The penthouse had gone back to stillness.
Ryan had gone back to himself.
Since New York, since the night of too much wine and the laugh I’d dragged out of him with Taylor Swift, I’d wondered if daylight might leave a crack in his armor. If the man who kissed me slow, who tasted me like he couldn’t stop, would survive the morning.
He hadn’t.
The laugh was gone. The warmth was gone. Ryan Carter walked the halls again like a blade sheathed in a thousand-dollar suit. His touch on my back was once more directive, not tender. His eyes didn’t linger. His voice had returned to clipped syllables that cut instead of carried.
So when Sophie laid the navy silk dress on my bed with the flat command, “Event. Eight o’clock,” I didn’t argue. I didn’t ask why Ryan wanted me there. I already knew, appe
