Chapter 29: Chapter Twenty-Nine — Starlight Gardens

The rain had stopped an hour ago, but the Starlight Gardens still smelled like it was waiting for another storm.

Miles adjusted his cufflinks and caught his reflection in the glass. Sharp suit, calm expression, a man curated for success. On paper he looked like someone celebrating an engagement, yet inside he felt like a live wire trapped in a glass cage.

Christy’s laughter rippled across the hall, bright and honeyed and hollow. She was stunning tonight, every detail curated to broadcast triumph. The future Mrs. Vance, perfect optics and a perfect trophy, and Miles was supposed to be the man who had everything.

He signaled the waiter for another drink. The champagne was too sweet and clung to his tongue like a lie.

"Scotch," he said instead, his voice lower than intended.

As the waiter poured, Miles scanned the room. Members of the Cordell family mingled with business partners and investors, blending together with the effortless polish wealth and influence always carried when money softened the edges of ambition. Conversations overlapped in quiet currents while names and promises moved between people like currency.

He had built a life on belonging to rooms like this. The man who charmed, who connected, who closed deals with an easy smile.

But tonight all he could think about was her.

He had not seen Willow since Christy’s birthday. Not truly seen her, not the way that mattered.

The image came back sharp and unwanted. She stood in that emerald dress with her hand resting lightly on Zane’s arm, and then there had been the kiss. It had not been polite or restrained. It had been deliberate, slow enough for the entire room to understand that it was not performance.

The memory struck him again with the same force, a clean internal blow that never showed on his face but left him breathless long afterward. He had smiled through it, raised his glass, and played the civilized man expected of him, but something inside him had twisted hard and dark.

He had told himself he was bored of her and that Christy was what he needed now, money and access and a different kind of thrill. Watching Willow’s mouth on Zane’s had torn through every calm lie he had rehearsed.

It was possession and jealousy, their ugly heads rising together in a way he did not want to examine too closely.

He had texted her afterward, messages that began short and measured and grew more uncertain the longer she ignored them.

Each silence from her landed heavier than the last. He told himself pride had stopped him from trying again, but the truth was that he did not know what he would say if she answered.

Now, with the dinner underway and her inevitable arrival only minutes away, he still did not know. All he knew was that he needed to see her and understand something he could not yet name. Maybe he wanted closure. Maybe he wanted control back. Maybe he only wanted proof that she could still look at him the way she used to before the accident, before Zane, before everything blurred into something he could no longer manage.

He stared down into his glass. The scotch burned and grounded him for a moment before dissolving into the same restless heat he could not shake. He had always been composed, even under pressure, but lately sleep had stopped coming easily. His thoughts circled her in endless repetition: the scent of her hair, the exact timbre of her laugh, the way she used to look at him as if she could see past the polish into the man beneath.

Christy had noticed the insomnia and called it nerves, and he had let her believe that because he had no explanation that would make sense.

What was he supposed to say. That the woman he had destroyed, the one he had thrown away like yesterday’s laundry and handed to his best friend in the wreckage, was also the only one who made him feel alive.

The truth tasted like rust every time it crossed his mind.

He checked his watch. 8:31. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

Christy appeared beside him, radiant and smug, looping her arm through his.

"You look tense," she said, her eyes flicking toward the drink in his hand. "What number is that? Your fourth? Fifth? The party hasn’t even started yet, Miles. You might want to pace yourself."

He swallowed the biting remark that almost escaped, something sharp and honest that would have cut through the careful illusion of the evening, and set the glass down instead.

"I’m fine," he said evenly.

Christy studied him for a moment longer than necessary, her polished smile thinning into curiosity. Then, deciding she preferred the illusion, she gave a small shrug and drifted toward another group of guests, her laughter already reshaping itself into charm.

Miles exhaled slowly through his nose, the silence she left behind louder than the music. He turned back to the bar and ordered water he did not drink, letting the noise of conversation blur around him.

The chandelier fractured light across the marble floor, catching flashes of jewelry and movement, but his attention remained fixed on the door. Every time it opened he felt the same irrational jolt of anticipation or dread and he could no longer tell the difference.

He thought about the first time he had introduced Willow to Zane, a casual dinner at The Row with laughter over wine and Zane’s sharp remarks landing just short of insult. Zane had told him more than once that he should leave her because they were not good for each other, and Willow had thrown it back without hesitation, telling Zane not to worry because the feeling was mutual. They had circled each other like oil and flame, opposites that should never have mixed.

That was what he believed, and it was what made the lie so easy after the crash when he told her that Zane was her boyfriend and that they were together. Two people who did not like each other would never stay together, or at least that had seemed obvious at the time.

Then why the hell did they kiss.

The question had gnawed at him ever since like something rotten beneath the surface of a perfect smile. Discipline had limits, and he could feel his slipping with every passing minute.

He drew a slow breath and kept his eyes on the entrance while voices rose and fell behind him and a waiter passed with a tray of glasses. The pianist continued a restrained melody that barely registered. Still he waited.

He imagined her entrance before it happened, not because he wanted to but because he could not stop. She would walk in calm and self assured with that impossible combination of poise and defiance, and the room would tilt toward her without meaning to because it always had. Maybe she would ignore him completely. Maybe she would look at him once and undo him all over again.

He drained his glass of water and set it down too hard, the sound clicking against the marble like punctuation.

The door at the far end opened and a subtle ripple moved through the room. Conversation softened, chairs shifted, and even the pianist seemed to hesitate before continuing. Christy’s laughter rose again, sharper now, the tone she reserved for spectacle.

Miles turned toward the entrance with every nerve tightening.

And then he saw them.