7 | Second Weekend Princess
The package arrived on Friday afternoon.
I was in my apartment, halfway through my second cup of coffee and trying to decide if I actually needed to vacuum or if I could get away with shoving everything under the couch, when the buzzer rang.
“Delivery,” the voice crackled through the intercom.
I wasn’t expecting anything.
But I signed for it anyway—a large box, surprisingly light, with my name written in neat block letters on the label and no return address, just a small card tucked under the ribbon. I carried it inside, set it on the coffee table, and stared at it for a full minute before I opened the card.
For tomorrow. —T
Something pulled tight beneath my ribs, sharp enough to make me pause.
I lifted the lid. Cream-colored tissue paper rustled under my fingers, and beneath it—fabric, and a shoebox, and the slow dawning realization of what this was.
The memory hit me—Since I made you throw away the old ones, can I buy the new ones for you?
I’d thought he was joking. Or that he’d forget. Or maybe I’d hoped he would, because this felt like more than I’d signed up for.
My hands hovered over the box.
Not again.
My fingers stilled on the tissue paper.
Another man picking out my clothes. Another man deciding what I should look like.
But I pulled out the shoes anyway.
Who am I to decline a free pair of heels?
Nude with a slight shimmer, mid-heel—maybe three inches, the kind you could actually walk in, dance in, even, nothing like the torture devices I’d thrown away last weekend. I turned them over.
Red soles.
I stared.
Is he actually insane?
Louboutins. The ones that probably cost more than my monthly rent, the kind of shoes that belonged in magazine spreads and on women who lunched at places with dress codes I didn’t know existed. Not on me. Not in my life.
I set them carefully on the table like they might break, and then I lifted the dress.
It unfurled in my hands like water. Deep blue, the color catching the light in a way that made me think of the ocean just before a storm—that specific moment when everything goes dark and electric at once. A tag with a designer name I didn’t recognize, but that sounded expensive.
I walked to the mirror and held it against myself.
My eyes looked brighter. My red hair stopped looking like an accident. My skin, which usually washed out under fluorescent lighting, looked like it belonged to someone who knew what they were doing.
I stared at my reflection for a long moment, then slipped out of my jeans and T-shirt and pulled the dress over my head. The silk was cool against my skin, the fit was perfect—not too tight, not too loose, like it had been made for my body exactly as it was. I stepped into the shoes.
They fit.
Of course they fit.
I turned back to the mirror. My hair was still messy. My makeup was nonexistent.
And I felt beautiful.
I touched the fabric at my waist and watched the way it moved.
My phone buzzed on the table.
Theo: Did it arrive?
I stared at the message. At the dress. At myself.
Me: How did you know my size?
Theo: Hailey.
Theo: Does it fit?
Me: It’s perfect.
The three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Theo: Good. See you tomorrow at 7.
I set the phone down and stood there for another long moment, looking at my reflection. Tomorrow. His company party. Another weekend of fake dating.
I looked at myself in the dress. In the shoes.
And for some reason, it felt more like me.
----
I was ready twenty minutes early, sitting on my couch in the blue dress and the crazy shoes, trying not to wrinkle the silk or scuff the red soles on my coffee table.
My phone buzzed.
Theo: I’m waiting outside.
I grabbed my clutch—also new, also expensive, also had appeared in the box with a note—and headed downstairs.
Theo got out when he saw me, came around to open my door.
Stopped mid-step.
And then the smile came—slower than usual.
I made myself look away first.
“You look incredible,” he said quietly, like he meant it more than he should.
I smoothed the fabric at my hip just to have somewhere to put my hands. “The dress helps.”
He looked at me a beat too long. “Sure,” he said. “The dress.”
I didn’t know what to say.
The drive was quieter than last weekend, but in a good kind of way, like we were getting used to the silences between us and didn’t feel the need to fill them anymore.
“So,” I said finally. “Company party. What should I know?”
“It’s mostly senior analysts and portfolio managers, a few clients.” He glanced over. “My boss will be there. David Park. He’s… particular.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning he likes people who fit the culture. Who look stable.”
The whole reason we’re doing this, I thought. But I didn’t say it.
“Anyone else I should watch out for?” I asked.
“Vanessa Chen. Risk assessment. Brilliant, but she doesn’t do small talk.” He paused. “And James Rothstein—head of client relations, knows everyone, tells everyone everything. If he corners you, assume anything you say will make the rounds by Monday.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You sound like you’re briefing me for espionage.”
“Close enough.” A pause. “Just less poison.”
I laughed, and some of the tension eased out of my shoulders.
We pulled up to a building downtown—all glass and steel, not a hotel but an actual penthouse event space—and Theo handed his keys to the valet like he’d done it a thousand times.
Probably had. His hand found the small of my back as we walked toward the entrance—warm and steady, the same touch as last weekend, but it felt different now—more deliberate.
The heat of it spread wider than it should have.
The elevator was mirrored on all sides. I caught us in the glass—navy silk against charcoal wool, his hand still on my back, the gap between our shoulders smaller than I expected. We looked like we belonged together. The thought didn’t startle me the way it should have.
The doors opened on the top floor.
Music, conversation, the clink of glasses. Floor-to-ceiling windows with the city spread out below in every direction. And people everywhere, dressed like they’d stepped out of magazines, moving through the room with the easy confidence of people who had never once doubted they belonged.
Theo’s hand pressed slightly against my back. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
We stepped into the room, and the first thing I noticed was how people looked at him.
Not like they looked at him at Hailey’s barbecue—casual recognition, easy familiarity.
This was different, sharper, more assessing, the way people looked at someone whose opinion actually mattered to them.
Men straightened slightly when he approached, and conversations paused mid-sentence to make room for him in a way that didn’t seem rehearsed so much as automatic.
Theo moved through the room like he owned it. Not arrogant—just certain, like he knew exactly where he stood and had never needed to prove it to anyone.
This wasn’t the Theo I knew.
The quiet one who stood at the edges of rooms and made dry observations. This was someone else entirely.
“Theodore.” A man in his late forties appeared beside us, drink in hand, expensive watch catching the light. “Glad you could make it.”
“David.” Theo shook his hand. “This is Tessa.”
David’s eyes moved to me with a quick, polite assessment before his gaze flicked back to Theo with something surprised in it. “I have to say, Theodore, I was starting to think work was all you cared about.”
“Well, things change,” Theo said easily.
David laughed. “Good.” He nodded at me. “Enjoy the evening,” and then he was gone, disappearing back into the crowd as smoothly as he’d appeared.
Theo’s hand hadn’t moved from my back. Something flickered across his face—too fast to name—and then someone else was approaching, another handshake, another introduction,
another conversation where Theo spoke with quiet authority about portfolio risk and market volatility while I stood beside him and watched.
“Excuse me,” a voice said behind us. A woman’s voice. Smooth.
We turned.
She was tall—model tall—in a black dress that probably cost more than my car, dark hair swept up, diamond earrings catching the light. The kind of woman who made a black dress look like a weapon.
“Vanessa,” Theo said, his tone polite and professional. “This is Tessa.”
“Tessa.” Vanessa’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “How sweet.” Her gaze swept over me and moved on, back to Theo, like I was already settled and filed away. “Theodore, I wanted to talk to you about the Meridian exposure analysis. Do you have a minute?”
“Actually—”
“It won’t take long.” She was already turning, expecting him to follow.
Theo looked at me. “I’ll be right back.”
“Take your time.”
I watched them walk toward a quieter corner of the room, watched the way she touched his arm and leaned in slightly when she talked, and noticed the way other women in the room tracked their movement with the particular attention people gave to things they’d been watching for a while.
I stood there holding my champagne, suddenly very aware that I was alone in a room full of strangers who all seemed to know exactly where they belonged.
“You must be Tessa.”
I turned. A man stood beside me—older, silver-haired, with a warm smile that reached his eyes in a way the others’ hadn’t.
“James Rothstein,” he said, extending his hand. “Client relations. Gossip department.”
????
What do you think—does Vanessa see Tessa as a threat, or is there more history between her and Theo than he’s letting on?
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