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Gabrielle set her spoon down and met my eyes. “You know today’s his board meeting, right?”
I blinked. “What?”
She shrugged, too casual to be casual. “Anthony told me. Damian’s got a full board review at Vérité this afternoon. Valencia called it. Pretty formal. Pretty serious.”
I stared at her, my stomach tilting sideways. “And you’re telling me now?”
“I didn’t want to dump it on you while you were signing leases and arguing over chair fabrics,” she said, nudging her coffee aside. “But yeah. It’s today. By tonight, he could be out. Everything he built could be gone.”
The words hit harder than they should have. Harder than I wanted them to. I looked down at the foam art in my cup, tracing the edges of the clumsy heart someone had swirled into the top. “He didn’t say anything.”
“Of course he didn’t,” Gabrielle said gently. “Because Damian Sinclair would rather walk through fire than ask someone to hold his hand.”
I huffed a breath that was half a laugh, half a cracked rib. “That sounds about right.”
She leaned in, elbows on the table. “You don’t have to fix it for him, Jules. You don’t have to fix him. But...” She hesitated, searching my face. “You always said you wanted something real. Not curated. Not premeditated. Real connection. And sometimes, that starts by showing up. Especially when it’s the hardest thing to do.”
The words sat heavy between us, heavier than the lease I’d just signed or the office I’d just filled. Just show up not as a lover. Not as a liability. Not even as the woman he might’ve broken.
Just... a friend.
I stared out the window at the street, the late afternoon sun throwing long shadows over the sidewalk, and wondered when exactly the ground under my feet had started to shift without warning me first.
Gabrielle didn’t push. She just sipped her coffee, waiting. Maybe she already knew. Maybe deep down, I did too.
I wrapped my hands tighter around the cup, feeling the warmth seep into my fingers even as the doubt stayed cold inside me. Gabrielle was right. Connections didn’t come with guarantees. They came with risk. Like showing up, even when you didn’t know if the door would swing open—or slam in your face.
I set the cup down carefully, the slight clink loud in the quiet space between us. “I’m not promising anything,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “I’m just... not ready to disappear.”
Gabrielle smiled—small, proud. “Good.”
She didn’t say anything else. She didn’t need to.
As we gathered our things and headed back into Miami’s late afternoon sun, one thought kept pressing against my ribs, stubborn and impossible to ignore. Maybe love didn’t start with fireworks. Maybe it started by walking back into the fire... and choosing to stay.
We parted ways outside the coffee shop—Gabrielle waving as she headed toward her car. I stood there for a moment, keys in hand, the sound of the city rising around me.
I could go home. Lose myself in client calls and color swatches and new beginnings, and pretend tonight didn’t matter.
Or... I could drive toward the one place where it did.
I slid into the driver’s seat, the engine springing to life beneath me, without thinking too hard about it.
I pointed my car toward Vérité.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Damian
The polished glass doors of the Vérité Foundation boardroom reflected my face as I reached for the handle—a face that looked a hell of a lot calmer than I felt.
Inside, the tension was thick enough to bottle and sell. Judge Valencia sat at the head of the table, flanked by Anthony on one side and a semicircle of donors and trustees on the other. The usual coffee carafes and silver water pitchers gleamed on the sideboard, untouched.
“Damian,” Valencia said smoothly, gesturing to the seat at the far end. “Glad you could join us.”
As if I had a choice.
I slid into the chair, back straight, hands folded on the table, and met their gazes one-by-one. The small talk was over before it began.