Mag-log inMia Stone doesn't follow me into the elevator.I know because I watch the door close and my own reflection watch me back, and then the floors tick upward and the lobby disappears. I let out a slow breath.She's a top-tier client at Smith & Co. Of course she's here. George's building is her building in every practical sense — her team occupies three floors, her face is in half the campaigns on the lobby wall. There's nothing strange about her arrival.Except for the look.I file it away. I'm good at filing things.
"My thesis gets approved in one pass," I say. "And Aunt Jean stays healthy and happy for a long, long time."The thought of her lands with its usual weight of guilt. She wasn't at the party tonight. My father didn't invite her — didn't think to, or chose not to, and I didn't push, and now it's past midnight on my birthday and I haven't seen the woman who raised me in weeks.I set that aside for later. I'm getting better at setting things aside for later.Liam is quiet for a moment.Then: "Your wishes.""What about them?""They didn't include me."I look at him. The dashboard light catches the particular injured quality he's giving the windshield."You told me not to say them out loud," I say. "Something about wishes not coming true if spoken.""I asked first.""And then immediately told me asking was pointless. You set the terms." I take another spoonful of cake. "You can't retroactively object."He m
He leads me out of the break room like nothing happened.Which, in the way that matters publicly, nothing did. We were in a break room. His sister cut her hand. We had a conversation. The party is still going.The ballroom hits me like a physical thing when we push back through the corridor — warmth, perfume, the hum of two hundred conversations running simultaneously. The chandelier hasn't dimmed. The champagne towers are still upright. Vivian is laughing at something across the room.The world continued without us.Liam stops.
Elizabeth pulls her hand back the moment I reach for it.Not dramatically. Not unkindly. Just — a withdrawal, clean and final, like a door closing without slamming."I'm fine," she says.I straighten up. My hand, extended toward the gauze wrap, has nowhere to go, so I lower it.There's something different in Elizabeth's face. She has been, in every interaction I've had with her, one of the most effortlessly warm people in the Hart family — the kind of warmth that's genuine rather than performed, that pulls you in without trying. She tied Liam's ties and cooked h
I stare at him.My brain is running the sentence back — what if I feel guilty — and trying to land on the interpretation that makes it metaphor. Literary reference. Academic observation. Anything other than what his face tells me it is.His face tells me it isn't metaphor.Adam looks at me. Really looks at me — the way he almost never does, the way he controls so carefully that the moments he lets himself slip through feel like watching something rare happen in real time.Then he says it plainly, the way he says everything that costs him the most:
Lisa watches Elizabeth Hart walk away.The practiced warmth on her face holds — it always holds — but underneath, very quietly, something arranges itself into satisfaction.Twenty years of research. Twenty years of patience.Claire Tan.Just a name. That's all it took.She lifts her champagne glass and takes a slow sip and scans the room for her next move.
Julian Ford sat across from Allie Brooks with a platter of grilled Argentine red shrimp, peeling one leisurely as he spoke."So, what’s your plan now?" Julian asked, his tone casual but laced with curiosity.Allie let out a slow breath. "I honestly don’t know."Liam Hart had torn up the divorce pap
The moment Ethan Blackwell’s lips met Laura Peterson’s, the entire set fell silent. The kiss was electrifying, raw with an intensity that sent shivers down the spines of every onlooker. Gasps and whispers rippled through the crowd as they watched Liam Hart bring his character to life with a level o
When Liam Hart proposed to her, she had wrestled with a single question in her heart.A man so distant, so untouchable—could she ever truly reach him?Even then, she had suspected that Liam’s feelings weren’t as deep as they seemed. As Adam once warned her, perhaps the proposal was merely a matter
"Don’t go. Liam Hart left Oceanview Heights early this morning," Julian Ford said.Allie Brooks froze mid-step. "How do you know?""I went to return the dress last night. Mia Stone left too. She left with Liam."Allie’s breath caught. The little black dress—Julian had borrowed it from Mia. She had







