I take a strategic sip of iced tea, pretending my heart isn’t a trampoline.

“Before you ask—no, I didn’t go home last night,” I say casually, though my pulse is anything but. “And no, I don’t want to talk about why.”

Josie freezes mid-sip, her eyes sharpening like a hawk’s. “Okay… so what do you want to talk about?”

“Anything that doesn’t involve interrogation,” I mutter. “Really, Josie, it’s nothing dramatic.”

“You didn’t answer my questions.” Her voice softens. “Are you okay?”

I offer a half-smile. “I’m fine. Truly. Nothing bad happened. I just—needed space. A night away from the constant scrutiny.”

Her eyes search mine for cracks. “You sure? Because you’ve got that look. Like you’re holding in a secret so loud it’s echoing.”

“Maybe I am. But it’s not dangerous. Or tragic. Or even scandalous, I promise.” I give her a pointed look. “And it’s not something I’m ready to explain. Yet.”

Josie exhales, relenting for now. “Fine. But just so you know—you’re the worst at acting chill. You’re like a glitter-covered grenade.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment. So tell me about SoulCycle Guy. Did he really have a lower back tattoo that said ‘Exit Only’?”

We pivot to safer topics, the afternoon stretching into comfortable territory while my heart rate gradually returns to something approaching normal.

But beneath the laughter, beneath the gossip, the earthquake still reverberates through my bones.

Later, alone in my room, I can’t stop picturing Caleb waking up.

Did he reach for me first, or did he know I was gone before his eyes even opened?

I imagine him in that boardroom with my father, wearing his betrayal like an Armani suit. Every handshake is a lie, every smile is a confession that my father can’t read.

The Virgin Exchange app shows my auction as “completed”—such a clinical word for what happened.

The payment sits in my secret account now, $455,000 in digital proof that I’d burned my life down for the price of freedom.

I picture Caleb seeing the same notification, wonder if he deletes it immediately or stares at it like I do, evidence of our mutual destruction.

Time becomes elastic. Sunday bleeds into Monday, Tuesday arrives like a threat. I perfect the art of being present while absent—smiling at meals, nodding at my mother’s wedding planning chatter, texting Anthony back with just enough interest to seem engaged.

Caleb’s still in the house, a ghost I navigate around.

Once, I hear his laugh from my father’s study and have to lock myself in the bathroom until my hands stop shaking.

My body remains a traitor, responding to his proximity even through walls. I dream of hotel rooms and gentle hands, wake up reaching for someone who was never mine to keep.

***

Thursday arrives wrapped in dread and Prada.

The gallery screams money—minimalist white walls, champagne that costs more than most people’s rent, art that requires a PhD to understand.

Alessandra Wirth’s feminist installations are aggressive, confrontational: dismembered mannequins reassembled into accusations, mirrors that fracture viewers into uncomfortable truths.

“You came,” Anthony says, appearing at my elbow with two glasses of something sparkling. He looks different—less smug, more uncertain. Like he’s actually seeing me instead of through me.

“You said you were an ass,” I reply, accepting the glass. “I appreciate honesty in my arranged marriages.”

He actually laughs, genuine surprise flickering across his features. “I deserved that.”

We move through the exhibit, Anthony offering unexpectedly sharp observations about the art, revealing depth I hadn’t suspected.

“The way she juxtaposes vulnerability with aggression,” he says, gesturing to a particularly violent canvas, “reminds me of Woolf’s argument that women have had to fight for intellectual space in rooms that weren’t built for them.”

I nearly choke on my champagne. “You’ve read Virginia Woolf?”

“English lit minor,” he admits, looking almost embarrassed. “Don’t tell my father. He thinks I spent those credits on advanced finance.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” I say, surprisingly meaning it.

He leans closer, voice dropping conspiratorially.

“You know what the real art is here? Watching these people pretend to understand what they’re looking at when half of them are just here to be photographed next to something expensive.”

The observation is so accurate I actually laugh—a real laugh, not the polite society titter I’ve perfected over years of boring dinner parties.

Maybe I’d written him off too quickly—beneath the entitled exterior, there might actually be a brain worth engaging.

“This piece represents the commodification of female sexuality,” Anthony reads from a placard, oblivious to the irony.

I stare at a sculpture of a woman made entirely of price tags, my recent auction flashing like neon in my mind. “Subtle,” I mutter.

Anthony’s hand brushes my elbow, guiding me to the next installation.

The touch surprises me—it’s easy, uncomplicated, the kind of innocent contact I’d always flinched from before. But now? Nothing. No revulsion, no panic. Just… pleasant.

Like maybe Caleb had unlocked something in me, removed whatever invisible barrier had made my skin crawl at the thought of being touched.

The realization hits like whiplash—should I be grateful to him for that? For making my body feel like my own?

“Shit. Photographers.” Anthony’s warning cuts through my thoughts.

Before I can react, he’s steering me toward a corner, but it’s too late. The flash goes off, capturing us mid-conversation, his hand on my arm, looking every inch the perfect society couple.

“Page Six is going to love this,” he sighs, not sounding particularly upset about it. “Father will be pleased.”

I’m about to respond when something—someone—catches my eye across the gallery. My heart stops, then restarts at triple speed.

Caleb.

Standing by the bar, champagne glass frozen halfway to his lips, watching me with an intensity that makes the room feel suddenly airless.

Our eyes meet and the world tilts, everything else—Anthony, the art, the cameras—fading to static.

Three days of avoiding him, of pretending he doesn’t exist, of locking away the memory of his hands on my skin—all of it evaporates in an instant. He looks good—too good—in a charcoal suit that makes my mouth go dry.

I can see the exact moment he registers Anthony’s hand on my arm, watches his jaw tighten with something that looks dangerously like possession.