Chapter 12
Anna
The dress arrived on Saturday afternoon.
I was on Miley’s couch in sweatpants, eating cereal out of the box and watching a baking competition I didn’t care about, when the doorbell rang. The delivery guy handed me a garment bag, a smaller box, and asked me to sign. I signed. He left.
Miley appeared from the kitchen, spatula in hand. "What is that?"
"I don’t know."
"Open it."
I unzipped the bag and we both went quiet.
Blue. Deep midnight blue—the color of a sky seconds before it surrenders to black, shifting darker and lighter with every fold of the fabric.
Silk. I ran my fingers across it before I could stop myself—cool, impossibly smooth, heavy enough to pool in my hands.
It hung from the hanger like something liquid that had learned to hold a shape, catching even the dull apartment light and turning it into something worth looking at.
The smaller box held a necklace. Delicate gold chain, a single blue stone that caught light from every angle. And at the bottom of the box, a card. Small, cream-colored, written in neat capital letters I recognized from the red-pen corrections on my documents.
FOR THE GALA. SINCE I HAVE THE SUIT, IT SEEMS ONLY FAIR YOU HAVE SOMETHING EQUALLY ADEQUATE. YOU ARE REQUIRED TO ATTEND SO THAT I DO NOT SUFFER ALONE. — J.H.
I read it twice. Then I laughed, because it was so aggressively him. Stiff and formal.
The panic arrived.
He wanted me at the gala. Tonight. The Miami Gaming Awards.
The fitting room incident, I’d been trying not to think about it. His chest under my fingers. The drive back, both of us staring straight ahead, the silence so awkward in a way I couldn’t name.
I wasn’t ready for this.
I pulled out my phone. Opened his contact and started typing:
Mr. Hunter, I appreciate the gesture but I’m not sure it’s appropriate for me to attend as your—
"Why is your boss sending you a dress?"
I looked up. Miley was standing over me with her arms crossed, spatula pointed at my face like a weapon, her eyes darting from me to the note.
I gulped. "I don’t know."
"You don’t know?"
"He wants me at the gala tonight. Probably… as his assistant. For work."
"For work." Miley repeated it, giving me a ridiculous look. "He sent you a silk gown and a necklace. For work."
"He’s eccentric."
"I think he may be interested." Miley set the spatula down on the coffee table and looked me in the eye. "Have you been keeping anything from me?"
"He’s just my boss," I said.
"Your boss who bought you jewelry." She gave me a deadpan look. "Anna. Honey. Sweetheart. Light of my life. Bosses don’t send dresses to assistants they have no feelings for. Bosses send emails and meeting invites. They do not send midnight blue silk with a handwritten note."
"I’m going to call him and say I can’t go."
"You are absolutely not calling him to say you can’t go. You are putting on that dress and going to that gala and having the best night of your life."
"Miley—"
My phone rang. Not Jace.
It was Miles.
"Anna." He sounded cheerful, his tone a touch too bright for a man who never called just to chat. "I just wanted to say thank you."
"For what?"
"For getting Jace to agree to the gala. I’ve been trying for five years and you managed it in, what, three days?"
I looked at Miley. She was mouthing I TOLD YOU with her whole body. "I didn’t do anything. He just sent me a dress."
Miles went quiet for a second. "He sent you a dress?"
"And a necklace."
"And a… Anna, that’s..."
"It’s for work."
"Right." He sounded like Miley. The exact same tone. "For work. Well, whatever you did, it worked. He called me a few minutes ago and said he’s attending. First time in five years. And the only reason that changed is you."
He thanked me again and hung up. I sat on the couch with the dress in my lap and the card in my hand. Miley was still staring at me, a knowing grin spreading across her face.
"Put the dress on, Anna. It's time to get ready."
I put the dress on. I did my makeup lightly. And when I was finally ready, I looked in the mirror—but couldn’t recognize myself.
It had been a while since I’d dressed up like this, in something this pretty. And the credit, annoyingly, went to Jace Hunter.
The venue was a renovated Art Deco hotel in South Beach.
Arched doorways, gold leaf accents catching the light from chandeliers that hung low enough to warm every surface they touched.
The ceiling stretched high above the crowd, pale and paneled, and the whole room had a bronze glow to it, like someone had dipped the evening in amber.
I clocked the exits on the way in. Both of them. The main entrance and the service door on the left side near the valet stand. I did this everywhere. It became a habit. Something I started after everything went south in my past life.
Jace was waiting inside the lobby.
I saw him before he saw me. For three seconds I just looked. Black suit. The one from the fashion house, single-breasted, cut close through the torso with a notch lapel that sat sharp against his shoulders. He hadn't forgotten the gray tie I'd knotted for him either.
His hair was combed back without a strand out of place, his glasses clean, his posture held with that rigid stillness that somehow looked natural on him because nothing about Jace Hunter had ever arrived unplanned.
The jacket followed his shoulders without a single pull at the seam, the trousers tapered clean to the break, and the gray tie against his white shirt made his eyes look almost silver under the chandeliers.
Then he turned and saw me.
His eyes found my face first. Then they dropped to the dress, slow, following the line of it all the way down before traveling back up to meet mine.
He didn't say anything. But his jaw had loosened and the tension he carried in his shoulders had gone still. The look on his face wasn’t something I could describe.
I just knew I’d never been on the receiving end of it before, and I wasn’t prepared for what it did to my poor heart.
"The dress fits," he said. His eyes traveled down the dress and back up again, the journey took about two seconds and I felt every millimeter of it.
"It does."
"Good." He adjusted his cuff. The same thing he did in the fitting room when he didn’t know what to do with his hands.
"Thank you," I said. "It’s beautiful."
"It’s adequate."
I smiled. He didn’t. But his eyes stayed on mine a beat too long.
"You look…" He stopped. His ears had gone pink again, and I was starting to collect those like souvenirs I had no business keeping.
"Adequate?" I offered.
"Don’t be absurd." He cleared his throat. "Shall we?"
He offered his arm. His gloved arm, bent at the elbow. Formal. Like we were entering a ballroom in a period drama and not a hotel in South Beach. I half expected him to bow.
I took it. His arm was solid and warm, even through the fabric of his jacket.
Every head in the room turned when we walked in together. I kept my back straight and my face composed and pretended I belonged here. Jace handled the red carpet with controlled endurance. Forward motion, minimal engagement.
He didn’t shake hands. Just nodded. Even spoke briefly to people who approached and kept every exchange under thirty seconds.
At one point a woman in a red dress reached for his arm and he sidestepped her so smoothly it looked choreographed.
The woman didn’t seem offended. She seemed impressed, which told me this happened to him a lot and he’d perfected the dodge.
"Friend of yours?" I murmured.
"I have no idea who that was."
"She seemed to know you."
"Many people seem to know me," he replied, tone even. "It’s an asymmetrical arrangement."
I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing. He glanced at me, caught whatever was happening on my face, and for half a second his mouth twitched.
I texted Miley a photo of the venue. She responded with:
Miley
I HATE YOU. brING ME NEXT TIME OR I’M CHANGING THE LOCKS.
The CEO of Meridian Studios approached Jace, and I recognized him. As they talked, I took the chance to find the bar.
I was returning with sparkling water when I nearly walked into a man’s chest. For the second time in my life, I almost collided with a stranger at a public event, and I was starting to think the universe had a theme.
He caught my elbow before the water spilled. "I usually buy a woman a drink before she throws one on me."
I was still processing the near-collision when he let go of my elbow, stepped back, and I got a full look at him.
Oh no.
Christopher Vale.
I knew his face because every human with a streaming subscription knew his face.
The lead of the action franchise that broke records last summer.
Miley’s borderline religious devotion. If she knew I was standing three feet from this man right now, she would astral project to this venue and personally strangle me for not calling her immediately.
He introduced himself like I didn’t know who he was. Up close, he was taller than he looked on screen, with dark hair, an easy posture, and the kind of face that made you understand why cameras were invented.
"Anna," I said. "Wilson. I’m with Hunter Interactive."
"I heard rumors that Jace will be here tonight, turns out it’s true?" His eyebrows went up and his grin widened.
"You know him personally?" I asked.
He picked up a drink from the bar behind him like we were settling in for a conversation he intended to enjoy.
"I grew up with that man. Our families go way back.
His grandfather and my grandmother were on the same arts council for twenty years.
" He leaned in, dropping his voice like he was sharing classified information.
"Don’t tell him I said this, but I used to beat him at chess every summer until he was twelve. Then he figured out my strategy and I haven’t won since. The man holds a grudge like nobody I’ve ever met. I’m fairly sure he’s still angry about a game I won in 2004."