Chapter 4
Michelle
The morning after the gala, I woke up with a headache that had nothing to do with champagne and everything to do with the man living on the other side of my bathroom wall.
I rolled over, tangling myself in the sheets. My face pressed into something rough and heavy. Wool. It smelled of cedar, cold ocean air, and that distinct, maddening scent of expensive soap and male pheromones.
Greg’s tuxedo jacket.
I hadn’t given it back.
I squeezed my eyes shut, a groan vibrating in my chest. The memory of the terrace played behind my eyelids in 4K resolution. The wind whipping my hair. The heat of his body blocking out the cold. The way his hands had gripped the stone railing, caging me in.
“If I kiss you, I’m not going to stop. Not here. Not ever.”
The words echoed in the quiet room, sending a fresh wave of heat washing over my skin.
I pulled the jacket closer, burying my nose in the collar like a creeper.
It was pathetic. I was Michelle Vane. I had dated models, rock stars, and the heir to a shipping empire.
I did not sniff the jackets of grumpy hockey captains who treated me like a safety hazard.
But none of those models or rock stars had ever looked at me the way Greg did. Like he wanted to devour me and protect me in the same breath.
"Get it together, Vane," I whispered to the empty room.
I sat up and shoved the jacket under my pillow. Out of sight, out of mind.
I had bigger problems today. Real problems. The kind that couldn't be solved with a witty retort or a bat of my eyelashes.
My phone, sitting on the nightstand, was blinking with a notification light that felt like a countdown timer to my doom.
From: Professor Halloway (Finance 201)
Subject: Midterm Warning
Ms. Vane, per our department policy, I am alerting you that your current standing in 'Principles of Retail Finance' is a 58%. The midterm on Friday represents 40% of your final grade. If you do not score at least a B, you will mathematically fail the course.
I stared at the screen until the numbers blurred.
A 58%. F. Failing.
If I failed a class, the deal with my father was void. No degree, no trust fund, no seed money for my label. I would be dragged back to Los Angeles, married off to some boring hedge fund manager, and paraded around charity luncheons for the rest of my life.
I would cease to be a person. I would become an accessory.
Panic, cold and sharp, sliced through the lingering warmth of the morning.
I threw off the covers. I needed caffeine. I needed a miracle. And I needed to figure out how to calculate an ROI without hyperventilating.
The house was quiet. It was Sunday, which meant the rest of the team was likely sleeping off their post-gala hangovers until noon.
I padded down the stairs in my "depression outfit"—an oversized grey hoodie that swallowed my hands and a pair of thick wool socks. My hair was thrown into a messy knot on top of my head, and my face was bare. No armor today. I didn't have the energy for it.
I turned the corner into the kitchen and froze.
It wasn't empty.
Greg was there.
Of course he was. The man probably didn't sleep. He probably just plugged himself into the wall at night to recharge.
He was standing at the island, bathed in the winter sunlight streaming through the window. He was wearing a pair of grey sweatpants that hung low on his hips and a tight black t-shirt that emphasized the terrifying width of his back.
He was… meal prepping.
The counter was a military operation of Tupperware. There was a food scale. There were perfectly chopped vegetables. There were four chicken breasts sizzling in a cast-iron skillet on the stove.
The kitchen smelled of garlic and discipline.
I considered turning around. I could go back upstairs, hide under my duvet, and wait for starvation or academic failure to take me. But the smell of the coffee he had brewing was too powerful.
I crept into the room, trying to be invisible.
"Morning," he said. He didn't turn around. He was flipping the chicken with a pair of tongs, his movements precise and economic.
"Morning," I mumbled, heading straight for the coffee pot.
"There's a clean mug in the rack," he said. "Don't use the one with the chip in it. It leaks."
I paused, hand hovering over the cabinet. "How do you know which one I'm going to grab?"
"Because you're chaotic," he said, finally turning to look at me. "You gravitate toward broken things."
I bristled, grabbing a pristine white mug. "I'm not chaotic. I'm… expressive."
Greg leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. His biceps flexed with the movement, distracting me for a dangerous second. He looked me up and down, his dark eyes scanning the oversized hoodie, the messy hair, the socks.
He didn't sneer. He didn't mock me. His expression softened, just a fraction.
"You look rough," he noted.
"Thanks," I snapped, pouring the coffee. "I aim to please."
"Hangover?"
"No." I took a sip. The coffee was strong, black, and perfect. It tasted like salvation. "Life."
I carried my mug to the kitchen table—a battered oak monstrosity covered in scratches from years of hockey gear being tossed onto it. I sat down and opened my laptop. I pulled a stack of crumpled spreadsheets and a textbook out of my bag.
"Finance?" Greg asked.
I looked up. He was watching me, his head tilted slightly to the side.
"Principles of Retail Finance," I corrected, my voice tight. "Otherwise known as 'Why God Hates Michelle Vane'."
He snorted. A low, genuine sound that did weird things to my stomach. He turned back to his chicken. "It's just math, Michelle. Inputs and outputs."
"It's not just math," I argued, opening the spreadsheet.
The rows and columns swam before my eyes.
"It's hieroglyphics. It's torture. Look at this.
" I gestured wildly at the screen. "I have to calculate the break-even point for a theoretical production run of denim jackets, factoring in variable overhead and shipping tariffs.
I don't know what a variable overhead is. I just know that denim is heavy."
"Variable overhead is costs that change with production volume," he said automatically. "Electricity, labor, materials."
"Stop showing off," I muttered, staring at the blinking cursor.
I started typing numbers. I tried to use the formula from the textbook. Sales Price minus Variable Cost equals Contribution Margin.
I typed it in. The cell turned red. ERROR.
"Dammit," I hissed.
I tried again. ERROR.
My throat tightened. The panic I had pushed down in the bedroom came surging back, hot and suffocating. It wasn't just about the grade. It was about the confirmation of everything my father had ever said. You're not smart enough, Michelle. You're just pretty. You're decoration.
"I can't do this," I whispered. My voice cracked.
I typed it in one more time. ERROR.
Tears, hot and humiliating, pricked the corners of my eyes. I blinked them back furiously. I was not going to cry in front of Greg Sterling. I was not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me break.
But a tear escaped. It rolled down my cheek and splashed onto the 'G' key.
"Michelle?"
The voice was closer now.
I didn't look up. "I'm fine. Just… allergies. The dust in this house is disgusting."
A large, warm hand landed on the table next to my laptop. Then another. Greg leaned over me, bracing his weight on his arms, caging me in again. But this time, it wasn't sexual. It was grounding.
"Move your hand," he said quietly.
"I said I'm fine."
"Move your hand."
I sniffled, wiping my cheek with the sleeve of my hoodie, and pulled my hands back.
Greg leaned down, looking at the screen. He smelled like garlic and coffee now, mixed with that underlying cedar scent. He was so close I could feel the heat radiating off his chest.
His hand—the one with the black band tattoo on the bicep—reached out. His fingers hovered over the trackpad.
"You're using the wrong formula for the cells," he said. His voice was right next to my ear. It was low, calm. The 'Dad' voice. "You're trying to divide by a text string."
"I don't speak nerd, Greg."
"Look," he said. He clicked on a cell. "You put a dollar sign in the formula bar. Excel doesn't like that. It just wants the number."
He deleted the dollar sign. He hit enter.
The cell turned green. The number appeared. $45.00.
I stared at it. It was like magic.
"Oh," I breathed.
Greg didn't pull back. He stayed there, hovering over me. He scrolled down to the next problem.
"Here," he said, pointing. "You're calculating margin, but you forgot to subtract the shipping tariffs. That's why your profit is negative."
"Tariffs are stupid," I sniffled.
"Agreed. But they exist. Put it in column D."
He waited. I reached out, my hand shaking slightly, and typed the number into column D.
"Good," he murmured. "Now subtract D from B."
I did it. The number balanced.
"See?" he said. "Inputs and outputs."
He finally straightened up, pulling away. The loss of his warmth was immediate and jarring. I shivered.
I looked up at him. He wasn't smiling. He wasn't gloating. He was looking down at me with an expression I couldn't place. It was serious, intense. Like he was solving a puzzle.
"You're good at this," I said, my voice small.
"I'm an Economics major," he said. "With a minor in Statistics. This is first-year stuff."
"Right. Rub it in." I looked back at the screen, the wall of red errors still looming over the rest of the sheet. "I have a midterm on Friday. If I don't get a B, I fail."
"And if you fail?"
"My dad cuts me off," I said. The truth slipped out before I could catch it. "He pulls me out of school. I lose everything."
Greg went still. The silence in the kitchen stretched, heavy and thick.
"He'd pull you out?" Greg asked, his brow furrowing. "Just for failing one class?"
"It's not about the class," I said, looking at my hands. "It's about control. He wants me back in LA where he can manage me. This degree… this is my one shot at actually doing something on my own."
I looked up at him, letting the mask drop completely.