“Congratulations, Lil,” Bea said flatly. “You’re officially demoted to flower girl.”
“Too late.” Lillian tucked the invitation into her bag, patting it. “Claire already circulated a spreadsheet. I’ve gotduties.”
“She’s mad with power.” Bea shook her head.
Adam dipped a fry in ketchup. “You realize this wedding is basically a national spectacle, right?”
“Bit dramatic,” Bea said, but her eyes flicked to the entrance. Channing stood with his arms crossed, scanning the room like he expected a camera to appear from the wallpaper. And because one bodyguard wouldn’t satisfy Rafael, Jack was there now, too.
Even in the UR, the land of privacy and elite discretion, you couldn’t drop news of billionaire nuptials and expect the world to look away completely. Which, in her more generous moods, made perfect sense. Bea was still learning how to live inside it, and counted on the world’s short attention span to save her after the wedding.
The calls and emails had started almost immediately. Invitations that mostly flooded Rafael’s office, filtered by his team, but enough of them still reached her personally to remind her she wasn’t just engaged: she was news.
Bea hadn’t expected this much interest. Not even close. She was thankful that her face wasn’t everywhere. Rafael wasn’t the kind of man who regularly lived in headlines, and his team were relentlessly protective.
“The invitation’s trending,” Jaxon said flatly. “People are calling it the UR Met Gala. Vacations are being canceled so they can attend.”
Bea groaned. “That’s not what I want to hear.”
Her phone buzzed. A message preview lit the screen.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: Hey Beatriz. Oliver Fox here from Fox Hunt.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: Congratulations on your engagement to Rafael Griffin.
She exhaled an incredulous laugh. So it had made it all the way to Canada.
Oliver Fox. He’d been on Toronto primetime before Bea was born, then cable, and in the past decade pivoted into long-form interview podcasting. For a while, he’d owned that space. She’d listened to him through late high school and her couple of years at the University of Toronto.
She unlocked her phone.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: I imagine your world has gotten very loud, very fast.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: If you ever want the chance to speak in your own words about your experiences, I’d be glad to offer you space. No pressure.
Bea let herself feel flattered, just for a moment.
I used to watch you from my tiny life, and now you’re texting me.
BEA: Hi Oliver. Thank you.
BEA: I appreciate the message, but I’m not interested in any interviews.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: Understood. If things change, let me know.
She set the phone down beside her water glass.
Jaxon leaned forward. “You good with the scale of this?”
Bea bit into her burger. “We’re trying to keep it low.”
“Sure,” he said. “You, Rafael Griffin, and a five-week countdown. Very subtle.”
Bea didn’t have thoughts today. She had tabs. Six open, all important, none of them loading fast enough. A tiny pop-up in the corner read:Try again later. System overwhelmed.
The private training room at Havoc sounded like war prep. Thuds. Grunts. Grit hitting padded mat. Bea sat on the side, laptop balanced on her thighs and a phone in her hands, triaging between Adriana’s color-coded emails and a multitude of group chats. Her bun was collapsing in slow stages along with her sanity.
She glanced up in time to see Rafael duck a hook and counter with a sweep that would’ve hospitalized a civilian. Sweat tracked down his spine, darkening the waistband of his training shorts.
