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Constance, NY
Monet De Haan Does Not Lose Control
Monet had rules. And the first one was this:
Never want what wants to leave.
It had served her well through years of upper-crust politics, social chess, and emotionally vacant brunches. Her mother taught her early that affection was currency, and Monet—smart, stunning, strategic—had learned to invest it wisely.
But tonight, as she kicked off her boots and pulled her hair into a silk scrunchie, that rule felt less like a shield and more like a cage.
She sat cross-legged on her tufted window seat, laptop open, Vanity Fair article front and center.
Her PR team had sent it over hours ago. Her mother had already called—twice—to congratulate her on "finally using her face for more than pouting."
Monet stared at the screen but couldn't stop thinking about the way Adelaide's hand had felt in hers.
Warm. Still. Reluctant. But there.
That mattered.
She didn't know when it had started—this thing—this low, insistent ache she got whenever Adelaide looked at her like she was trying not to. Like there was something waiting to be said between gritted teeth and perfect posture.
Monet scrolled past the header image—gorgeous, obviously. She looked like power incarnate. Adelaide looked like a secret you'd kill to keep.
Then came the quotes.
"She grounds me," Monet had told the reporter, careful with her tone. "People expect me to be sharp all the time. Addie doesn't need me to be anything."
And later:
"We were rivals before we were anything else. But rivalry is just obsession in heels. You don't glare at someone that much unless you want to know what they'd taste like."
That had been off-script. Spontaneous. A test.
Adelaide had laughed. Laughed. Monet had caught it—just for a second—and watched the way her eyes crinkled, the way her hand reached up to touch the base of her throat when she laughed too hard.
She'd said it to sell the story.
But now, sitting alone with the dim glow of her laptop and the buzz of the city below, Monet wondered if maybe that had been the most honest thing she'd said in weeks.
She clicked open a new message. It was already half-written.
To: Adelaide Kingsley Subject: That laugh.
But she didn't send it.
Instead, she shut the laptop and leaned her head against the glass window, closing her eyes.
