31. Harper
HARPER
ROSé looks exactly like I pictured it the first time Sophia handed me the floor plan, except better, because nothing on paper accounts for what a space feels like once it’s full of people who actually want to be in it.
Behind the registers, painted directly onto the exposed stone in flowing gold cursive, the wall reads Celebrate your body as the rarity it is...
The name itself sits above it in a cleaner, bolder script, ROSé, gold leaf catching the archway lights every time someone walks past. It was Sophia’s idea down to the ellipsis, the sentence left open like it hasn’t decided whether to finish itself yet.
I watched the calligrapher spend four hours on that wall last week and thought, even then, that it was the truest thing in the entire build.
The merchandise arrived on schedule, every last piece, and we got it all on the sales floor with backstock organized behind the register wall by Thursday afternoon, which means tonight nobody’s running anywhere for sizes or replacements.
Raph’s been at the booth for two hours, weaving the live quartet’s strings into something that still sounds like a string quartet but also makes people want to move, and somehow it works exactly the way I told Odette it would.
Lorenzo’s been glued to Sophia’s side all night in a navy suit that actually fits him for once, carrying her champagne, fixing a crooked dress rack before anyone else notices it’s crooked, looking at her like she invented the concept of retail.
Sophia’s in one of her own pieces, a silk slip dress in pale gold that catches the archway lights every time she moves, her hair half up, diamond studs that were definitely a gift from her father. She looks like ROSé grew up around her rather than the other way around.
I went simple. A fitted champagne midi dress that won’t show six hours of standing, low heels I can actually walk a property in, hair pulled back so it stays out of my face while I’m checking clipboards.
Killian told me before we left the suite that I looked beautiful and then told me, more seriously, that I looked like I was dressed to work rather than dressed to be looked at, and from him that was the higher compliment.
He’s in the charcoal suit, the one that fits him like it was poured on, no tie tonight, top button open, the kind of effortless that costs more than effortless usually costs.
Asher’s traded his chef coat for a dark green button-down that does something unfair to his eyes, sleeves rolled to his forearms, the tattoos peeking out just enough to remind everyone he’s not actually as buttoned-up as the shirt suggests.
Maddox is in black, head to toe, somehow making it look like he wandered in off a yacht rather than out of a tailor’s, watch loose on his wrist, not a single hair out of place despite three glasses of wine and at least two flirtations I’ve personally witnessed.
The food’s perfect, obviously. The tasting room hit its sales goal an hour before close. Every guest I’ve checked in with tonight has said some version of the same thing, that this is the best event the estate’s done in years, and I’ve smiled and said thank you and meant it every single time.
I built this.
I’m standing near the champagne tower doing a final headcount on my tablet when Maddox finds me.
“Dance with me,” he says.
“I’m working.”
“You’ve been working for six hours straight. Mallory’s got the floor. Dance with me.”
He doesn’t wait for me to argue, just takes the tablet out of my hand and sets it on the nearest table and pulls me toward the ballroom floor where the quartet’s playing something slow, and I let him, because my feet hurt and my shoulders ache and for one song I’m allowed to be a person instead of an events coordinator.
He pulls me in close. One hand at the small of my back, the other holding mine against his chest, and we move slow in a small circle that doesn’t require either of us to think about it.
We haven’t talked about the maze.
Not really. We’ve talked since then, plenty, and there’s been more than one night where it’s been just the two of us and more than one where it’s been all four, and every single time has been good, has felt like exactly where I’m supposed to be.
But the thing he said to me on the floor, the thing I said back without deciding to, neither of us has brought it up since.
I rest my head against his shoulder.
He presses his lips to my temple. “I’m sorry I’ve been so busy lately,” he says, low, just for me.
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I figured you were wrapped up in all…” He gestures vaguely at the room without letting go of me. “This. I didn’t want to add more to your plate.”
“I always have room for you, Maddox.”
His arms tighten around me and I feel the warmth of him through the thin fabric of my dress, steady, certain, and for a second neither of us says anything, just moving with the music.
“About that night,” he says.
My stomach drops a little.
“It’s okay if you were caught up in the moment,” he says, careful, like he’s been rehearsing it. “I wasn’t expecting you to say it back. So just know it’s okay if you were just… vibing. In the moment. I’m not holding you to it.”
I pull back enough to look at him.
I did mean it. I’ve thought about almost nothing else for two weeks, turned it over so many times I’ve worn smooth edges into it, and the fact that he’s standing here giving me an exit before I’ve even asked for one makes something in my chest twist hard.
I mean it about him.
And though I haven’t said it to either of the other two, I feel it for them too, the same word, the same weight, sitting quietly under everything I do during the day and everything I don’t say at night.
“Maddox—”
“There’s our sweet pea.”
Every muscle in my body locks at once as the cortisol in my body runs rampant and rings an alarm that I swear I can hear screeching.
What the fuck are they doing here?