Delaney James was wearing Chanel the night her husband told her he didn't love her anymore.
In an instant, her picture-perfect Manhattan life-complete with a brownstone on the Upper East Side, a blossoming career as a fashion journalist, and a devas...
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"You okay?" Greyson asks, catching the way my fingers keep twisting my ring. His hand slides over my thigh, warm and grounding. "You're gonna rub your skin off."
A nervous laugh bubbles out of me. "I've never done this before. What if somebody asks me something and my mind completely empties?"
He leans back against the seat, calm in a way that somehow makes me even more nervous. "Trust me, nobody's looking past me tonight. First public appearance since retirement? They're already sharpening their headlines."
"That doesn't exactly make me feel better."
A grin pulls at the corner of his mouth. "Then here's the good news." His thumb brushes once against my leg before he laces our fingers together. "If anybody makes you uncomfortable, I'll be right there. And I'll take over."
I look down at my lap. "People always liked talking to you more anyway."
Greyson lifts my hand and presses his lips against the inside of my wrist, so slowly it steals the breath from my chest.
"Only because you were beside me."
Before I can answer, the car door opens and the quiet disappears beneath a wave of camera flashes and shouting voices – and my stomach drops.
Reporters crowd behind barricades, calling names over each other while cameras fire so fast the light turns almost dizzying. Greyson steps out first, then reaches for me, his fingers closing around mine before the panic can fully settle in. He looks back at me the second my heels hit the pavement, his grip tightening, like he knows I'm fighting the urge to turn around and get back in the car.
The purple carpet is a tide of celebrities moving beneath white explosions and bellowed names – athletes, actors, musicians, Olympians. I've been to Fashion Week with Nico and Sloane, sat across from senators and congressmen at charity galas, even once reached for the same sesame bagel as Adam Sandler in a tiny shop in Tribeca, but somehow this feels different.
Maybe because this world belonged to Greyson long before it ever brushed against me.
A tall man with a broad build and an easy grin cuts through the crowd toward us, a blonde woman tucked against his side.
"Greyson McKinnie."
Greyson's face changes instantly. Not the guarded version of him the cameras have been getting, but something looser, younger almost, as he steps forward and catches the man's hand before pulling him into a one-armed hug.
"Blaze," he says with a laugh. "Good to see you, man."
"You too." Blaze wraps his arm more firmly around the woman beside him. "You remember Justine?"
"Of course." Greyson smiles at her before lifting our joined hands to his chest. "And this is Delaney." He gives me a reassuring squeeze. "My Delaney."
