Chapter 17
seventeen
WILLOW
The dress was black. Simple. A little dangerous.
Mika had picked it out during a lunch-hour raid on Nordstrom's sale rack—a fitted midi with a square neckline and a slit that stopped just above my knee. No sequins, no drama. A dress that said I belong here without trying to prove it.
I stood in Callum's bathroom, turning in the mirror, and tried to recognize the woman staring back.
She looked older than twenty-three. More settled.
Her hair was up tonight—a low twist that Mika had coached me through via FaceTime, swearing at me when I stabbed myself with a bobby pin for the third time.
"You look like you're going to a funeral," I told my reflection.
"You look incredible," Callum said from the doorway.
I hadn't heard him come in. He leaned against the frame in his dark suit—not a tuxedo tonight, just a beautifully cut charcoal number with a black shirt underneath, open at the collar.
No tie. It was the most relaxed I'd ever seen him dress for an event, and somehow that made him more devastating, not less.
"No tie?" I asked.
"Ashford said the dress code was 'elevated casual.' I'm choosing to interpret that liberally."
"You look good."
"Thank you."
"Annoyingly good. As in, I'm annoyed by how good you look. It's inconsiderate."
His mouth curved. He crossed to me, turned me by the shoulders so I faced the mirror, and stood behind me—his chin just above my head, his hands resting on my hips.
We looked at our reflection together. The man in the suit and the girl in the black dress.
The architect and the barista. Seventeen years of difference visible in the silver at his temples and invisible in everything else.
"We clean up okay," I said.
"We do." He pressed a kiss to my bare shoulder. "Ready?"
No. I was not ready. I was carrying a dying coffee shop, a repaired apartment I hadn't told him about, and enough anxiety to power a small city.
But the man behind me had just landed the biggest contract of his career, and tonight was supposed to be a celebration, and I was not going to ruin it with my baggage.
"Born ready," I lied.
He didn't believe me. I could tell by the way his gaze lingered on my face in the mirror. But he let it go, and I loved him for that, and I hated myself for needing him to.
The Ashford home was different at night.
I'd been here once before—the gala, weeks ago, when I'd walked through the front doors in an emerald dress and almost hyperventilated from imposter syndrome. That night, the house had been full of a hundred strangers and I'd hidden behind Callum's hand on my back.
Tonight, the circular drive held four cars. The front doors were open, warm air spilling out into the February cold. No valets. No staff in black tie. Just a lit entryway and the sound of piano music drifting from deeper inside.
Eight people. Nowhere to hide.
Callum parked. Came around. Opened my door—a habit I'd stopped protesting and started enjoying, which said things about me I wasn't ready to examine.
"Remember," he said as we walked up the steps. "Just be—"
"If you say 'be yourself' I'm going home."
"I was going to say 'be charming.' Which you are without effort."
"Nice save."
Eleanor Ashford met us at the door—a tall, immaculately maintained woman in her fifties who air-kissed like a European and assessed like an auditor. She wore cream silk and a smile that never quite reached her eyes, the hostess who made you feel observed rather than welcomed.
"Willow. Lovely to see you again." Her gaze swept my dress, my hair, my shoes—a full inventory completed in under two seconds.
"Callum, congratulations. Richard is thrilled.
" She ushered us through the foyer with the practiced choreography of a woman who'd hosted a thousand of these evenings and kept score at every one.
Richard Ashford stood by the fireplace, bourbon in hand, looking exactly how a sixty-two-year-old billionaire should look: confident, weathered, and vaguely amused by everything. He clapped Callum on the shoulder and said the thing Callum had spent two years waiting to hear.
"It's yours, Callum. The contract. Effective Monday."
And just like that, the reason for our arrangement was fulfilled.
I watched Callum accept—gracious, humble, saying the right things about the team and the vision and the partnership. Graham, who'd arrived before us with a date I didn't recognize—a redhead in a green dress who seemed both charming and faintly terrified—raised his glass in a toast.
I raised mine too. Smiled. Clinked. Played the part.
But the math was running in the background, adding and subtracting in ways I couldn't stop. The contract was the deal. The deal was the arrangement. The arrangement was the reason I was standing in this room, in this dress, holding this man's hand.
Now what?
We mingled. The guest list was small—the Ashfords, Callum and me, Graham and his date, and an older couple I was introduced to as the Harringtons, longtime friends of Richard's who ran a property development firm. Seven people. The dinner table was set for eight.
"Are we expecting anyone else?" Eleanor asked, checking her phone. "Oh—yes. Jessica confirmed late. She should be here any minute."
I felt Callum's hand tighten on mine.
Not a squeeze. A flinch. The involuntary contraction of a man who'd just heard a name he wasn't expecting.
"Jessica?" His voice was controlled. Too controlled.
"She called this afternoon," Eleanor said, smooth as glass. "She and I have been working on the Harrington Park benefit together. I told her she should come—it seemed rude not to." She smiled at us—a smile that dared you to object. "You don't mind, do you? She assured me it would be fine."
"Of course," Callum said. "It's fine."
It was not fine. I could feel the shift in him—the way his spine straightened, his shoulders pulled back, his jaw set into a line I recognized from our earliest coffee shop encounters.
Armor going on. Battle lines drawn. The man who'd kissed my shoulder ten minutes ago retreating behind the architect's facade.
I leaned close. "Who's Jessica?"
He looked at me. And I watched him calculate—how much to say, how fast, how to frame it so I wouldn't spiral.
"My ex-wife."
Two syllables that rearranged the room.
Elena's voice, clear as a bell in my memory: She's going to find a way to meet you. That's just how she operates.
The doorbell rang.
Jessica Hayes was everything I'd feared and nothing I'd expected.
I'd built a version of her in my head over the past weeks—assembled from Callum's silences, Elena's warnings, and my own insecurities. The version in my head was cold. Intimidating. A polished weapon in heels.
The real Jessica was warm.
She walked in wearing a navy wrap dress that fit her as if it had been made for her body—which it probably had.
She was beautiful in a way that felt effortless, a beauty that came from good genes and a skincare routine I couldn't afford and the confidence of a woman who'd spent four decades becoming exactly who she wanted to be.
Dark hair, chin-length—Elena's haircut, I realized with a jolt.
Or Elena had her mother's haircut. Either way, the resemblance was a sucker punch.
"Callum." She kissed his cheek with the casual grace of a woman who'd done it ten thousand times. "Congratulations on Riverside. You earned it."
"Thank you, Jessica."
Then she turned to me.
Her eyes were brown—not gray, not Callum's—and they swept over me with an assessment so quick and thorough that I felt as if I'd been X-rayed. She took in the dress, the hair, the age written in every unlined inch of my face, and she smiled.
A real smile. Warm and wide and generous.
"You must be Willow." She extended her hand. "I've heard wonderful things."
"From who?" I asked before I could stop myself.
"Elena." Her smile deepened. "She called me last week and talked about you for twenty minutes. That's a record—she usually caps emotional conversations at five."
I shook her hand. Her handshake was firm, her palm cool. She smelled expensive. She looked at me the way a person looked at a puzzle they were interested in solving.
"It's nice to meet you," I said.
"You too. I love your dress." She touched my arm—a gesture so natural and friendly that it would've been weird to flinch, so I didn't flinch, and I hated how much effort that required.
She's not going to be mean. She's going to be nice. Really nice.
Thanks, Elena. Spot on.
Dinner was exquisite and excruciating in equal measure.
Eleanor had arranged the seating with the calculated eye of a woman who knew exactly what she was building. Callum at one end of the table, Richard at the other. Me on Callum's left. Jessica directly across from me.
Eight people. White linen. Candlelight. And the ex-wife of the man I was sleeping with, sitting four feet away, eating salmon and being delightful.
She was charming. Funny, even. She told stories about her work with the Harrington Park benefit that had the table laughing. She complimented the wine pairing. She asked Graham's date about her job and listened with what appeared to be genuine interest.
And she kept looking at me.
Not aggressively. Not with hostility. With curiosity. The way a scientist observed a specimen—detached, interested, cataloging data.
"So, Willow." She set down her wine glass. "Elena tells me you manage a coffee shop?"
"I do. Brew & Bean, on Maple Street."
"I think I've driven past it. Cute little spot. Brick exterior?"
"That's us." I took a sip of wine. Steady hands. Good.
"How long have you been there?"
"Three years. Since I was twenty."
I said it without flinching. Let the number sit on the table—twenty, three years ago, twenty-three now. If she wanted to do the math, I wasn't going to do it for her.
"That's impressive. Starting that young, taking on the responsibility." She tilted her head. “Elena mentioned you dropped out of college to do it?"