SLOANE'S POV
The training room smelled like desperation and expensive potpourri.
Mrs. Whitmore circled us like a vulture in Chanel, her thin frame cutting through the sunlight that streamed through floor-to-ceiling windows. A leather-bound book balanced on each of our heads. Not a paperback. Not a hardcover. A tome. The kind of leather-bound monstrosity that old men in smoking jackets read while ignoring their wives.
"Ladies." Her voice was cut glass. "A Vance wife does not slouch. A Vance wife does not fidget. A Vance wife moves through a room like water—silent, invisible, essential."
I wobbled.
The book tilted left. My neck screamed. My spine was staging a revolt.
"Ms. Beckett." Mrs. Whitmore materialized behind me, her breath cold against my ear. "Your posture suggests you're preparing to throw a punch, not greet a duke."
"The duke might deserve it."
Someone gasped. The Cartier woman from the elevator—Tinsley, I'd learned, because of course that was her name—shot me a look of pure venom.
Mrs. Whitmore didn't flinch. She just pointed to the door. "Corridor. Now. Reflection time."
Reflection time. As if standing in a hallway with my nose against wallpaper would somehow make my spine less working-class.
I didn't run. But I didn't walk slow either.
The corridor outside was empty. Marble floors. Gold leaf trim. Oil portraits of dead Vance ancestors glaring down at me like I'd personally insulted their bloodline. I lasted approximately forty-five seconds before my feet started moving on their own.
I'd memorized the employee passages by day two. The service elevator with its scratched buttons. The back stairwell that smelled like industrial cleaner. The hallway behind the kitchen where the air conditioning actually worked. And somewhere, if I turned left at the broken water fountain and right at the dead potted plant—there.
The vending machine glowed like a beacon in the dim light.
I pressed my forehead against the glass. Black coffee. Bottom row. Three dollars and fifty cents. I fished a crumpled five from my blazer pocket—this ridiculous silk thing they'd made me wear, cream-colored, already stained at the cuff—and fed it into the slot.
The machine whirred. Gurgled. And stopped.
My coffee sat there. Hanging. Inches from the drop tray.
"No," I whispered. "No, you piece of—"
I kicked it. Hard. The impact vibrated through my heel and the machine didn't even rattle. Just hummed at me, smug and indifferent.
Twenty-three dollars in my bank account. Old Sloane would have wept. New Sloane, the one with fifty thousand dollars she couldn't technically access until "contractual obligations were fulfilled," still had exactly twenty-three dollars and now a vending machine was robbing her blind.
A hand reached past my head.
I froze.
Barely an inch from my ear. Long fingers, a dusting of dark hair, a sleeve rolled to the elbow revealing a forearm that belonged on a statue. And the can dropped with a hollow clunk.
"Stuck?"
The voice hit me before I turned around.
Low. Familiar in a way that made my stomach clench before my brain understood why.
I spun.
And there he was.
Dane.
Dane.
Standing in a dim employee corridor in the Hamilton-Vance Tower, sleeves rolled up, shirt untucked at the waist, top two buttons undone. His tie hung loose around his neck, yanked to one side like he'd been trying to strangle himself and gave up halfway through. His dark hair was disheveled. His jaw was sharp enough to cut.
For three full seconds I couldn't speak.
"You," I finally managed.
"Hello, Sloane."
He said my name the way he used to. Slow. Deliberate. Like it was something he was holding in his mouth to see how it tasted.
My brain was doing gymnastics. Reconciling the man I'd last seen kissing a Chanel heiress against a town car with this man—this man, in a corporate tower, looking like he'd just stepped out of a boardroom meltdown.
"Wow." The word came out half-laugh, half-snarl. "Dane. Holy shit." I looked him up and down, cataloging every detail. The shirt. The watch. The way he stood, one shoulder propped against the vending machine, crowding my space without even trying. "From the garage to the Hamilton-Vance security team? That's a career trajectory."
His mouth twitched.
"Or wait." I tapped my chin. "Valet? You're parking cars now? Those suits are rented, right? Because the last time I saw you, your rent was three months late and your only suit jacket had a mustard stain."
Something moved behind his eyes. A flicker. I couldn't read it.
"Something like that," he said.
"You don't deny it?"
"Would it matter if I did?"
His voice was different. I couldn't place how. Lower, maybe. Or just more controlled. The old Dane would've fired back already, wounded ego flaring, face twisting into that defensive pout I knew too well. This Dane just watched me. His stillness was unnerving.
"Does your sugar mommy know you're here?" I crossed my arms. "The Chanel woman. Rich, blonde, diamonds at the throat. Or have you already moved on to a new mark?"
His jaw tightened.
"She know you're working two jobs to keep up appearances? Or is the valet gig just for fun money?"
"Sloane."
"Because I've gotta say, Dane, I didn't think you had it in you. Holding down a job. Any job. The man I lived with couldn't load a dishwasher without a pep talk."
"Are you done?"
"No." My chest was tight. Heat crawling up my neck. "I'm not done. You show up here, in my hallway, looking like—" I gestured at him, this whole infuriating package, the rolled sleeves and the sharp jaw and the way he smelled, which I was noticing now despite myself. Something dark and expensive. Sandalwood?
Vetiver? Why did a valet smell like a niche fragrance counter? "—like that. And you just say my name and expect—what? What exactly do you expect, Dane?"
He pushed off the machine.
The motion brought him closer. Too close. He was taller than I remembered—easily six-three—and I had to tilt my head back to keep eye contact. His chest was right there. Solid. Visible through the thin white cotton.
I put a hand up without thinking. My palm met muscle and stopped. Flat against his sternum. The heat of him bled through the fabric. I could feel his heartbeat. Steady. Too steady.
"Moved in for the view?" His voice dropped. "I know the security team doesn't pay much. Had to get creative."
The bastard was using my words against me.
"Creative," I repeated, aiming for disdain and landing somewhere breathless. "Right. Because sneaking into a billionaire's wife-search as a parking attendant is definitely a solid life plan."
He stepped forward.
I stepped back.
The vending machine was suddenly against my spine, cold and humming and unyielding. His arms came up on either side of my head. Not touching. Just there. Palms flat against the glass. Caging me in.
"The wife-search," he said, looking down at me, "is a circus. You know that, right? Rich asshole can't find a date, so he makes a game show out of it."
"Says the valet."
"Says the man who's watched you for—" He stopped. His eyes moved over my face. "You really believe in this.
The black card. The training. The curtsy lessons."
"It's not about belief. It's about fifty thousand dollars."
"So you are desperate."
The words landed like a slap.
I shoved at his chest. He didn't move. Not an inch. His hand caught my wrist, fingers wrapping around the delicate skin where my pulse hammered, and he just held it. Not hard. Not rough. His thumb moved—once, twice—against the inside of my wrist.
"Don't," I said.
"Don't what?"
"Touch me like you know me."
"I know you better than anyone."
"Bullshit. You knew the version of me that paid your rent and believed your lies. You don't know this version.
The one who's about to get rich off some mysterious billionaire's very specific checklist."
His eyes narrowed. "Checklist?"
"You haven't seen the news? Declan Vance wants a woman who drinks instant coffee with two and a half pumps of vanilla. Who plays Yoshi. Who's exactly five-four. And I'm perfect for him. I'm literally his dream girl on paper." I laughed, sharp and jagged. "So while you're downstairs parking his cars, I'll be upstairs marrying him."
The silence that followed was strange.
Too long.
Too loaded.
"Dane?" My wrist was still in his grip. His thumb had stopped moving. "What?"
"Sloane." His voice had changed again. Something urgent underneath it. Something almost—desperate? "The woman. That day. The one you saw me with. She wasn't—"
"Don't." The word ripped out of me. "Do not dare stand here and explain her to me. I saw you. I saw your face. You looked right at me and you didn't stop. You didn't chase me. You didn't call. For a month, Dane. A month."
"She's my—"
"Mr. Vance!"
The voice echoed down the corridor.
I twisted in his arms. Hayes—the nervy little guy from the IT department, always hunched over a tablet—was standing at the far end of the hallway, pale as a sheet, eyes wide as saucers.
"I've been looking everywhere for you, sir, the board meeting has reconvened and Ms. Kruger is—"
He stopped. Registered the scene. My back against the vending machine. Dane's arms caging me in. Our faces inches apart.
"Am I interrupting?" Hayes squeaked.
"Yes," Declan said.
"No," I said at the same time.
I ducked under his arm. My wrist slipped from his grip. The air where his body had been was suddenly cold.
"Go to your meeting," I said, not looking at him. Straightening my blazer. Smoothing my hair. "Go park a car.
Go do whatever it is you do now. I have curtsy lessons to fail."
"Sloane."
I walked.
My heels clicked against the marble, past Hayes, past the dead potted plant, past the oil portraits and their disapproving glares. I didn't run. Running would mean he mattered.
But my wrist was still warm where his thumb had been.
And I could feel his eyes on my back until I turned the corner.
