He lifted an expectant brow. “If you don’t mind.”
“Quiet. On purpose. I guess I needed time after… everything.”
“Come on,” The journalist leaned forward in his seat, as if he could coax secrets out of me, a sneaky smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “The noise couldn’t have been all bad? Right? I mean Paris, Italy, Spain.”
I laughed, nodding my head, unable to stop my own smile from spreading. “No, it wasn’t all bad. I mean if we are going for authenticity, I don’t regret anything.”
“Listen,” he said, his tone shifting. Serious now. “I won’t beat around the bush. Last year, you went from having basically no social presence to being involved in what some people still callthescandal. The kind that gets picked apart in Reddit threadsand cheap tabloids. And then… you vanished. Just—nothing. Total FBI level MIA. You had the eyes of the world on you and then disappeared. Talk about a cliffhanger.”
A silence comfortably settled between us, my mind dragging back to that day at the airport.
The day I ran away from it all.
“So,” he continued, “you are back in the concrete jungle after a year of being missing. Don’t you think the world has waited long enough for an answer?”
I let the question hang in the air for a moment.
“I think,” I said slowly, “the world will survive not knowing about my breakdown in Terminal Five.”
His brows shot up, amused. “So, youdoconfirm there was a breakdown?”
I gave him a half-smile. “I confirm that I had a one-way ticket to Paris, a used suitcase that was a first-hand witness to all my heartbreaks, and a grossly over-priced bottle of airport wine.”
“Dramatic.”
“Healing.”
Mr. James laughed, leaning back in his chair. “I get it. You vanished. You healed. But what about after that? Because—and I’m sure you’ve seen the photos—you were spotted in Florence with what some would call a handsome man.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Florence is known for its handsome men.”
“Harper.”
I sighed. “I left because I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t know where my life was going, or what I was doing, or even who I was, outside of the chaos. I thought, maybe, if I got far enough away from the noise, I’d finally be able to hear myself think. And it worked. For the first time, I gave myself permission to gomissing. And to not apologize for it.”
He nodded, as if that part of me—the one that hid for survival—made perfect sense. But then he leaned forward, eyes narrowing slightly. “But what about Amb—”
The bells above the coffee shop door chimed.
Speak of the demon.
Patrick paused mid-sentence, his eyes darting toward the entrance. I didn’t even have to look. I felt him before I saw him. That impossible, deliberate presence that never reallyaskedfor space, justclaimedit.
Ambrose.
I waited as footsteps approached me. Setting a coffee cup down beside me, Ambrose kissed the top of my head. “They spelled your name wrong again. You are officially Hopper.” Ambrose turned to the journalist, leaning forward to shake his hand. “Good to see you,” he said casually, as if he were a normal person meeting a friend for a normal cup of coffee.
Patrick just blinked. Then let out an incredulous scoff. “What isthis?”
I held up my left hand, where a ring sparkled unapologetically in the light, the kind you only ever saw on red carpet exclusives.
“Married. Maldives. Four months ago,” I said with a wink.
The journalist just stared.
“You do know we are on the record?”
Ambrose gave a low chuckle, kissing me one more time on the top of my head before turning to leave. “I’ll be waiting in the car. Don’t say anything too incriminating, Flower.”
