I know he’s right. I know it. I drink my coffee and eat my croissant and I know it, and the knowing does absolutely nothing about the cold feeling in my chest that has been there since I opened the door this morning and found the hallway empty.
By five o'clock, the flowers still haven't come.
I've checked the door ten times. I've been reasonable about it—spacing the checks out, not hovering, telling myself each timethat there's still daylight, still time, still a hundred explanations that have nothing to do with the worst ones.
The delivery is late. The florist had a problem. He's busy. He's okay. He's okay.
Ian finds me sitting on the balcony with a glass of wine I'm not drinking, staring at the Tower like it owes me an answer.
He pulls the other chair close and sits without saying anything for a minute. Just being there the way he does—steady and unhurried, the particular comfort of a presence that doesn't require performance.
“There'll be a reason,” he says finally.
“I know.” My voice comes out smaller than I want it to.
“He's okay.”
“You don't know that.”
“No,” he admits. “But I know him. And him going quiet doesn't mean what you're afraid it means.”
I press my lips together and look at the Tower and don't say any of the things crawling up my throat. “I just…I need to be alone for a while.”
“Not a chance, Crazy. I know how your hyperactive little mind works, and right now there’s nothing good going on up there. So this is what’s going to happen.” He cocks a brow. “There’s a new club that opened by the river. And I happen to know a guy who knows a guy who can get us in.”
“Ian—”
“Not a discussion, Crazy. You've been sitting with this all day and it's eating you alive. You need noise and movement and something to do with your hands that isn't checking the door.”
“What I need is him.”
“And what you have is me, and Paris, and that black dress you bought last week that’s probably illegal in three countries. Now I’m giving you a reason to wear that dress tonight.” He shrugs. “I’ll just have to make sure I accessorize with a loaded gun.”
That makes me snort.
He slants a brow. “That’s so attractive.”
“Shut up.”
“Come on, Crazy. If you don’t want to do it for you, do it for me because cabin fever is a communicable disease and you’re giving it to me. Just one night. You can spiral tomorrow.”
I look at him, green eyes pleading. “Okay, fine. But only because you’re pathetic.”
He smirks, flashing those dimples. “You’d fall apart otherwise.”
The black mini-dress clings to me like a second skin—sheer mesh that pretends to be modest while screaming otherwise. Long tulle sleeves hug my arms, sparkling with delicate vertical lines of tiny crystals that catch the lights like scattered stars. The neckline plunges in a sharp halter, framing my throat before diving between my breasts in a keyhole cutout edged with dense, glittering beads.
Ian made me buy it last week when he was bored and I was moping, thinking I’m the kind of girl a shopping spree can cheer up. He wasn’tcompletelywrong, though.
The club throbs with noise and shadow, bodies pressed together in that deliberate crush that happens when a place understands its own reputation and cultivates it. Bass you feel in your sternum. Lights that turn everyone beautiful. The smell of expensive perfume and cheaper ambition.
Ian's hand is at my back as we move through the crowd, steering us toward the bar with the practiced ease of a man who has navigated worse rooms than this.
“Just so you know, if you leave my side, I will shoot the barman on principle,” he says, mouth close to my ear to be heard over the music.
“Why the barman? What did he do?”
We reach the bar and Ian reads his name tag. “Because anyone with the name Thibault should be shot first.”
