Chapter 10

A week passed in a blur of rejections and silence.

Twenty-three applications sent. Twenty-three rejections received. The responses came faster now, as if my name had been flagged in some industry-wide database. Unemployable. Do not hire.

I’d stopped checking L******n after seeing my former colleagues posting about successful events at Veridian, carefully avoiding any mention of me. Simone had been promoted to senior events manager. My position. My title. Given to the woman who’d waited like a vulture for me to fall.

The money situation was becoming critical. My checking account had dwindled to four hundred dollars. Maya kept saying I didn’t need to worry about rent, but I saw the way she looked at her own bills. Her art sales were inconsistent. She couldn’t afford to support both of us indefinitely.

I’d applied for unemployment. For food service positions. For retail jobs. Anything to stop the bleeding.

Nothing.

Even a coffee shop had rejected me. Apparently, being accused of theft made you unsuitable for handling a cash register.

I spent my days on the couch with my laptop, sending résumés into the void. My nights were restless, filled with dreams of bronze sculptures and gray-green eyes and the way Xander had said my name.

I hadn’t heard from him since that text in the park. Hadn’t expected to. We’d both agreed it was one night. A perfect, isolated incident filed away under “glorious mistakes.”

So when someone knocked on Maya’s door at seven on a Tuesday evening, I didn’t think twice about answering it.

Maya was in the shower. I was in sweatpants and one of her oversized shirts, hair in a messy bun, no makeup. The epitome of someone who’d given up on appearances.

I opened the door.

Xander Lockwood stood in the hallway.

He looked exactly as I remembered. Expensive suit, perfectly tailored. Dark hair styled with casual precision. Those eyes that saw too much. But there was something different about his expression. More serious. More calculated.

This wasn’t a social call.

“Hello, Diana.”

My mouth opened. Closed. No sound came out.

“May I come in?”

“I… how did you find me?”

“You told me you were staying with your friend Maya in Brooklyn. There are only so many Maya Rossis in the borough who are artists. The rest was simple research.”

Simple research. Right. Because tracking down someone’s address was normal behavior.

“What are you doing here?”

“I have a proposition for you. May I come in, or would you prefer to have this conversation in the hallway?”

My brain finally caught up. “Maya is home.”

“Good. I’d prefer a witness for this conversation anyway.”

He walked past me into the apartment before I could protest. I stood frozen for a moment, then closed the door and followed.

Xander surveyed the small space with the same analytical gaze he’d turned on me at The Vault. Taking in the canvases stacked against the walls. The mismatched furniture. The life Maya had built on passion and perseverance.

“This is cozy,” he said.

“It’s small.”

“I said cozy, not small.” He turned to face me, and the intensity in his eyes made my breath catch. “How have you been?”

“How have I been? You show up unannounced at my friend’s apartment after a week of silence and want to make small talk?”

“Fair point.” He set his briefcase on the coffee table. “Is there somewhere we can sit?”

The bathroom door opened before I could answer. Maya emerged in a cloud of steam, wrapped in a robe, hair dripping. She stopped dead when she saw Xander.

“What the hell?”

“Maya Rossi, I presume. I’m Alexander Lockwood. We met briefly at The Vault.” He extended his hand.

Maya stared at it like it might bite her. “I know who you are. What I don’t know is why you’re in my apartment.”

“I’m here to make Diana an offer.”

“An offer.” Maya looked at me, then back at him. “What kind of offer?”

“The kind I’d prefer to discuss while sitting down.” His tone was polite but firm. A man accustomed to being obeyed.

Maya gestured stiffly to the couch. “Fine. Sit. But if this gets weird, you’re leaving.”

We all sat. Xander in the armchair, projecting calm authority. Maya and I on the couch, a united front of suspicion.

Xander opened his briefcase with deliberate precision. The click of the latches was loud in the quiet apartment. He reached inside and pulled out a leather-bound folder, thick with papers, the kind of document lawyers spent hours drafting.

He set it on the coffee table between us.

The leather was expensive, embossed with gold lettering I couldn’t quite read from where I sat. It looked official. Legal. The kind of document changed lives.

“What is this?” Maya asked.

Xander didn’t answer her. He looked at me. Only at me.

His gray-green eyes locked onto mine with an intensity made my heart hammer against my ribs. He leaned back in the chair, fingers steepled under his chin. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating.

Then he leaned forward, pushing the leather folder across the coffee table until it rested directly in front of me.

“Diana Pembroke,” he said, his voice low and deliberate. “I want you to be my wife.“​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​