CHAPTER 5: THE ALMOST

Their photo ran everywhere by Monday.

COLE'S HEART (AND HIS STOCK) ARE BOTH RISING — Insiders Say This Wedding Planner Has Him Completely Smitten

Mira choked on her coffee while reading the headline. Bea called her within the hour.

"Congratulations, you're famous."

"I'm a contractor."

"Not according to T*****r."

Adrian's stock climbed four points by noon. This was more than the entire "engineered gala" planned to recover in the first place.

Because of this, Adrian's PR team wanted a second appearance. A charity dinner. In two weeks.

Adrian called Mira that night. His tone and voice were careful, a little too careful.

"It worked. Much better than anyone expected."

"Congratulations. Your stock is recovering. And apparently I'm your girlfriend according to three different gossip sites."

"I noticed. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It's the job," Mira said. A little too fast, and they both heard it.

"Is it?" Adrian paused longer than usual. "That moment on the terrace, Mira, it didn't feel like a job."

He didn't call her Ms. Santos. It was Mira.

Mira felt her stomach turn, and her heart was troubled. She couldn't be doing this.

"Adrian…."

"You don't have to give me an answer tonight."

"There's a charity dinner in two weeks. I'm asking you to go with me." "Not as a client but as my plus one."

She stared at the coffee ring on her table, their contract was still sitting exactly where she left it.

"I'll go with you," she said.

"But we should discuss clause nine."

At the end of the line, it sounded, unmistakably, like a man smiling.

****************************

The next morning Mira went to Bea. A coffee in hand and questions she'd been holding onto for weeks.

"What actually happened? Between you and Adrian? And not the press version."

Mira asked as soon as they settled on Bea's couch with coffee.

Bea didn't answer right away.

"Adrian proposed on a Tuesday," she began. "This should have been my first clue."

"He doesn't do anything unless it's already been decided. I said yes because I loved him."

"I said yes because in those eight months, he let me see him."

"And then his father's old company started circling, I lost that Adrian, he went back to a version of him that negotiates everything."

"And that included us."

"So you left?" Mira said.

"I left before I became one more "clause" on his terms." Bea turned her cup slowly and slightly turned away, reminiscent.

Bea slowly looked back at Mira. "I want you to understand that he protects himself with structure because if he wants something out there, it can cost him."

"I think he has forgotten how to want something real without managing it."

"He wasn't cruel and that's the part nobody believes." Bea said.

Mira recalled clause nine, of the man who amended a contract verbally that night because it was the only way he knew how to say: "I don't want this to stop."

"Why only tell me now?"

"Because I'd rather you go in knowing what to expect."

"Because I think you're already past the point where you can walk away without getting hurt."

Mira didn't answer.

She didn't have to.

*************************************

Mira stayed for another hour, an hour after their coffee went cold and they talked about nothing in particular. In reality they talked about anything that involved the mention of Adrian Cole and the very difficult thing that had been building in her heart.

On the walk home, Mira realized that this was the first time in six months that Bea had talked about the engagement without using the singsong voice Bea used to avoid answering the real question at hand. It seemed she no longer had to hide.

Her phone buzzed and she saw a text from Adrian.

"I am looking forward to the charity event."

Mira couldn't help but smile as she looked at the screen, a little bit longer before typing back:

"Me, too."

And it was here that she would fall faster, harder and much deeper than she had expected.

********************

The charity dinner was a lot smaller than the gala. And that made it more dangerous. There were fewer people to hide behind.

Mira decided between two dresses for tonight, she told herself it was her professional pride. She didn't believe this reason, and neither did the mirror, or the woman looking back at her.

"You seem quiet tonight," Adrian said.

"Strategizing."

"About?" "Clause nine. I think it's poorly written. It doesn't say what will happen after the photos have been taken."

Adrian's eyebrows lifted. "I'll ask the lawyers to draft an addendum then."

He leaned closer, close enough that the music in the background felt like it was counting down to something.

"However, I intend to negotiate this one personally," he slowly added. "No lawyers."

"That's not like you."

"I've been called worse."

He found her hand. Careful. Real.

Nothing like the gala photos.

"Mira, tell me if I am reading this wrong…"

"You're not," she said, before two hundred twelve weddings' worth of professional distance could stop her.

"You're not reading it wrong at all."

The kiss broke every clause in their contract.

And at this moment she didn't care about a single one.

From across the room, phones started flashing, one after the other. Not staged. Not planned.

And this time, Mira didn't step back.

It was Adrian who pulled back this time, just far enough to look at Mira. His hand on her jaw, making sure that all of this was actually happening, now.

"There are a lot of things happening, Mira," he said quietly.

"Something with the company that I haven't told you about, not all of it."

"But I will, just not tonight. Please let me have tonight with you, with this."

"The board wants results, optics and none of that changes what just happened. But I need you to know this wasn't optics. Not this."

He ran his thumb across her jaw, tracing it, memorizing it, feeling her skin as he went.

"I know," Mira said. Looking at him for real, and meaning it for the first time all of this started.

They were too lost in each other to notice him.

A stranger at the end of the room, phone raised, a smile on his face. Recording the beginning of an end.