Chapter 6: A Name That Isn’t Hers Yet

Sophia burst through my studio door like she owned the place, which, knowing her, she probably assumed within ten minutes of walking into any room.

“Okay.” She dropped her bag on the drafting table, nearly knocking over a jar of pencils. “You married a billionaire and didn’t call me for a week. I had to hear it from my mother, who heard it from your mother, who apparently thinks this is a personal victory for the entire Hart bloodline.”

“I’m sorry.” I laughed, and it surprised me, how easily it came, how long it had been since laughing felt possible. “It’s been a lot.”

“A lot.” Sophia dropped into the chair across from me, scanning the sketches pinned along the wall with narrowed, professional eyes, the way a jeweler checks a stone for flaws, except with Sophia the checking always came from love. “Evelyn. These are incredible. When did you do these?”

“Since the wedding.” I picked at a loose thread on my sleeve, suddenly shy under her attention. “He gave me this whole wing. Told me to rebuild whatever Adrian took. I don’t know, something about having a room no one could enter without permission just, I don’t know. It cracked something open.”

Sophia’s eyes softened, just slightly, before the sharpness returned. “Before we get into the feelings of it all, I need details. Real ones. Is he actually as cold as everyone says?”

I thought about the hesitation at the altar. The warmth of his hand. The way his jaw tightened when he mentioned theft dressed up as love, and how fast he’d shut that door before I could see through it.

“He’s not cold,” I said slowly. “He’s guarded. There’s a difference.”

“Ooh.” Sophia grinned. “That’s a specific answer for a marriage of convenience.”

“Don’t.”

“I’m not doing anything.” She held up both hands, unconvincing. “I’m simply observing you’re blushing over a man you married eight days ago for a debt settlement.”

“I am not blushing.”

“You’re the color of a tomato, sweetheart.”

I threw a pencil at her. She caught it, laughing, and for a moment the room felt lighter than it had in months, almost like the old apartment we’d shared in college, paint-splattered and full of a friendship that had survived every disaster my life kept throwing at it.

“How’s the shop?” I asked, needing to change the subject before she dug any further into feelings I wasn’t ready to name out loud, not even to myself.

“Busy. Three clients fighting over the same penthouse renovation, which is exhausting, but good exhausting.” Sophia’s face shifted, careful in a way that tightened my stomach before she even spoke. “I saw Adrian last night. At Le Cirque.”

The name landed like a stone dropped into still water. “Okay.”

“He was with Vanessa.” Sophia watched me closely, gauging how much I could take. “They looked tense. Not exactly the honeymoon glow you’d expect from the great reunited love story.”

“Why would I care how they look together?”

“You don’t have to pretend with me.” Sophia’s voice gentled, nearly undoing the composure I’d built all week. “It’s allowed to still hurt, Ev. Married or not.”

I looked down at the sketch in front of me, the gown I’d been working on for the gala, sharp lines meant to look like armor, and realized I’d unconsciously drawn it with a plunging back, the kind of dress that dared people to look and then dared them to say something about it.

“He came to my office once,” Sophia said quietly. “About two weeks after your divorce went through. Asked if I knew how to reach you. Stood there like he expected me to just hand you over.”

My pencil stopped moving. “What did you tell him?”

“I told him to lose my number.” She said it flatly, without hesitation, and something in my chest loosened at the fierce loyalty in her voice, the kind she’d shown me since we were nineteen and broke and sharing one hair dryer between two apartments. “He doesn’t get to steal your work, break your heart, and then come crawling back because your new husband happens to be richer and more interesting than he expected.”

“Is that what this is? Him wanting me back because Damian’s rich?”

“I think,” Sophia said carefully, “that Adrian Collins has never once in his life wanted something until someone else had it first. That’s not love, Evelyn. That’s just a man who can’t stand losing.”

The words settled slower than I expected, an old truth I’d never let myself examine while married to him. How many times had he only noticed me when other men did.

A knock interrupted us before I could sit with that thought any longer.

Damian stood in the doorway, tie loosened, that same exhaustion carved into his face lately. His eyes moved from me to Sophia and back, something unreadable behind them.

“I didn’t realize you had company,” he said.

“Sophia Bennett. My best friend since college.” I gestured between them, watching Sophia’s eyes light up with obvious, unrepentant curiosity. “Sophia, my husband.”

“The infamous Damian Blackwood.” Sophia stood, extending her hand with confident directness. Damian shook it without flinching. “I’ve heard a lot about you. None of it from Evelyn, she’s been suspiciously tight-lipped.”

“I imagine there isn’t much to say yet,” Damian said, and something in his tone made it sound less like modesty and more like a warning aimed at himself.

“Mm.” Sophia glanced between us, something calculating behind her easy smile. “We’ll see about that.”

She gathered her bag minutes later, kissing my cheek, promising to call, throwing one last unreadable look at Damian on her way out. When her heels faded down the hallway, the room went quiet in a way that felt suddenly, uncomfortably intimate.

“She seems protective of you,” Damian said.

“She’s the only family I have that actually acts like family.”

Something shifted in his expression, brief and complicated, gone before I could name it. “That’s rare. Hold onto it.”

He turned to leave, and something reckless in me spoke before I could stop it.

“Damian.” He paused in the doorway. “Adrian came looking for me. A few weeks ago.”

His shoulders went rigid, just slightly, just enough that I noticed.

“I know,” he said quietly. “I’ve known since the day it happened.”

He walked away before I could ask how, or why he hadn’t told me, leaving me standing alone with a half-finished sketch and a question that felt heavier every day I didn’t get to ask it, heavier still now that I knew silence between us went both directions.