[Floris’ POV]
I watch Maverick's conversation with his grandfather from across the ballroom, and I know—with the kind of sinking certainty that settles in your stomach like cold stones—that it's not going well.
I've become fluent in reading him over these weeks. The tension in his shoulders that transforms them into granite slabs. The way his jaw has locked tight enough to crack diamonds. The slight narrowing of those green eyes that means he's being told something he doesn't want to hear.
Harrison is speaking in low, measured tones, and even from here, I can see Maverick receiving each word like a physical blow he refuses to acknowledge. Whatever verdict his grandfather has reached, it's written in the rigid line of Maverick's spine.
"Maverick and I go way back, you know." Priscilla's voice slides into my awareness like a paper cut—sharp, precise, designed to sting. "We met when we were sixteen. Summer in the Hamptons. His grandfather's estate has the most beautiful gardens."
"How lovely," I manage, keeping my smile firmly in place. Years of practice, this. Smiling through pain like it's an Olympic sport I've trained for since childhood.
"He was different then. Softer. More open." She sighs with theatrical wistfulness, swirling her champagne like she's stirring memories. "First love is special like that, don't you think? It shapes you. Changes you. Those connections never really disappear—they just wait for the right moment to resurface."
I want to ask if she rehearsed this speech in front of a mirror, but I bite my tongue so hard I taste copper. "I'm sure Maverick values your friendship," I say instead, because I am nothing if not pathologically polite even when I'm being emotionally eviscerated by someone in couture.
"Friendship." She laughs, light and musical and absolutely poisonous. "Is that what he calls it? How generous of him. Harrison must be so surprised by this whole situation—you appearing out of nowhere. A flight attendant."
I don’t even bother to ask how she knows—obviously, from Harrison. The word drips with condescension she doesn't bother hiding. "He's always had such a generous heart, hasn't he? Always wanting to help people less fortunate."
The implication lands exactly where she intended it to. I'm a charity case. A stray he picked up. Something temporary and disposable that his grandfather will correct as soon as the novelty wears off.
"These things have a way of coming back around, don't they?" Priscilla continues, watching me with eyes that miss nothing. "First loves. Unfinished business. The people who actually belong in someone's world versus the ones who are just... visiting."
I keep my composure through sheer force of will, but inside, I'm crumbling like a sandcastle meeting tide. She's right. I shouldn't have come here, to this glittering mausoleum of old money and older names.
A flight attendant in borrowed finery, playing dress-up in a world that takes one look at my community college degree and dead alcoholic father and knows exactly what I am. What I'll always be, no matter how expensive the jewelry.
Lipstick on a pig, my father would have said. The thought surfaces unbidden, his voice rough with whiskey and contempt, and I shove it down so hard my chest aches with the effort.
Across the room, Maverick finally extracts himself from Harrison. His expression is carefully blank—too blank, the kind of emptiness that hides something devastating underneath. When his eyes find mine across the sea of glittering guests, something in them makes my heart stutter, and not in the good way.
"If you'll excuse me," I say to Priscilla, not waiting for a response before I'm moving. My heels click against marble floors as I navigate away from the crowd, away from the chandeliers and champagne and people who've never had to question whether they belong somewhere.
I find a quiet corridor off the main ballroom—muted lighting, expensive wallpaper, the distant hum of the orchestra. I lean against the wall, arms wrapped around myself, and try to remember how to breathe without my chest feeling like it's caving in.
Footsteps approach. Of course he followed. Of course he found me.
"Floris." His voice is rough, uncertain in a way I've never heard from him before.
"The arrangement," I say before he can continue, because if I don't speak now I might never find the courage. "It was supposed to be simple. Six months. Clean break. No complications." I finally look at him, and the vulnerability I feel must show on my face because something in his expression fractures.
"But somewhere along the way, it stopped being pretend for me. I have real feelings now, Maverick. Actual, terrifying, completely inconvenient feelings that definitely violate several clauses of our very professional agreement."
He moves toward me, but I hold up a hand. I need to finish this before I lose my nerve entirely.
"I need to know if it's the same for you, or if I've been falling alone this whole time, building castles in clouds while you've been playing a part. And if it is the same—if you feel even a fraction of what I feel—what do we do now?”
I continue, my voice steadier than I feel. “Your grandfather is out there pushing Priscilla at you like she's a prize mare at auction, and he looked at me like I was something scraped off his shoe. So what's the plan here?"
The silence stretches between us, and I watch his face for answers I'm terrified to receive. His jaw works, muscles flexing beneath skin, and I can see him struggling with words that won't come.
"Harrison doesn't approve," he finally says, and each word sounds like it costs him something. "He wants me to end this. To choose Priscilla."
The confirmation hits like a punch to the solar plexus, even though I expected it. Even though I watched it happen from across a ballroom full of people who would never accept someone like me.
"So is that what you're doing?" I ask, and my voice doesn't waver, which feels like a small miracle. "Choosing Priscilla?"
"It's not that simple." He runs a hand through his hair, destroying its careful styling. "The inheritance. The company. Everything I've built—everything I've worked for my entire life—depends on his approval. If I lose that, I lose everything. You don't understand what's at stake here."
"Then explain it to me. Help me understand why you're standing there looking like you're about to break my heart while telling me it's complicated." I push off the wall, facing him fully now. "Because from where I'm standing, it seems pretty straightforward. Either you choose her, or you choose me. Which is it, Maverick?"
His silence stretches between us—heavy, damning, devastating. Three seconds. Five. Ten. Each one carving deeper into something I thought might be unbreakable.
"I can't lose everything," he says quietly, and the words sound like they're being torn from somewhere deep inside him. "I can't just walk away from—"
"That's not an answer." My voice cracks, just slightly. "Are you choosing me?"
More silence. The kind that fills entire rooms, that drowns out orchestras and champagne laughter and everything except the sound of something precious shattering into pieces too small to ever reassemble.
I nod once. Slowly. Understanding finally what he can't bring himself to say.
"Okay," I whisper. "Okay."