Chapter 1

Erica's POV

7:58 PM.

I checked my phone for the third time in five minutes, which was embarrassing, because I knew exactly what time it was. I'd known since I lit the candle. I'd known since I picked this blanket over the cashmere one because it was softer, and because he liked soft things even though he'd never admit it.

I adjusted the blanket anyway. Smoothed a wrinkle that wasn't really there.

I set the hot chocolate on the table, close enough to reach, close enough that the steam curled up between us like it was trying to fill a silence that hadn't even started yet.

Then I checked the file like a force of habit: Friday Client. Session #7

That was all it said. No name. No age. No photograph. Just a number climbing higher every week, counting the ways I'd let a stranger sit beside me and call it comfort.

It was better this way. No judgment. No breach of confidentiality. No feelings.

I almost laughed at myself for that last one.

"He'll complain if the chocolate isn't hot enough," I murmured to the empty room, and I was smiling before I even realized I was doing it. That was new. The way my whole chest went warm at the thought of him being difficult about cocoa temperature.

8:00 PM. Exactly.

A quiet knock. Two beats.

I adjusted my mask. Checked it in the little mirror by the door - not for him, I told myself, just habit - and opened it.

He stepped in the way he always did. Hoodie up over his black mask. Hands in his pockets like he was restraining them. Quiet footsteps, like he didn't want to make a sound.

"Good evening, Bear."

That voice. Low, a little rough at the edges, like he'd spent all day being someone else and was only now remembering how to be soft. Bear. The name he’d called me during the #2 session, when I still didn't trust him not to be cruel about my size the way most men eventually were. I'd stiffened when he said it. Braced for the joke. It never came. He just said it again, softer, like he was trying to hand me something instead of throw it, and somewhere in that small correction I started - against every rule I'd written for myself - to feel things for him.

"You're two seconds early," I said, and I hated how pleased I sounded about it.

"You're getting predictable." He dropped onto the couch, close enough that the cushion dipped toward him and I had to fight the urge to lean in. "Hot chocolate at the right temperature. A candle that smells like vanilla, and a soft blanket. You're spoiling me, Bear."

"Don't get used to it."

"Too late."

The words landed somewhere they shouldn't. My heart. I busied myself with the remote, with anything that wasn't the low, private laugh he let out when I didn't answer fast enough.

We settled into the movie, and I kept my eyes on the screen. Or I tried to. God knows I tried.

But how was I supposed to concentrate on some forgettable film when every cell in my body was tuned to the man breathing beside me instead?

This one was different. He'd never once asked me for more than this - hot chocolate, a quiet hour, the simple decency of not being alone. He didn't cuddle - like my services clearly stated. He just sat there, warm and solid and maddeningly close, and somehow that restraint was so much more devastating than if he'd asked me for anything at all.

Because if he asked - God, if he asked - I wouldn't even think twice. I caught myself wanting to shift closer, to trade this stupid movie for the warmth of his arms around me instead, to be held rather than holding, just once, just for an hour. The thought arrived so fast and so vivid that I actually felt my breath catch.

I almost pinched myself.

Get it together, Erica.

Rule one. Never get involved with a client. I recited it in my head like scripture, like it might actually undo the slow, warm ache that had settled somewhere behind my ribs. It didn't. It never quite did, not on a Friday, not with him.

Halfway through the movie, he went still in a different way. A thinking way. “Do you think people ever mistake comfort for love?"

I went rigid for half a second before I caught myself.

Friday didn't ask questions like that. Friday asked if I'd eaten today, or complained about the cocoa, or let forty minutes pass in a silence so easy it felt like its own kind of conversation. He did not ask things that made my pulse do this… this stupid, traitorous stumble.

"Sometimes," I said, carefully. "I think comfort is just love that hasn't decided what it wants to be yet."

He turned his head. Behind the mask I couldn't see his eyes, not really, just the dark glint of them catching the candlelight, and God help me, I wanted to. I wanted to see whatever expression was living under that mask so badly it ached.

"That's a dangerous thing for you to say to a client," he said quietly.

"Is it?"

"Bear." My fake name sounded like a confession in his mouth. "Some nights I think I look forward to this more than I should."

I didn't answer. I couldn't, not with my throat this tight, not with two months of don't get attached unraveling under one low sentence from a man whose actual name I didn't even know.

So I did the only safe thing left. I reached over, brushed my knuckles against the back of his hand where it rested between us on the couch.

He went still like I'd touched something live. Neither of us moved it away.

The movie played on, forgotten, while the air between us went thick. I could feel his eyes on me even through the mask. I could feel my own heartbeat in my ears, ridiculous and loud, counting down a session I didn't want to end.

But it did end. It always ended.

At nine o'clock he rose, the warmth of him leaving the couch like a held breath finally released, and paused at the door the way he never used to. “Same time next Friday, Bear."

"I'll have the cocoa ready."

He left.

I sat there a long moment after, mask still on, staring at the two mugs - one half-empty, one he never touched - and pressed my fingers to the back of my own hand, right where his had been.

Another Friday over, I told myself, like it was nothing. Like Friday nights weren't the best part of my sad lonely life.

My phone rang as I started getting ready to head home.

I picked it up, "Erica Vandell."

"Erica! Oh my god, I'm so glad you picked up." The voice on the other end was bright, breathless, already halfway to pleading. "This is Claire - Claire Huggins. I know this is completely last minute, but I have to ask. I need you to plan my wedding."

I sighed, already reaching for my planner in my bag out of habit, already knowing the answer had to be no. "Claire, I'm honestly flattered, but I'm fully booked through the end of the year. I wish I could…"

"Please." And there it was, the word that got me every time, "I've dreamed of having you plan my wedding since I first found your work online. Every board I've made, every idea I've had - it's all been you. I don't want anyone else. I'll wait, I'll work around your schedule, I'll do anything. I'll even triple your usual f*e. Please, Erica."

I closed my eyes. I could already f*el myself folding, the way I always did for brides who said my name like it meant something. Plus, a triple f*e sounded so tempting, and I loved money more than anything else.

"Okay," I heard myself say. "Okay. Let's meet and talk details."

Claire's relief spilled through the phone in a rush of thank-yous. We settled on tomorrow, a five-star property downtown for the first meeting - Vale's Hotel, top floor boardroom, ten o'clock.