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“Because tomorrow you’re selling true love to half of Canyon Bay, and if you screw this up, it doesn’t just hurt Liam’s image. It hurts the entire organization. The Limo will be there at six.”

The line goes dead, leaving me staring at my phone.

Fix it. Like there’s anything to fix. Like you can repair something that was never real in the first place.

I scroll through the notifications flooding my screen. #LiamKat is trending. There are fan accounts already.

Comment after comment about how‘perfect’ we look together, how ‘lucky’ I am, how they’re ‘shipping us so hard.’

One comment stops me cold: ‘The way he looks at her like she’s his whole world! Goals AF!’

His whole world.I want to laugh, but it comes out more like a sob. The only thing I am to Liam is an inconvenience he can’t shake.

If only they knew that their perfect couple can’t even look at each other without remembering how spectacularly we crashed and burned.

The limo feels like a confession booth—dark, intimate, designed for secrets you can’t take back.

I’ve been dreading this moment since Riley’s call. Sixteen hours of silence from Liam. Sixteen hours of wondering if he’s as wrecked as I am, or if walking away from me was just another Tuesday for him.

He’s already inside when I slide across the leather seat, and I hate how my body responds. Pulse jumping. Breath catching. Like it hasn’t gotten the memo that we’re over before we started.

“Hey.”

The word squeaks out . Fragile. Like I’m asking permission to speak to him.

God, when did I become this person? This woman who shrinks herself down for a man who doesn’t even want her?

“Kat.” He says my name like it hurts. Like it costs him something just to acknowledge my existence.

I want to ask him if he’s thought about last night. If he can still taste me the way I still taste him. If walking away felt as brutal for him as it did for me. If he jerked off thinking about my mouth wrapped around him, or if he’s already moved on forgetting I ever existed.

Instead, I stare out the window and try to pretend my heart isn’t breaking all over again.

“You look beautiful,” he says suddenly, his voice rough.

I turn to look at him, startled. “What?”

“Your dress. It’s...” He runs a hand through his hair, looking everywhere but at me. “You’re beautiful.”

The compliment should make me happy. Instead, it makes everything worse. Because now I’m remembering how he looked at me last night before everything went to hell. How his eyes went dark when I sank to my knees. How he whispered my name like a prayer.

“Thank you.” My voice comes out flat, lifeless.

The silence stretches between us, heavy with everything we’re not saying. I can feel him stealing glances at me, quick looks that he thinks I don’t notice.

But I notice everything about him now.

The way his jaw ticks when he’s thinking. How his hands clench when he’s trying not to reach for something he wants.

How he won’t quite meet my eyes, like looking at me directly might shatter whatever control he’s built since last night.

“About what happened—”he starts.

“Don’t.” The word tears out of me cold and harsh. “Please. Just don’t.”

Because I can’t handle another rejection. Can’t sit here and listen to him explain why touching me was a mistake, why I’m not worth the risk, why his career matters more than whatever this thing between us could have been.

I’m barely holding myself together as it is.