7. Mia
Mia
“Chin up,” Celeste says. “Not like that. Like you’re happy to be there, not like you’re bracing for bad news.”
I adjust my chin. She tilts her head.
“Better. Now when you walk into a room with him, lead with your left shoulder. It keeps you angled toward him. Press reads it as intimate.”
“It sounds staged.”
“Everything sounds staged when you describe it. It looks natural when you do it.” She makes a note on her tablet. “When he puts his hand on your back, don’t pull away. You pulled away this morning in the kitchen.”
“He handed me a coffee cup.”
“His hand grazed yours and you moved yours. Someone watching would notice it.” She looks up. “Tonight there will be people watching who are paid to notice it.”
I sit up straighter on his couch. “What’s tonight?”
“The Lowell Foundation gallery benefit. Reed’s been committed for three months.” She turns a page. “The dress arrives in an hour.”
“I haven’t approved a dress.”
“The veto window requires forty-eight hours notice. We have sixty minutes.” She keeps writing. “Before you say it: I briefed the stylist myself. It’s not a trophy wife dress.”
“He told you.”
“It’s my job to know,” she informs me. “The Lowell benefit is attended by three board members, two financial journalists, and a photographer who has been covering Reed for four years.” She sets the tablet down.
“This is not a soft launch. This is the launch. Which means by the end of tonight, your face and his need to tell a story without either of you saying a word.”
“That’s a lot of pressure for a dress I haven’t approved.”
“You’ll like the dress.” She stands. “Now. The touching.”
She spends the next twenty minutes walking me through it as if she’s teaching a masterclass.
How to let my hand find his instead of reaching for it.
How to lean in when he speaks without making it look like I’m straining to hear.
How to angle my body so we’re always slightly turned toward each other in photographs.
“When he looks at you,” she says, “look back. Don’t look away first.”
“I don’t do that.”
She gives me a look that says she has watched me do exactly that twice this morning.
“The story,” she continues. “Reed says you’ve covered the basics.”
“We went over it.”
“Tonight isn’t basics. Board members will ask questions not because they’re curious but because they’re hunting for the seam where the story doesn’t hold.” She picks up her bag. “Run it with him properly before you get dressed. Every detail, every beat, no gaps.”
She’s at the door when she stops.
“One more thing.” She turns back. “When you laugh tonight, let it be real. You have a real laugh. Use it.” She pauses. “It’s better than the one you use when you’re being polite.”
She leaves before I can work out whether that was a compliment.
Reed gets home at four-forty. Jacket already off, sleeves rolled, tension sitting across his shoulders from a day that clearly didn’t go his way. He pours water, drinks half, sets the glass down, and finds me on the couch with Celeste’s printed notes in my lap.
“Gallery opening,” I say.
“I know.” He sits in the chair across the coffee table. “Did she do the shoulder thing?”
“And the touching tutorial.”
“The touching tutorial is real. There’s a photographer at the Lowell who shoots wide so he catches both faces. You need to be angled in.” He nods at the briefing notes. “Story. Go.”
I look at the first page. “We met six months ago. Charity event. I don’t know which one.”
“The Burton Foundation dinner in November. You were doing a mural installation in the east corridor of the venue.”
I look up. “That’s very specific.”
“Vague falls apart. Specific holds.” He leans back. “We spoke briefly. I remembered you and reached out.”
“Why did you remember me?”
He tilts his head. “You were arguing with the venue coordinator about the lighting for your mural. You were right and you knew it and you weren’t going to stop until he admitted it.”
I sit with that for a moment. It sounds like me. It also sounds like something worth remembering.
“Okay,” I say. “Then what?”
“I reached out to apologize for the gala. We had dinner.”
“Where?”
“Here. My penthouse. No public record, no staff who can contradict the timeline.”
“Very romantic,” I say.
“It’s defensible.” He picks up the notes. “How long have we been together?”
“The contract says six weeks but you said four.”
“Four. Six means someone should have spotted us.” He sets the notes down again. “What did we talk about at dinner?”
I think about it. “Your daughter.”
He goes still, just briefly. “Why?”
“Because it’s the thing that would’ve made me stay for a second glass of wine.” I meet his eyes across the table. “A man who talks about his kid like she’s the best thing in his life. That’s why I would’ve stayed.”
He holds my gaze for a moment. His eyes soften ever so slightly.
“And what did I say about her?” he asks, quieter than the rest of the conversation.
“That she’s sharp and funny and that she makes you work for it.” I shrug. “That you like that she makes you work for it.”
He nods, once, and looks back at the notes.
“There’s one thing that doesn’t make sense,” I say.
He frowns. “Celeste’s very thorough.”
“I don’t doubt that,” I agree. “But how would you explain why you kicked me out of the gala if we were engaged?”
He’s quiet for a second. “The night of the gala, the vendor list miscommunication happened before anyone on my team connected your name to mine. By the time I realized who you were, you were already outside.”
I think about it. “So you came out after me.”
“To apologize.” His jaw shifts. “That’s when the photographer got the shot.”
“And that’s why it looked the way it did.” I sit back. “Because it’s almost true.”
He looks at me. “That’s the best cover. Always is.”
“What about the guests that saw you kick me out?” I challenge.
“No one will contradict me,” he assures me. “It’s in all our interest that the Walsh acquisition gets through.”
We run the story twice more. The second time the gaps disappear. His answers and mine start to fit together without effort, the transitions landing clean, the story moving like something we’ve told before. At some point we stop needing the notes entirely.
The dress arrives at five-fifteen. Deep green, sleeveless, fitted through the waist and falling clean to the knee. The neckline sits low enough to be elegant without being a statement. I stand in front of the mirror in my room for a full minute.
Celeste got it exactly right, but I won’t tell her that.
I come out at six. Reed’s already dressed, black tie at his collar, jacket on, phone in hand. He looks up when I come down the hallway.
He looks at me for a moment that goes a beat longer than necessary.
“Green works,” he says curtly, and goes back to his phone.
I reach up to fasten my necklace but can’t find the clasp. My fingers keep losing it, the chain too fine, the angle wrong, the mirror in the hallway giving me nothing useful to work with. I’m on my third attempt when Reed steps forward without a word.
“Here.” He moves behind me and I drop my hands.
I watch him in the mirror. His head bows slightly as he finds the clasp. It takes him three seconds where I spent thirty failing. His fingertips brush my collarbone, just barely, the lightest possible contact, warm and then gone as the clasp clicks shut.
He doesn’t step back. I don’t step forward.
In the mirror his eyes come up to mine and stay there. The hallway is very quiet, and I’m aware of every inch between us, but also of how few there are.
“Tonight,” he says, his voice pitched low, “for the arrival shot, I’m going to have to kiss you.”
My pulse does something I’m filing away for later.
“Celeste’s call?” I ask.
“Mine. The Burton photographer always gets the arrival. It needs to look real.” His eyes stay on mine in the mirror. “I’m telling you so you’re not caught off guard.”
“I’m not—” I start.
He leans in, pressing his mouth on mine.