's messes. By the time Grant finished his round, the two were chatting like old friends.
Emmy was behind the clubhouse, near the service entrance, away from the crowd. She had her phone pressed to her ear, and as Grant rounded the corner, he caught Cecelia's voice—tinny through the speaker, clipped and cold.
"—handled the optics. Sabine got the video reposted with our tag. But Emmy, this is exactly the kind of amateur hour I warned you about. You're representing Elite Connections, not auditioning for a comedy reel."
"I know. I'm sorry. It won't?—"
"It won't happen again. Correct." A silence that lasted long enough to be deliberate. "We'll discuss this Monday."
The line went dead.
Emmy stood there for a moment, phone still raised, shoulders tight. She looked smaller somehow. Younger. Like all the polish had been scraped away and underneath was just a twenty-five-year-old who'd had a very bad day.
