"That," Liam said, his voice steady now, "is what it looks like to be presented properly."
April stared at herself in the mirror, trying to reconcile the woman in emerald silk with the woman who'd been pinned under tulle twenty minutes ago begging for help. Trying to understand how both could be true.
The woman looking back at her was flushed and undone. Beautiful. The emerald silk caught the light and made her skin glow, turned her into someone who belonged in rooms like this. Chad's clothes were always apologizing on her behalf, but in this gown, she looked like someone who could walk into a room and not check to see if she was allowed to be there first. She wasn’t sure she was that woman.
He must have seen something shift in her expression because he stepped back, turned toward the rack again. “You can’t wearthat on the sidewalk,” he said. “And you’re not going back to the office in it.”
He pulled out an outfit that looked effortlessly expensive: slim black trousers, a champagne silk blouse. Designer casual. Quietly certain. An outfit that said I belong without needing to shout it. Liam handed them to her.
"The gown stays here. We'll have it delivered to your apartment before the gala."
April took the clothes, hugged them to her chest.
"Liam—"
"You deserve better than what you were wearing when you walked in," he said. Eyes flicking to her face, her mouth, away again.
It was practical. It was a claim. It was both.
It was also… aftercare, dressed up as logistics.
April disappeared behind the curtain and changed, careful with her own body like she'd been reminded she lived in it.
When she emerged, Liam was waiting by the door, perfectly composed. Hair in place, posture straight, expression unreadable. His composure mostly returned, armor sliding back into place, but his eyes still held that dark want, banked now but not gone.
He didn’t look untouched.
He cleared his throat. "Ready?"
April nodded.
He offered his arm and they stepped back out onto the street, into noise and sunlight and strangers.
EIGHT
Mr. Heartland
April
She blinked against it the light eyes adjusting after the velvet-dark intimacy of Couture Magnifique. The street smelled like exhaust and expensive coffee and the faint sweetness of a flower cart two doors down.
She inhaled deeply. Exhaust. Coffee. Flower cart. Normal things.
Liam guided her onto the sidewalk as her phone buzzed. She reached for it, still half-hoping it would be something boring. Calendar alert. Weather update. Proof the world hadn't gone fully surreal.
It was Jax. Which meant her hope for boring was probably dead on arrival.
JAX:"We are spirits clad in veils."—Christopher Pearse Cranch
She reread it, trying to parse meaning from poetry.
Another buzz.
JAX:I saw you come out of there different, April. Beautiful.
April glanced up at the building. At the windows. At the cameras she knew existed everywhere.
Jax was watching. Had been watching.
