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Except I’m nowhere near that happening.

So I’m stuck living by Dad’s rules.

I push off the bed and start pacing around my room, trying to walk off this restless energy that’s buzzing under my skin. I need a strong drink, a long drive with the windows down, fresh air—anything to stop feeling like I’m about to crawl out of my own body.

But the second I open that door, Drew will be right there. And I’m not ready to face him yet. Not while last night is still burning so vividly in my memory.

The worst part is I was completely myself with him. No filter, no perfect act, no carefully curated Grace Whitmore performance. I was free. Reckless. I said whatever I wanted, not caring about anything because I genuinely believed I’d never see him again.

And now I feel completely exposed.

A sharp knock on the door makes me jump. Before I can even answer, Dad walks straight in. He lowers himself onto the foot of my bed, looking tired and unusually serious. That particular expression always means a lecture is coming.

I swallow hard and sit down beside him.

“I don’t want you worrying about Drew,” he says. He reaches out and tucks a stray piece of hair behind my ear.

“Just pretend he isn’t there. You don’t need to speak to him or acknowledge him at all. Listen to his instructions, but otherwise ignore him completely.”

The way he says it—like Drew isn’t even a person—twists something deep in my stomach. It shouldn’t surprise me. I was raised on my father’s meticulous list of who was “acceptable” and who wasn’t. But after eight weeks on that show surrounded by women from every possible background, those rules feel suddenly hollow.

Most of the girls had needed serious lessons in table manners and wardrobe choices, yet I’d genuinely liked them. I think of Molly. She was a pageant queen who never took home a crown—loud, chaotic, endearingly naive. The exact kind of girl who wouldn’t last five minutes in our world. She’d be devoured alive.

But there was something so real about her. I admired it, in a way.

My phone vibrates between us. Before I can reach for it, Dad picks it up. His expression shifts from mild curiosity to outright disgust.

“Who is this?” he asks, turning the screen toward me.

My blood turns to ice.

In bold, glaring letters across the caller ID it reads: BEST COCK EVER.

Oh God.

“It’s…it’s Millie!” I blurt, snatching the phone from his hand. “My friend from college. It’s just a stupid joke she played on my phone when I wasn’t looking. You know how she is.”

He doesn’t. There is no Millie.

“I don’t think you should associate with people who find vulgarity amusing,” he says, his voice dropping into that disappointed register that always makes me feel five years old again.

I cancel the call, but it rings again immediately. Dad extends his hand, eyes narrowing. “Give it to me, sweetheart. I’ll tell this girl to stop bothering you.”

“No,” I say quickly, silencing the phone and clutching it to my chest. “I’ll handle it. She’s going through a hard time right now, and I’m trying to be a good influence. Like you always taught me.”

Dad hesitates, then relaxes his shoulders with a sigh. “You really are too kind for your own good.” He shakes his head. “But you need to keep your circle as clean as your reputation. You don’t want people like that dragging you down. Look what happened on that show. You spent eight weeks surrounded by crass, opportunistic women and you started acting just like them.”

The lecture begins.

“I’ve spent the last few days reading the transcripts,” he says, his tone flat and clinical. “Listening to you perform your feelings for a camera, submitting yourself for the entertainment of people who work for hourly wages. I have spent thirty-five years building this family’s legacy. You nearly dismantled it in a single season of television.”

For the next ten minutes he dissects every moment of my public humiliation. He lists the business associates who gave him pitying looks at the club, the tabloids that mocked the Whitmore heiress for behaving like a commoner. He’s obsessed with the optics, but what seems to anger him most is the lie I told him—that I was in Barbados—while I was actually filming.

All the while, my phone keeps vibrating against my chest. I silently cancel each call.

At the end, I plead with him. “I was promised I would be chosen,” I say, my voice small. “I thought I was going to marry Max.”

“Max has a great deal to answer for,” he replies, his lip curling with distaste. “But Max did not force you to grovel for his affection in 4K resolution. You traded your dignity for a wedding that never happened, and now the Whitmore name is a punchline.”