CHAPTER 9
POPPY
“You’re bringing him here?”
Sage’s voice goes up an octave. She’s standing in my kitchen, holding a wine glass like a weapon, staring at me like I’ve just announced I’m joining a cult.
“I’m bringing him here,” I confirm. “Tonight. In about...” I check my phone. “Forty-five minutes.”
“Forty-five minutes.”
“Maybe forty.”
“Poppy.” She sets down the wine glass. “I haven’t even showered. I’m wearing my Garfield sweatshirt.”
“You look great.”
“I have a coffee stain on my boob.”
“He won’t notice.”
“He’ll notice. Men like that notice everything.” She runs her hands through her hair, which does absolutely nothing to improve the situation. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because you said you wanted to meet him. Multiple times. Aggressively.”
“I wanted to meet him after I’d had time to prepare. To come up with questions. To do research.”
“You’ve been researching him for a week. You sent me seventeen articles about billionaire red flags.”
“Eighteen. I sent one more this morning about men who are too good-looking.” She grabs her wine again. “This is entrapment. This is ambush friendship.”
“This is wine and appetizers and a nice evening getting to know the guy I’m taking to my sister’s wedding in three days.”
“The fake guy.”
“The...” I hesitate. “Complicated guy.”
Sage narrows her eyes. “Complicated how?”
“Complicated like maybe it’s not fake anymore.”
“Poppy Rose Gable.” She says my full name like a curse. “Are you telling me you caught feelings for your rental boyfriend?”
“I’m telling you it’s complicated.”
“How complicated?”
“Very.” I pour myself more wine. “He sent me a designer dress. We had a practice date that didn’t feel like practice. He calls me at weird hours just to hear my voice.”
“That’s not complicated. That’s a romcom.”
“He also has no digital footprint, never eats in front of me, and talks about the past like he lived through it personally.”
“Maybe he’s just well-read.”
“Maybe.” I stare at my wine. “Or maybe he’s hiding something massive, and I’m in too deep to care.”
“Define ‘too deep.’”
“I think about him constantly. I check my phone every five minutes hoping he’s texted. When he looks at me, I forget how to breathe.” I meet her eyes. “That kind of deep.”
“Oh, honey.”
“I know.”
“This is bad.”
“I know.”
“You were supposed to hire a professional pretender, survive the wedding, and move on with your life.”
“I know.”
“Instead, you’ve fallen for a mysterious billionaire who doesn’t eat and has no past.”
“When you say it like that, it sounds crazy.”
“It is crazy.” She drains her wine. “I love it. I need to meet him immediately.”
“I thought you needed to prepare?”
“No time. He’ll be here in—” she checks my phone “—thirty-seven minutes, and I need to be the friend who intimidates him into being honest with you.”
“Please don’t interrogate him.”
“I’m absolutely going to interrogate him.”
“Sage—”
“Poppy. Someone has to.” She points her empty glass at me. “You’re smart about everything except men. You missed every red flag with Preston for two years. If this Julian person is hiding something, I’m going to find out.”
“And if you don’t find out?”
“Then he’s either telling the truth, or better at lying than anyone I’ve ever met.” She heads toward the bathroom. “Either way, at least we’ll know. I need to make myself presentable. I’ll be right back.”
Julian arrives at exactly 7:00 PM.
I don’t know why I’m surprised anymore. The man is pathologically punctual.
The knock comes exactly ninety seconds after I buzz him in. Enough time to walk up three flights of stairs at a normal pace. Calculated.
I open the door.
He’s wearing dark jeans and a gray sweater—deliberately casual, I realize. Not a suit. Not intimidating. Dressed to meet friends, not to impress business associates.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi.” His eyes move over me—the sundress I agonized over, the necklace he’s seen before, the shoes I haven’t worn since college. “You look lovely.”
“You’re very good at compliments.”
“Only when they’re true.”
Sage appears behind me. Wine in hand. Garfield sweatshirt still firmly in place.
“You must be Julian.” Her voice is aggressively cheerful. “I’m Sage. The best friend. The one who’s been hearing about you for weeks.”
“All good things, I hope.”
“Mostly confusion.” She steps back to let him in. “But intriguing confusion. Wine?”
“Please.”
I watch him move through my apartment. He pauses at the bookshelf and picks up a framed picture of me and Sage at a music festival three years ago.
“Costa Rica?” he guesses.
“Coachella,” Sage corrects. “We had terrible sunburns for a week.”
“You look happy.”
“We were dehydrated and lost, and Sage stepped on a snake.”
“A fake snake,” Sage adds. “Someone’s very realistic camping prop. I screamed for ten minutes.”
Julian almost smiles. It’s the closest I’ve seen him get in front of someone new.
“Wine,” Sage announces, pressing a glass into his hand. “Sit. I have questions.”
“Sage—”
“It’s fine.” Julian settles onto my couch like he belongs there. “Ask whatever you’d like.”
“Where did you grow up?”
“Various places. My family traveled extensively.”
“For what?”
“Business. My father had interests in several countries.”
“What kind of business?”
“Finance. Consulting. Nothing exciting.”
Sage sits across from him, wine glass tilted like she’s a detective in a noir film. “You’re being vague.”
“I’m being private.”
“There’s a difference?”
“A significant one.” He takes a sip of wine—the first time I’ve seen him actually drink something. “Private means I’m choosing not to share. Vague means I’m hiding something. I’m private.”
“Aren’t those the same thing?”
“No. Private is a boundary. Vague is a deflection.” He meets her eyes steadily. “I’m happy to answer direct questions. I’m less happy to volunteer information I consider personal.”
Sage considers this. “Fair. Direct question: what are your intentions with Poppy?”
“Sage!”
“It’s a fair question.” Julian doesn’t look away from her. “My intentions are to help her through her sister’s wedding with her dignity intact. That was the original arrangement.”
“And now?”
“Now my intentions have expanded to include being worthy of her trust.”
“That’s a non-answer.”
“That’s an honest answer.” He sets down his wine—still mostly full, I notice. “I care about her. More than I expected to. More than is perhaps wise. My intention is to be honest about that, while respecting her right to decide what she wants.”
“And what about after the wedding?”
“That depends on Poppy.”
“Depends on me how?” I interrupt. They both turn to look at me. “You keep saying that—after the wedding. Poppy decides. What exactly am I deciding?”
Julian hesitates. “Whether you want to know who I really am.”
“I already know who you are.”
“You know who I’ve shown you. There’s more.” His voice drops. “Significantly more.”
“Like what?”
“Like things I can’t explain until you’re ready to hear them. Things that will change how you see me.”
Sage leans forward. “Are you married?”
“No.”
“Criminal record?”
“No.”
“In a cult?”
“No.”
“Then what could possibly be so—”
“Sage.” Julian’s voice is gentle but firm. “I understand you’re protecting your friend. I respect that. But there are things about me that I need to tell Poppy directly, in my own time, when we’re alone.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It’s not meant to.” He turns to me. “I’m not dangerous, Poppy. Not to you. But I have a past. A complicated one. And I want to share it with you properly, not in pieces during a social ambush.”
“This isn’t an ambush,” Sage protests.
“It’s absolutely an ambush,” I say. “That’s exactly what this is.”
“Fine. It’s a loving ambush. A protective ambush.”
Julian’s mouth curves. “I appreciate that. Truly. Poppy’s lucky to have someone who cares enough to interrogate strangers for her.”
“You’re not a stranger,” Sage says.
“We’ve known each other for fifteen minutes.”
“Poppy’s told me everything about you.”
“Is that so?”
Sage didn’t give me a chance to answer.
“Yeah, she’s my best friend, so yes, I know a lot about you.”
“I like you,” he says to Sage. “Even though you’re clearly here to determine if I’m worthy of your friend.”
“And? Am I going to determine that?”
He laughs. An actual laugh—short and surprised, like it escaped without permission.
I stare. I’ve never heard him laugh before.
“I hope so. I’d hate to fail the test.”
They look at each other—some kind of silent assessment passing between them. Then Sage leans back.
“Okay,” she says. “You’re weird. You’re definitely hiding something. You talk like you’re from a different century, and you’re way too composed for any normal human being.”
“Sage—”
“But.” She holds up a hand. “You also clearly care about Poppy. You look at her like she’s the only person in the room. And you showed up to be interrogated by her crazy best friend without complaining.”
“I’d hardly call you crazy.”
“You don’t know me well enough yet.” She raises her wine glass. “Provisional approval. Pending further investigation.”
“I’ll take it.”
The rest of the evening goes better than I expected.
Sage asks about Julian’s work (vague answers about investments and consulting). About his family (even vaguer answers about privacy and loss). About how we met (the gallery story we practiced, delivered smoothly).
Julian asks about her job (wedding planner), her hobbies (murder podcasts and overthinking), her relationship status (complicated, which means situationally on-again-off-again with commitment-phobic guys).
By 10 PM, we’ve finished two bottles of wine, and Sage has progressed from suspicious to reluctantly charmed.
“He’s good,” she tells me in the kitchen while Julian pretends not to hear from the living room. “Too good. That’s my only concern.”
“Too good how?”
“No one’s that polished. That controlled. He’s like a person designed in a lab.”
“He’s just... careful.”
“He’s a little spooky, Pops.” She lowers her voice. “When he looks at me, I feel like he’s reading my soul. Like he knows things about me that I haven’t even figured out yet.”
“That’s just intensity.”
“That’s not just anything. That’s—” She stops. Shakes her head. “I don’t know what that is. But it’s not normal.”
“Normal is overrated.”
“Normal is safe.”
“Safe is boring.”
“Safe doesn’t leave you crying on my couch for six months like Preston did.”
The words land hard. I look away.
“Sorry,” Sage says immediately. “I didn’t mean to say that. I just—I worry about you.”
“I know.”
“And this guy is clearly something special. I can see why you’re falling for him. But Poppy, he’s also obviously hiding something. Something big.”
“I know that, too.”
“And you’re okay with it?”
I look through the doorway. Julian is standing by my window, looking out at the city. In profile, he could be anyone—a businessman, a billionaire, a man thinking about stocks or schedules or other normal things.
But there’s something about the way he holds himself. The stillness. The sense that he’s been standing exactly like that for longer than I can imagine.
“No,” I admit. “I’m not okay with it. But I’m also not willing to walk away.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s the first person in years who sees me. The real me. Not the highlight reel.”
“And that’s worth the mystery?”
“Right now? Yes.”
Sage sighs. “Then I hope the mystery is worth the risk.”
“So do I.”
Julian leaves at eleven.
At the door, we stand close—closer than we have all evening. I can feel the tension he’s been holding, the careful distance he maintained with Sage watching.
“She’s protective,” he says.
“She’s been my person since college. She’s earned the right to be protective.”
“I like her.”
“She likes you. Even if she won’t admit it yet.”
He reaches up, brushes a strand of hair from my face. His fingers are cool.
“Thank you for tonight,” he says. “For introducing me to someone who matters to you.”
“Thank you for surviving the interrogation.”
“I’ve survived worse.”
“I believe you.”
He hesitates. There’s something in his eyes—the same thing I saw on our practice date. Want. Restraint.
“Three more days,” he says. “Then we leave.”
“Three more days.”
“Poppy—”
“Don’t.” I press my fingers to his lips. “Whatever you’re about to warn me about, whatever complication you’re preparing me for—don’t. Not tonight. Tonight was good. Let’s keep it good.”
He kisses my fingers. Soft. Deliberate.
“Three more days,” he repeats. “And then everything changes.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
He’s gone before I even think to question what “And then everything changes” means.
I stand in my doorway, listening to his footsteps fade, and I think about all the things I don’t know. All the mysteries I’m choosing to ignore.
Then I close the door and go back to Sage, who’s waiting with more wine and more questions.
Some of them I can answer.
Most of them I can’t.
But that’s okay.
I’ve got three more days to pretend that it’s not terrifying.