Chapter 1 #2
Grant's watching me with an intensity that makes me feel seen in a way I'm not used to.
"That's ambitious," he says. "The supply chain alone must be a nightmare."
"It is." I flip to a page covered in supplier contacts and cost projections.
"Ethical sourcing is expensive. Real rose absolute, real sandalwood—these things cost so much more than the synthetic versions.
And the market is saturated with greenwashing.
Companies slap 'natural' on labels when it's ninety-nine percent synthetic with a drop of lavender oil. "
"So how do you compete?"
It's the question I've been asking myself for months, the one that keeps me up at night. "Transparency. Storytelling. Building a brand that people trust." I catch myself, suddenly self-conscious. "Sorry. You probably don't want to hear me ramble about the fragrance industry."
"Actually, I do," Grant says, and the corner of his mouth lifts, "I asked, didn't I?"
The flight attendant appears with the beverage cart, and Grant orders a scotch, neat. I ask for red wine, needing something to do with my hands.
"Your father worries about you, you know," Grant says after the attendant pours our drinks and moves on. "Living in that apartment in Brooklyn."
The mention of my father is like a splash of ice-cold water. "He's worried I'm wasting my time on a foolish dream. That I should be working at his company, letting him set me up with a nice corporate job and spending every day stuck in a cubicle."
"Is that what you think he wants?"
"That's what I know he wants." I take a too-large gulp of wine, the cheap red bitter on my tongue. "He wants to control everything. Where I work, who I date, what I do with my life. Just like he controls my mom."
Grant's quiet for a moment. "Your mother loves him."
"My mother is terrified of him." The words are out before I can stop them, sharp and way too honest. I've never said it out loud before, not even to my best friend Poppy.
"She gave up everything for him. Her painting, her friends, her entire identity.
She became Mrs. David Sullivan, and now she doesn't know how to be anyone else. "
I can feel Grant's eyes on me, the weight of his attention, but I keep staring straight ahead at the seat in front of me. Why did I just say that? This is my dad's best friend, for fuck's sake.
"Is that why you won't let him help with your business?" he asks quietly. "Why you’re bootstrapping everything yourself?"
“So you know about that?” I ask.
Grant nods.
"I'm not taking his money because the second I do, Essence stops being mine.
" My voice is fierce now, all the frustration and fear I've been carrying pouring out.
"It becomes his project, his investment, his thing to manage and control and eventually take over when I inevitably fail to live up to his standards. "
"Why do you think he’d do that?"
"I just know he would." I finally look at Grant, and there's something in his expression—understanding, maybe, or sympathy—that makes my chest ache. "I need to do this myself. Prove that I can build something without him."
Grant nods slowly, his fingers tracing the rim of his scotch glass. "I understand that. The need to prove yourself."
"Do you?" The question comes out more challenging than I intended. "You're an extremely successful man, Grant. I doubt you've had to prove anything to anyone in a long time."
His laugh is low. "You'd be surprised. Money doesn't exempt you from the need to justify your existence. If anything, it amplifies it." He takes a sip of his drink. "People are always watching, always judging, always wondering if you earned it or if you just got lucky."
"Did you? Earn it?"
"Every goddamn dollar." There's steel in his voice now, the same steel I've heard when he talks business with my father. But then it softens. "But I also had advantages. Resources, connections. I'm not fool enough to pretend I did it without some help."
The honesty surprises me. Most men in his position wouldn't admit to having help.
"That's what I'm afraid of," I admit quietly. "That I'll need those advantages. That I'll struggle without them, and then I'll be exactly what my father thinks I am—a girl with big dreams and no way to achieve them."
"Emma." Grant shifts, and suddenly his hand is on mine where it rests on the armrest. His touch is electric as his palm completely engulfs my hand. "I've known you for your whole life and you're one of the most determined people I've ever met. That counts for a hell of a lot more than advantages."
I should move my hand. Should break the contact, reestablish the appropriate distance between us. But I don't. Instead, I let myself feel the warmth of his skin, the gentle pressure of his fingers.
"Thank you," I whisper.
We stay like that for a heartbeat too long. Then Grant pulls back, reaching for his drink, and the spell is broken.
The flight stretches on. Dinner is served—mediocre pasta that we both pick at while talking about Florence, about the art and the architecture and the best places to get gelato.
Grant knows the city well, has been half a dozen times for various projects, and he tells me stories that make me laugh, his voice warm and animated in a way I've never heard when he's with my father.
With my father, Grant is measured, controlled. The consummate businessman.
With me, right now, he's something else. Someone else.
Somewhere over the Atlantic, the cabin lights dim for the overnight flight.
Around us, passengers burrow into blankets and neck pillows, the cabin filling with the quiet sounds of sleep.
But I'm wide awake, aware of every shift of Grant's body beside me, every accidental brush of his arm against mine.
"Can I ask you something?" Grant's voice is low, intimate in the darkness.
"Sure."
"Why didn't you tell your father about this trip?"
I consider deflecting, but something about the darkness, the anonymity of being thirty thousand feet above the ocean, makes me want to be honest. "Because he would have tried to stop me.
Or worse, he would have tried to come along.
Make it about him instead of about me and what I'm trying to build. "
"And you need it to be about you."
"I need something to be about me." The admission feels like exhaling after holding my breath for too long. "My whole life has been about being David Sullivan's daughter. His legacy, his reputation, his expectations. I need Essence to be mine. Just mine."
Grant is quiet for a long moment before he speaks again. "I hope you succeed. I hope you build your fragrance empire and take over the world and never let anyone—including your father—tell you what you're capable of."
The words hit me squarely in the chest, and I have to blink against the sudden burning in my eyes. "That might be the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."
"Then you haven't been spending time with the right people."
His face is just inches from mine in the dim cabin. This close, I can see the exact color of his eyes, the silver threading through the hair at his temples, the faint scar along his jawline that I've never noticed before.
This close, I can see the way he's looking at me.
Not like a friend's daughter. Not like a kid he's watched grow up.
Like a woman.
My breath catches. The air between us feels charged with something dangerous and thrilling and completely forbidden. I should look away. Should laugh it off, break the tension, remind us both of exactly who we are and why this—whatever this is—cannot happen.
But I don't.
And neither does he.
"Emma," he says, and my name on his lips makes me blush.
Someone behind us coughs loudly and the spell shatters. Grant leans back, putting careful distance between us, his jaw tight. I turn to face forward, my heart hammering so hard I'm sure he can hear it.
What the hell am I doing?
He must still think of me as the awkward teenager who spilled wine on his suit jacket at my high school graduation party, right?
Except that's not how he was just looking at me.
I pull out my phone, scrolling mindlessly through downloaded podcasts, trying to find something to distract myself. Grant reads something on his tablet, the glow of the screen casting shadows across his face.
We don't speak much for the remainder of the flight.
But I'm aware of every breath he takes, every small movement. And when his knee bumps mine as he shifts in his sleep an hour later—because apparently he can sleep while I'm wide awake, spiraling—I don't move away.
Hours later, I'm watching the sunrise through the window, my notebook open in my lap, when Grant stirs beside me. His eyes open slowly, and for a moment, he looks disoriented. Then his gaze finds mine, and something passes between us.
Recognition. Awareness. Want, maybe?
"Morning," he says, his voice rough with sleep.
"Morning."
The flight attendants come through with coffee and blueberry muffins, the cabin slowly coming back to life around us. The pilot's voice crackles through the speakers informing us we'll be landing in the next forty-five minutes.
It's almost over. This strange, suspended bubble where I've spent hours talking to Grant Cross like a person, not my father’s best friend, but just... a man. A fascinating, intelligent, ridiculously attractive man who looked at me in the darkness like I was something special.
This has to end. Has to go back to normal once we touch down.
"Do you have a hotel?" Grant asks after we've landed and we're taxiing toward the gate.
"A hostel, actually. Near Santa Croce."
He makes a face. "A hostel, huh?"
"It's supposed to be pretty clean and it's cheap. I don't need much. I'll barely be there."
Grant pulls out his phone, tapping something quickly. "I'm at the Portrait. It's along the river, near Ponte Vecchio."
I've looked at the Portrait's website. It's the kind of place with marble bathrooms and a Michelin-starred restaurant and nightly room rates that cost more than my entire trip.