Chapter 1
Savannah
"That dress is a thirst trap if I've ever seen one."
My best friend Zoe circled me with a critical eye, adjusting the delicate strap that had slipped off my shoulder.
The hotel suite mirror reflected back a woman I barely recognized—polished, poised, and packaged in a silk slip dress the color of champagne.
“That's not what I'm going for,” I said, though the lie landed like a pebble in my throat—small, sharp, and impossible to swallow.
Because itwaswhat I was going for. Or at least what I wanted to go for. A version of myself that looked hard to forget. Someone men stared at, not because she tried too hard—but because she didn’t have to.
I knew the dress was too much. I also knew I wouldn't have changed it, even if Zoe had handed me a sweater and an escape plan.
I wanted to be seen.
Worse—I wanted to be chosen.
"Bullshit." Zoe's reflection smirked behind mine. "You didn't spend two hundred dollars on a dress to blend into thewallpaper, Savannah. It's been—what? Almost a year since the breakup?"
I applied another coat of lipstick, a shade darker than I'd normally wear. "Yeah And this isn't about Miles."
Another lie.
Everything was always about Miles.
About proving I was enough to hold his attention. About bending, shrinking, reshaping myself into someone he might finally choose without hesitation.
I told myself I’d moved on, but the truth was, I was still orbiting the ghost of what we never really were.
Zoe handed me a glass of the actual champagne we'd been steadily working through while getting ready for the wedding.“Eleven months of you wearing emotional widow's weeds. It's time."
"Time for what?" I asked, though I knew exactly what she meant.
"Time to stop allowing him to haunt you. Time to let someone else touch you." She squeezed my shoulders, meeting my eyes in the mirror.
"Time to get back on the?—"
"If you say 'get back on the horse,' I will stab you with this mascara wand."
Zoe laughed. "I was going to say 'get back on the dating scene,' but I like where your head's at. Ride that stallion, girl."
I groaned but couldn't suppress my smile.
This was why I'd agreed to be Zoe's plus-one to this destination wedding in wine country—I needed her irreverent humor.
Her refusal to let me wallow. Her insistence that there was life after Miles Reid.
"I'm not looking to meet anyone," I said, slipping on the gold heels that would have me towering over half the groomsmen.
"I'm just here to drink expensive wine, eat cake, and make sure you don't hook up with any of your exes."
"Unlike some people," Zoe said, gathering her clutch, "I don't have a type."
My type.
That was the problem, wasn’t it?
