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He doesn’t play the notes, he inhabits them. The opening notes of Girl with the Flaxen Hair drift through the ballroom, and a sensation I can’t quite name takes over my body. The piece should be light, sweet, and innocent, but as Julian plays, he infuses it with a deep yearning that makes my heart swell and ache all at once.

The melody is delicate, shimmering like the fake diamonds in my ears, but there is an underlying tension in his touch—a gravity that makes the simple notes feel like a raw confession.

It’s not for him. That is what he said in the car.

If it isn’t for his father, then who is it for?

The entire ballroom is paralysed. Champagne glasses pause mid-air, conversations suspend in mid-sentence. Even Alistair has been silenced—thank god. Everyone is listening to the pure beauty that echoes around us.

I watch Julian’s hands, the way the muscles flex in his forearms as his fingers gracefully command the keys with effortless authority.

He doesn’t look at the keys, or at the audience, or even at his father. Instead, halfway through the piece, his head turns just a fraction and his dark eyes find mine through the crowd.

And they stay there.

Now I know exactly who he is playing for.

The final notes linger in the air, sustained by the pedal until they gently dissolve into the quiet of the ballroom. For a second, there is complete silence. Then the applause breaks, loud, polished and entirely beside the point.

Julian doesn’t bow. He doesn't even smile. He simply stands up.

His eyes never leave mine as he steps away from the bench, descends the stage, and cuts directly through the crowd towards me. The applause continues around us as I watch him looking at me with those hypnotic eyes.

He reaches me and immediately takes my hand in his. His thumb traces slowly across my knuckles, but his gaze remains fixed on me.

People immediately swarm to congratulate him.

“Magnificent, Julian.”

“Your father must be so proud.”

“What a stunning performance, sweetheart.”

Julian smiles and politely nods, as we move through them quickly. He doesn’t stop for a single one of them.

But through all of it, his hand does not leave mine. Our fingers remain tightly entwined, his palm a steady, burning heat against my own. He isn’t only holding my hand. He is making a statement to everyone in this room, and standing here in this thrifted dress in the ballroom of the Thorne estate, I find I’m not slightly interested in pulling away from him.

I like holding his hand.

I like being this.

With him.

“Let’s get out of the light,” Julian mutters softly against my ear, his mouth grazing my skin. The scent of him is intoxicating and is doing something crazy to my senses. “I want to show you something.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer as he begins to navigate us through the crowd, heading towards the base of the grand staircase—the very one that I stood at the bottom of only an hour ago and thought about fairytales.

I follow him without hesitation, not caring where this leads or where we are going.

I only think about his hands. I think about the way they moved across those piano keys with such a fierce command, and I think about the fact that halfway through that piece, in a room full of Manhattan’s wealthiest elite, he looked for me.

And he found me immediately.

29

Julian

Ihave wanted to get her out of that ballroom since the exact second she stepped into it.