Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The October chill had sharpened into November, bringing a cold that found its way under your collar and stayed there, a whispered warning of the winter to come.
Emmy walked from the T station with her hands shoved deep in her coat pockets and her chin tucked against the wind.
She was trying not to think about anything at all—not the flowers wilting on her kitchen counter, not the text exchange she'd replayed so many times the words had lost their shape, not Grant's voice behind the clubhouse, quiet and certain: He set you up.
The cold helped. It was hard to spiral when your face was going numb.
The lie was becoming its own art form.
Ryan held the door as she approached Elite Connections, and his eyes met hers with a flicker of something that might have been sympathy before he looked away.
"Morning, Ryan."
"Ms. Woodhouse." Two words, careful and kind, like she was something fragile.
The lobby swallowed her whole—cream marble floors so polished they reflected her like an accusation, the Success Wall gleaming with all those perfect couples in their perfect frames.
None of them had ever done anything as gauche as hitting a champagne cart at a charity event.
None of them had been memed, NFT'd, and auto-tuned into a house track.
Beckanne looked up from reception, and Emmy caught it—the smallest flicker of satisfaction in those perfectly lined eyes, there and gone before it could be called unprofessional. "She's ready for you."
The walk down the hallway felt endless. Two junior associates she didn't recognize stood by the coffee station, their conversation dying mid-sentence as she passed.
One of them whispered something to the other.
Emmy kept her chin up, her shoulders back, her expression pleasant and unbothered—and felt her cheeks burn anyway.
She'd been working on an apology since Saturday morning.
Three versions, actually, each one revised and re-revised until the words stopped looking like words.
I take full responsibility. It won't happen again.
I understand if you've lost confidence in me, but I hope you'll give me the chance to prove—
Cecelia's door was open. Emmy stopped in the doorway, her rehearsed words evaporating.
Cecelia sat behind her desk with the stillness of someone who had never once been caught off guard, her posture perfect, her expression revealing nothing. The corner office stretched behind her—all that glass, all that view, all that hard-won authority.
Like always, she didn't stand when Emmy entered. Didn't gesture to a chair. Just watched, with those sharp eyes that missed nothing, as Emmy closed the door behind her and stood there like a defendant awaiting sentencing.
Emmy recognized the tactic—silence as a weapon, forcing the other person to fill the void, to incriminate themselves with nervous chatter. Knowing someone was holding a knife didn't make it less sharp when they pressed it to your throat.
"Sit."
Emmy sat.
The silence stretched. Cecelia's gaze was clinical, assessing—the same look she probably gave disappointing quarterly reports before feeding them through a shredder.
"Let's talk about your clients," Cecelia said finally. "Grant Knight. Two dates. Two failures. Where are we?"
Emmy's prepared apology died in her throat. She'd expected to grovel about the video first, to explain herself, to beg for another chance. Instead, Cecelia was skipping straight to the professional audit.
"I have a potential third date lined up," Emmy said, forcing her voice steady. "Madeline Talbott. PR consultant, runs her own firm, works with nonprofits. She's warm, grounded, has her own life. I'm vetting her personally this week."
"Vetting her personally." Cecelia's tone was flat. "After two failed matches in a row." She pulled a folder from her desk—Grant's file, Emmy realized with a lurch—and flipped it open. "I reviewed his intake questionnaire this morning. Thorough, for the most part. But page six is blank."
Emmy's stomach dropped. Page six. The sexual preferences section.
She'd filled out Grant's questionnaire herself, that first week, pulling from years of observation and a few pointed questions disguised as casual conversation.
But page six had stopped her cold. The idea of sitting across from Grant and asking him about his preferences in the bedroom made her want to crawl under her desk and never emerge.
"An oversight," Emmy managed. "I'll follow up with him."
"See that you do." Cecelia's eyes were sharp.
"Sexual compatibility is one of the top three predictors of relationship longevity.
We can't make informed matches if we're guessing about something that fundamental.
" She closed the folder. "I want page six completed before his date with Madeline.
If we're going to get this right, we need the full picture. "
Emmy nodded, her mind already racing through the horror of that conversation. So, Grant, quick question—do you prefer to be dominant or submissive? Fluffy handcuffs or leather? What's your safe word? On a scale of one to ten, how important is it that your partner can—
She was going to die. She was actually going to die.
"I'll handle it," she said, because what else could she say?
"Good." Cecelia leaned forward slightly. "Grant Knight is your only asset right now, Emmy. Your only asset. And we can't leverage him for PR until we successfully match him. That was the deal. He stays anonymous until there's a happy ending we can publicize."
"I know."
"Do you?" Cecelia's voice went quiet, which was somehow worse than if she'd shouted.
"I've been thinking about his insistence on anonymity.
It limits us considerably. If we match him successfully, the PR value is enormous—but only if people know about it.
Have you revisited that conversation with him? Explored whether he might be open to—"
"No." The word came out sharper than Emmy intended. She took a breath, modulated. "Grant's boundaries are clear. He agreed to this because he trusts me to protect his privacy. If I push him on that, or if you reassign him, he walks. I guarantee it."
Cecelia didn't blink. Emmy felt like a butterfly pinned to a board.
"Then deliver," Cecelia said. "Madeline Talbott. Make it work."
Emmy nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
"Now. Tyce Duke." Cecelia's expression shifted—still cold, but calculating now. "Where are we with his matches?"
Emmy's stomach dropped. She'd been so focused on Grant, on the video, on surviving this meeting, that she'd barely thought about Tyce as a client. He'd signed with her. He was technically on her roster. And she had nothing.
"He's still finalizing his preferences," Emmy said. "His questionnaire responses were... vague. I've been working with him to clarify what he's actually looking for."
"Vague how?"
"He keeps saying he wants someone 'real' without defining what that means.
I think he's been burned before—probably by women who wanted access to his lifestyle rather than him.
" Emmy straightened in her chair, projecting confidence she didn't feel.
"I'm sending him a personality assessment this week.
Enneagram, attachment styles. Something to give us concrete data to work with instead of abstractions. "
Cecelia's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. "Sabine mentioned she had a productive conversation with him at the tournament. Before your... incident."
Emmy felt the ground shift beneath her. "Sabine spoke with Tyce?"
"She smoothed things over. Made sure Elite Connections' reputation wasn't entirely destroyed by your performance." Cecelia's tone was pointed. "He seems quite taken with her, actually. Perhaps I should reassign him as well."
"He's my client." Emmy heard the edge in her own voice and couldn't quite soften it.
"He's never met a pair of X chromosomes he didn't flirt with.
" She caught herself, recalibrated. "I mean—I signed him.
I brought him in. And unless he's expressed dissatisfaction with my representation, I'd like to continue working with him. "
Cecelia's mouth twitched—not quite a smile, but close. "He hasn't complained. If anything, he seems quite... entertained by you."
"Then let me do my job."
"You brought him in and then became his content strategy." Cecelia stood, moving to the window, her back to Emmy. "Tyce Duke has four million followers. Four million people who now associate our brand with that video. If Sabine can repair that relationship, I'm inclined to let her."
Emmy's hands clenched in her lap. She thought about Tyce's wink at the tennis court. I've got my eye on someone already. She'd assumed he meant her. But if he'd been talking to Sabine at the tournament, if Sabine had "smoothed things over"—
"Give me one more chance with him," Emmy said. "One meeting. If I can't get him to commit to actual matches, you can reassign him to Sabine."
Cecelia turned from the window. Her expression was unreadable.
“Two weeks,” she said. "Tyce commits to a real search, or he's Sabine's. And Grant Knight produces a viable relationship, or I start questioning whether our arrangement was a mistake."
A knock at the door interrupted them. Beckanne appeared, holding an arrangement so aggressively tropical it looked like it had been airlifted directly from a Miami nightclub—birds of paradise erupting from a base of orange orchids, the whole thing practically vibrating with look-at-me energy.
"These just arrived for Ms. Woodhouse." Beckanne's voice was carefully neutral, but her eyes flicked to Cecelia with something like anticipation. "From Mr. Duke."
Emmy stared at the flowers like they might bite her. The card was visible, tucked among the stems: No hard feelings, beautiful. —T