The person I trust most in this world.
I've been turning that sentence over in my head for forty-eight hours, examining it from every angle like a jeweler appraising a stone she already knows is flawed.
Monday morning finds me at my desk an hour before anyone else, coffee untouched, staring at a blank email draft while Theo's voice replays on a loop behind my eyes.
Trust. Not want. Not need the way I need him.
Trust—the word you use for financial advisors and family dogs.
I press my palms flat against the cool surface of my desk and breathe. Compartmentalize, Wren. I've spent years mastering the art of folding my feelings into smaller and smaller squares until they fit inside a pocket no one checks.
This is just another fold.
The elevator chimes at seven forty-five, which is unusual because the executive floor doesn't wake up until nine.
A man steps out—mid-fifties, silver-templed, wearing a charcoal suit so precisely tailored it looks like it was grown onto his body rather than sewn. He scans the floor with practiced efficiency, and then his gaze lands on me.
"Miss Callahan?" His voice is polished marble. "My name is Geoffrey. I've been asked to bring you to an appointment this morning. There's a car downstairs whenever you're ready."
"An appointment…" I set my coffee down slowly. "That's vague. Who's the appointment with?"
"I'm afraid I wasn't given permission to share those details, miss." He says it the way a concierge might decline a room upgrade—politely, firmly, with zero interest in negotiation. "I can only assure you it won't take long. Shall we?"
He gestures toward the elevator, and every alarm in my body fires at once.
Someone knows.
Victor Bracken—a man who built an empire on knowing things before anyone else did, who weaponized information the way other people weaponized money.
We had our arrangement for less than seventy-two hours. Could it have leaked already? Could someone at that restaurant have overheard? Could Victor have had Theo watched?
I follow the man into the elevator because staying at my desk feels more dangerous than moving.
If Victor knows, if this is a summons, then not showing up only confirms guilt.
The car is a black sedan with leather seats and tinted windows so dark the morning sun vanishes the moment Geoffrey closes the door behind me before I finally ask, "Where are we going?"
Geoffrey watches the road. "We'll arrive shortly, Miss Callahan."
My phone sits in my lap. I draft a text to Theo—someone sent a car for me, do you know anything about this—and then delete it, letter by letter.
If Victor is behind this, texting Theo is exactly the kind of evidence a man like him would use. A dying patriarch with controlling shares to distribute doesn't play fair.
I run through every scenario I can construct in the twenty minutes it takes to reach our destination.
Victor confronting me. Victor offering me money to disappear. Victor calmly explaining that he's known from the start and watching my face for the flinch that confirms it.
Each version ends the same way—Theo loses the company, and I lose the only proximity to him I've ever had.
My hands tremble in my lap. I press them flat against my thighs, but the shaking migrates upward — into my wrists, my forearms, the base of my throat where my pulse hammers so hard I can feel it behind my ears.
My eyes sting, and I blink fast, furious at the heat gathering there, because I will not cry in the back of a stranger's sedan over a situation I walked into with both eyes open and my whole stupid heart exposed.
The car slows and through the tinted glass, I make out a building I've only ever walked past with the reverent distance of someone who knows her tax bracket.
Miravel. Six floors of designer boutiques and price tags that require therapy to process.
Geoffrey opens the door. "Third floor."
The elevator deposits me into a private shopping suite lined with racks of silk and structured fabric in jewel tones, gowns that shift like water when I brush past them.
And there, leaning against a three-paneled mirror with a champagne flute in his hand and his sleeves rolled to his forearms, is Theo. The relief hits so hard my knees nearly buckle.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," he says, a faint crease forming between his brows. "Are you alright?"
"You could have told me it was you." I press a hand to my sternum, willing my pulse to slow. "I spent twenty minutes in that car convinced your grandfather had sent someone to drag me into an interrogation room."
His expression shifts—a flicker of guilt, quickly managed. "I'm sorry. I should have warned you. Geoffrey is old-fashioned about discretion."
He hands me the champagne flute and gestures at the racks surrounding us.
"There's an important event coming up. A few, actually. Family dinners, galas, the kind of environments where appearances carry weight. You'll need to adjust your wardrobe."
"Theo, I can't afford any of this." I glance at a draped emerald gown and spot the tag before I can stop myself. Four digits. My stomach tightens. "I don't even want to breathe near these dresses."
"You don't need to afford it."
He sets his glass down, arms crossing, watching me with the calm expression he uses in board meetings when a deal is already closed.
"I'm paying. This is part of the arrangement. You can't walk into Victor Bracken's estate wearing anything that makes you uncomfortable, so pick what makes you feel confident."
"What makes me feel confident costs under a hundred dollars and comes with free shipping."
The corner of his mouth lifts. "Wren, relax. Try things on, enjoy it."
Enjoy it.
As if I can enjoy playing dress-up for a role that comes with an expiration date and no curtain call. But I pull the emerald gown from the rack because it's the most beautiful thing I've ever touched and my hands reach for it before my pride can intervene.
A stylist appears—silent, efficient—and guides me toward a fitting room larger than my apartment's living room.
I try on seven pieces. Each one transforms me into a version of Wren Callahan who belongs in this world—shoulders squared, jawline sharper, the kind of woman who walks into a room and doesn't calculate whether she can afford the appetizers.
When I step out in a fitted burgundy dress with a structured neckline, Theo looks up from his phone.
He studies me for a long, quiet moment, and my lungs forget their function.
"That one," he says, his voice softer than before. "That's exactly right."
I nod and retreat to the fitting room before he can see the flush crawling up my neck.
We leave with four garment bags, two shoe boxes, and a small velvet case containing earrings I didn't ask for. In the car, Theo turns to me and his expression shifts into the one that undoes me every time—genuine, unguarded, the man behind the CEO.
"Thank you for doing this," he says. "I genuinely don't know what I'd do without you, Wren."
His hand reaches across the space between us and covers mine—brief, absent, the kind of touch that means gratitude and nothing more to him.
My composure splits down the center like a seam under pressure. Every nerve in my hand fires at once, heat radiating up my wrist, my arm, settling deep in my chest where I've stored six years of wanting to be more than indispensable.
I pull my hand back before my face can betray me and tuck it into my lap, angling toward the window.
"That's what assistants are for," I say, and my voice holds steady because it has to.
Back at my desk an hour later, I stare at the black credit card Theo left with me—for future wardrobe needs.
A corporate Amex with his name embossed in silver.
I turn it over between my fingers and think about a twenty-one-year-old girl sitting in a lecture hall, watching a guest speaker with dark eyes and steady hands talk about legacy and ambition.
I think about how she leaned forward in her seat when he said her name after class, how she thought this person sees me, how she spent the next six years building a life designed to keep her inside his orbit.
This is your chance. Weeks of playing his girlfriend. Weeks of dinners and galas and proximity so close he'll have no choice but to notice the woman standing right beside him.
If I stay close enough, long enough, he'll see me. He has to.
My phone buzzes. A calendar notification fills the screen.
Estate Dinner — Victor Bracken. Plus one: Wren Callahan.
I accept the invite with steady hands and a heart that won't stop shaking.