"Side exit?" Bailey asked. No panic. No questions. She took one look at Emmy's face, one look at Grant's, and nodded.
“VIP lot,” Grant said. His hand found Bailey's elbow—guiding, protecting. He didn't touch Emmy. "Go."
Not just the glance that confirmed it—though that was the final nail. The real damage had come earlier. Standing at the silent auction with a champagne glass and an ego that needed feeding, describing her most important client to a total stranger because the stranger made her feel interesting. Because Sabine had called her a little girl playing with Barbies and she'd needed to prove she wasn't. Because she'd wanted, for five minutes, to be seen as someone who mattered—and the price of that five minutes was Grant's privacy, Grant's trust, and every promise she'd made to him.
She'd done it to herself. Nobody had tricked her. Nobody had forced her hand. She'd just talked, because talking was what she did, because she always had to be the most interesting person in the room, and this time the room had teeth.
They burst through the side exit into the parking garage. Cool air. Concrete. The harsh fluorescent light stripped everything to the bone.
But the damage was done.
Cars were already arriving—someone from the event must have tweeted, or Petra's photographer had been faster than they thought. Phones raised. Camera flashes. A voice shouted: "Grant! Grant Knight! How long have you been looking for a wife? Is this one of your matches?"
Grant didn't stop. Didn't look back. He steered Bailey toward his car, opened her door, closed it behind her. Then he was in the driver's seat, and the engine was running, and his taillights were gone.
He was gone.
Emmy stood on the concrete, heels on pavement, arms wrapped around herself in the fluorescent glare.
"Emmy." Tyce appeared at the exit, jacket off, collar loose. "What the hell is going on? Someone said there's press outside?—"
"I have to go."
"Already? It's barely eleven. There's a whole?—"
"I need to go, Tyce."
He studied her face. Whatever he saw there, it wasn't enough to override his evening. "I'm not ready to leave."
"Then don't."
She walked past him.
"Fine," he called after her. "Whatever."
She didn't turn around.
In the Uber, Emmy called Grant.
It rang once. Then straight to voicemail.
She hung up. Pressed the phone against her forehead like a compress, or a rosary. Tried again.
Voicemail.
The city slid past outside the window. Traffic lights. Storefronts. A couple arguing on a corner. A woman laughing into her phone. Everything going on like it always did, like nothing had happened, like the evening hadn't just detonated.
Seven minutes. That was how long she'd waited for the Uber. Seven minutes of standing alone in the fluorescent dark, arms wrapped around herself.
The story would be everywhere by tomorrow. Grant Knight, the most private quarterback in the league, outed as a matchmaking client because his matchmaker couldn't stop talking to a stranger at a party. Because she'd needed to feel important for five minutes and the price was everything. The internet would do the rest—connect the dots, find her name, trace the line from Emmy to West to Grant to Elite Connections. Twenty years of friendship and three months of lies, unraveled because she needed to matter. Because she always needed to matter. Because mattering was the only thing she'd ever been afraid of not doing.
And for the first time in months, the restlessness was gone. The hum behind her sternum that had driven her to every reckless choice — the lie to Cecelia, the tennis court, Tyce, tonight — was silent. In its place was something so still it scared her. Like an engine that had finally seized.
She stared at her phone. Willed it to ring.
It didn't.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
