Temporary Something ebook

Temporary Something

Aylin Red

2026

Temporary Something

Temporary Something

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Also by Aylin Red

Title Page

Cover

Table of Contents

Temporary Something

The Messy Hearts Romance Series

Tylko na Chwilę

Aylin Red

Chapter 1

The corner office on the eighteenth floor belonged to Finn Knox — the plaque still said "Vice President," but nobody believed that anymore. Six months, maybe less.

Through the wall of glass, the city spread out in the afternoon sun: steel, concrete, a river of reflections off taxi rooftops. Finn didn't look up. The tablet sat between printouts, Cartier campaign results laid out column by column — eight million impressions in seventy-two hours, retention at ninety-four, revenue up twelve percent.

Dad'll be pleased.

Two sharp knocks, half a second's pause — and Andrew Knox walked in without waiting for an answer. He only knocked when he was testing someone. He was seventy-one with the posture of a man who hadn't heard the word "no" in decades — shoulders slightly back, unhurried stride, suit cut well enough that just entering a room read like a statement. He sat down across from Finn without asking.

"Milan?"

"Done." Finn leaned back, crossed his arms. "They want us for the spring launch. Full campaign, six markets."

Andrew nodded. On his scale, that nod was a standing ovation.

"And the board?"

"Patterson didn't even get his mouth open." The corner of Finn's mouth moved. "I reminded him we tripled his portfolio value in eighteen months. He's with us."

"Good."

Andrew's fingers tapped a soundless rhythm against the armrest. A pause that would have looked neutral on anyone else — on Andrew Knox it meant something unpleasant was coming.

"If Nate were even half as effective…"

Finn had heard that sigh in a dozen versions. Why can't you teach him to take work seriously. Why does he turn every gala into a party. Why are you two so different.

"That's why I'll be running the company," he said, evenly, the edge kept well under the calm. "He can be our mascot."

Andrew gave a short, genuine laugh. Short enough, rare enough, that Finn felt something in his ribs — not pride, that word was too soft. Something more fundamental.

"You have to give him credit — he photographs well."

"Shame clients pay for results, not selfies."

Andrew stood and straightened his cuffs. He paused at the door.

"Come by for dinner tonight." Something crossed his face — Finn only recognized it because he'd seen it so rarely: something close to discomfort. "You know what your mother's like."

Finn's fingers stilled over the keyboard.

A dinner invitation from Andrew Knox was never spontaneous. It came with an agenda, with expectations written between the lines, with an unwritten exam that Finn always passed and never received marks for.

"Sure." The answer came before he'd thought about it.

"Seven o'clock."

The door clicked shut.

Finn turned back to the reports. The numbers were still clear, but he was looking through them like through glass. Seven o'clock. Dinner. Nate late, as always. Emma in strategic mode, with that smile that wasn't a smile — it was a carefully planned operation. Andrew with that look that never said I'm proud of you, only: don't screw it up.

He never screwed it up. He left no gaps.

His phone buzzed — an email from a client — and Finn opened it, scanned it, replied in under two minutes. Work was clean. The rules were clear. Results were measurable.

At the Knox dinner table, none of those rules applied.

The espresso machine hissed behind the counter as Elodie sank into the velvet of a window couch. Sunlight came through the glass in sharp streaks — warm on her right cheek, a little too bright to keep her eyes open — and she hadn't even unwound her scarf when the café door flew open.

Tessa blew in like a miniature typhoon in cashmere. Blond hair artfully messy, cheeks flushed from the cold, the familiar gleam in her eyes that Elodie had known for ten years and should have learned to treat as a warning ten years ago.

"Don't look at me like that," she announced before she sat down.

"Like what?"

"Like you already know I'm about to ask you for something completely insane."

Elodie dropped her gaze to the dessert menu.

"You haven't said anything yet."

"Your face said everything." Tessa dropped into the seat across from her, bag landing on the chair with the sigh of a true victim of circumstance. "Order me something chocolate and the strongest coffee they have. I need both to survive this conversation."

"That bad?"

Tessa just looked at her.

The waiter appeared at a good moment. Elodie ordered two lattes, a tarte tatin for herself, chocolate cake for Tessa. When he disappeared, Tessa leaned across the table with the face of someone who'd just uncovered a conspiracy.

"My mother has declared war on my eggs."

"Oh no."

"She's sending me articles about the biological clock. With captions like 'interesting' and 'something to think about.'" She waved a hand. "Subtlety — expert level."

"That's just the opening, isn't it?"

"She signed me up with an exclusive matchmaking agency. One of those places that matches you based on tax returns and enamel quality." Tessa's smile twisted into something between despair and dark humor. "I have a date. Next Saturday. Some banker or tech bro — I stopped listening at the word 'portfolio.'"

The coffees arrived. Elodie wrapped both hands around her cup, ceramic warm under her fingers, steam rising between them like a thin curtain. She looked at Tessa with the patience she'd spent years developing while watching her mother operate.

"Then don't go," she said.

"I can't. This time she'll actually cut me off." The gleam in Tessa's eyes sharpened into something Elodie knew well and had never liked. "But you could go for me."

The cup stopped halfway.

"I'm sorry?"

"You heard me."

"No." Automatic, before she'd thought it through. "I still have some dignity."

"Your dignity doesn't pay rent." Tessa reached for her phone. "I'll pay you."

"Tessa—"

"Name a number."

The waiter brought desserts. The tarte glistened with caramelized apples, Tessa's cake dripped ganache, the smell of chocolate and burnt sugar settling between them. Elodie stabbed her fork into the caramel without looking at Tessa. Tessa flipped her phone screen around.

Elodie glanced at it. Looked again.

The numbers hadn't changed.

"Okay," she said. "Screw dignity."

"I knew you were sensible." Tessa lit up — that face again, the kid who just got what she wanted.

"One date." Elodie pointed her fork. "One evening. That's it."

"Of course." Tessa was already cutting her cake. "And try to make sure he doesn't like you. Me, I mean. You know what I mean."

"This is completely insane."

"You already said yes."

"I already regret it." Elodie pushed her fork deeper. "What if he's awful?"

"Go to the bathroom and don't come back." Tessa shrugged. "Classic."

"What if he's… fine?"

"Then be weird. Tell him about your haunted doll collection."

"I don't have any—"

"He doesn't need to know that."

The laugh came out of Elodie without warning — louder than she'd meant — and for a moment the café noise around them turned to backdrop, not reality.

"This is insane," she declared that evening, at the door of her own apartment.

Keys into the ceramic dish, coat onto the re-upholstered armchair — and she stood in the middle of a narrow hallway, looking at her studio with a feeling she knew too well. That particular kind of quiet that comes after you shut the world behind you.

Her phone buzzed. Once, twice, three times — a burst, as usual.

You need to look ELEGANT AND RICH INCREDIBLY RICH IMAGINE THE WEALTH There's a difference!!!

Elodie rolled her eyes so hard something cracked in her neck. She threw herself onto the sofa.

On the brick walls hung abstract paintings she and Tessa had bought at that gallery in Chelsea — ten years ago, champagne spilled through laughter, pretentious wall text, two girls with no idea they'd both end up here. That night they were inseparable. Maybe that's why she agreed to idiotic things now.

Another burst: THIS ONE!!! Wait, no, THAT ONE!!! Or actually the black??? Do you still have that clutch I lent you???

If you like them that much, GO YOURSELF.

The reply came instantly: I'm trying to help you!!

Three exclamation points. Classic.

Elodie dropped her phone onto the couch and stared at the ceiling. There was a crack up there the landlord had promised to fix two years ago — barely visible from across the room, annoying up close. Systematically ignored by both parties.

Her love life had looked like that crack for a long time now.

Dating apps, coffees, conversations dying faster than the coffee cooled in the cup. Guys who "weren't looking for anything serious." That one, over dessert, who announced he wanted to "keep his options open" — she'd left him with the check and the waiter's carefully blank expression. That dating in New York was brutal, everyone said like a mantra. Except for her it had turned into something worse than brutal.

Indifference.

She'd stopped counting. Stopped expecting. Stopped paying attention to what was happening before it was already over. She'd long since decided she'd end up with one dog, three cats, and a shelf of romance novels bought anonymously at two in the morning.

Twenty-eight. The number sat in her mouth like something she couldn't swallow.

Since Zach.

Just the name tightened something in the middle of her chest — not sharply, not enough to call it a wound. More like a scar she kept brushing against even though it had healed enough to forget exactly where it sat. Zach Donovan, with his easy smile, the way he talked that made every decision sound like the only logical one. The man she'd been ready to marry. Who'd looked her in the eyes and promised forever — before sitting down across from her one evening and delivering a carefully prepared speech about "being too young for that kind of commitment."

Not for marriage. For her.

She'd been supportive. Said she understood. By the time she found the words she actually needed, his number was no longer in reach.

Four years since that evening, and she was still building the same walls, brick by brick, on reflex, like breathing. Now, whenever a man says anything about "keeping it chill" or "seeing where it goes" — she leaves. No second chances. No credit extended to sentences that cost nothing. She'd already paid enough for someone else's fear.

Her phone buzzed again.

Hair down Men LOVE hair down Trust me And those perfumes from Christmas THE EXPENSIVE ONES Not the ones you actually wear

Elodie grabbed a pillow and screamed into it until she'd used up every last bit of air in her lungs. It would have to do.

I'll wear a potato sack and orthopedic shoes.

ELODIE ROUSSEAU DON'T YOU DARE THIS IS IMPORTANT

She got up and opened the wardrobe. Her clothes were elegant, but genuinely so — the kind you wore to gallery openings and Sunday brunch at a friend's place, not the kind that screamed old New York money, visible from the subway. She pulled out a navy dress. Hung it on the wardrobe door. Stood and looked at its reflection in the dark mirror for a moment.

"Merde," she murmured.

Her phone lit up: You're going to be AMAZING I love you!!! 😘😘😘

She turned the screen off.

The Knox residence on the Upper East Side occupied two floors of a restored Beaux-Arts building. Marble underfoot, tall windows overlooking the Park, canvases on the walls that cost more than most cars. The dining table — mahogany, polished to a mirror — could have seated a full board of directors with room to spare.

Tonight there were only four of them.

Finn was fifteen minutes late. In this family that almost qualified as on time. He came in wearing a navy suit, tie loosened, the expression of a man who knows exactly he's late and has decided to live with it.

Nate was sprawled at his end of the table like someone who grew up here and intended to keep reminding everyone. Glass of whisky, smile with a dimple on the left — that specific smile that meant he knew something that was about to catch you off guard, and was proud of himself for it.

"He arrives," Nate said. "The prodigal son, graciously blessing us with his presence."

"The late son," Emma corrected, stepping in wearing a silk blouse and slacks that cost exactly enough to notice but not enough to mention. "As always, darling."

"Traffic," said Finn.

"There's no traffic at eight on a Tuesday."

"Then I'm a terrible liar."

Andrew materialized from the study with whisky and glasses pushed to the end of his nose. Even here, at the family table, he carried himself like a man in a negotiation. Just a different scale.

"Finn." He nodded at the empty chair. "Sit down."

No warmth. Finn hadn't expected any.

He sat across from Nate and looked at him. Nate had that expression — apparently blank, but too deliberately blank.

"What's so funny?" Finn asked.

"Nothing." A shrug. "I just like family dinners."

"Sure."

Through the first course — some soup Finn didn't recognize and didn't try — Emma talked about auctions, parties, which families had divorced and who'd joined whose board. Finn answered in half-sentences, drank his wine, calculated his exit time in the back of his mind.

Emma set her spoon down.

Finn knew that gesture. It wasn't a soup gesture. It was an announcement gesture.

"I've been thinking," she began, in a tone that suggested the thinking had been going on for a while and had been carefully packaged — "that it's time for you both to settle down."

Finn's wine glass stopped in midair.

Nate's smile disappeared.

"And there it is," Nate murmured.

"This is serious, Nathan." Emma looked at both of them with the expression of a general before a briefing. "You're both at the age where a confirmed bachelor stops being charming."

"Especially you, Finn," Andrew added, without looking up from his plate.

"Why especially me?"

"Because you're old," Emma said it with the guileless directness of someone commenting on the weather.

Nate snorted.

"Forty-two isn't prehistoric," Finn said.

"Old enough that we should stop pretending you have all the time in the world." Emma moved her gaze to Nate with laser precision. "And you can stop laughing. This mess is largely your fault."

Nate's face fell.

"That wasn't my fault. It was a business arrangement, not a wedding."

"A business arrangement you detonated live on television."

"She ended it, not me."

"Boys." Andrew's voice cut across the table like a letter opener. He put his spoon down. Took off his glasses. "Enough. Your mother and I are done waiting. You're going to settle down. Get married. Build something that lasts longer than a marketing campaign. This family's legacy doesn't come down to financial results."

Silence. Heavy, specific.

"We're working on it," Nate said, faster than he should have.

"Work isn't enough." Emma straightened up. "Which is why I've decided to help."

Finn felt a chill at the back of his neck. He knew that tone. He knew that smile. Emma was launching a plan that had probably been ready for a week.

"Finn," she said, sweet as poison. "You have a blind date tomorrow."

"I—" He choked. "No."

"Yes." Radiant smile, eyes calm as stone. "I've already paid. That's the end of it."

"You could just kill me now, if you wanted."

"No. Tomorrow you need to be very much alive."

Nate pressed his napkin into his mouth.

"This is your fault," Finn said across the table.

"Oops." His brother raised his glass.

"Take this seriously," Andrew said quietly. "Or there will be consequences."

In Andrew Knox's mouth, consequences carried the weight of a notarized document.

Finn drained his glass.

A blind date. Set up by his own mother. At forty-two.

"Seriously?" he muttered.

"Seriously." Emma smiled.

The penthouse met him with silence and the smell of his own apartment — that specific, barely-there smell of wood and leather that after a long day was either comforting or suffocating, depending on his mood. Tonight it was the second.

Keys on the console, tie off in one pull, jacket over the back of the armchair. Beyond the windows the city glittered like scattered jewelry — a thousand windows for a thousand other people's evenings — and Finn stood at the glass for a moment, not looking at anything in particular.

"Unbelievable," he said to the dark.

And then, quietly:

"Christ."

He sat down heavily on the sofa. The whisky decanter beckoned from the shelf — he ignored it. Wine at dinner had been enough.

He understood where the panic came from. Two sons, zero stable relationships, one engagement ended in a media announcement, one near-scandal broadcast live. From Emma and Andrew's perspective it must have looked like a logistical disaster.

Natalie.

Four years ago he'd thought that story would end differently. Engagement, date, families notified, first reservations in place — he'd had everything he thought he was supposed to have. He'd given her more than plans and a date: things he didn't show anyone, places in himself he didn't normally let people into. He'd been sure that this time was different.

Then he'd heard the carefully assembled speech about "being too young for marriage" and "needing to find herself."

"Of course," he'd whispered that evening. "Of course."

He'd been supportive. Played the mature one.

Then someone else came to light. A trainer, a photographer, irrelevant. What mattered was one thing: she wasn't too young for marriage. She was too young for his specific version of stability. All that "finding herself" had simply meant finding someone she didn't have to work so hard with.

Nate had his own disaster on a larger scale — his fiancée, TV cameras, a speech about being "sold like stock." From the parents' perspective: two failures in the same category.

Emma and Andrew weren't getting any younger. Neither was he. His mother's comment about his age had landed somewhere it wasn't supposed to reach.

Rachel Parker had fit their plan on paper. The looks, the brand, the right family, the shared connections. With Emma and Ashley Parker as co-writers, everything seemed already designed: engagement, wedding, Parker-Knox in the headlines.

The problem was one thing: being with Rachel was like watching a well-directed commercial. After an hour he felt like he'd run a marathon of small talk. Every gesture polished, every sentence rehearsed, zero moments where anything was unexpected. You simply couldn't catch her off guard because there was nothing in her that was off guard by nature.

He looked at his parents and saw simultaneously everything he wanted and everything he couldn't replicate. Their marriage might have started with connections, but over time it had become something real — building things together, loyalty tested by difficulty, raising two complicated sons who somehow hadn't broken them. You could see it even at that table, in the way Emma rested her hand on Andrew's plate when he said something too sharply.

He wanted something like that. Not a merger. Someone who'd stay when it got hard.

After Natalie his tolerance for risk had dropped close to zero. Each attempt after that ended the same way: women more interested in the name or the access than in him. Nate had always made it look easy — he'd smile and women would line up. Finn got the other kind: ambitious, careful, the ones who looked at him like a challenge or an investment. Maybe he was just difficult. Quick sarcasm, walls raised on reflex, expecting people to climb to meet him. He couldn't pretend to be someone lighter.

Work gave him one thing he couldn't find anywhere else: clear criteria. No guesswork. You were good if you delivered results. Nobody asked whether he was easy to live with.

"One, maybe two," he murmured to the dark.

He'd show up. Play nice. Check the box. Then he'd tell Emma he'd tried — and what came of it would be his business.

The alternative was an endless parade of women handpicked by his mother until one of them stayed out of sheer exhaustion.

His phone buzzed.

Nate: Good luck tomorrow, old man. Try not to scare her off in the first five minutes.

Finn: Get lost.

Nate: Love you too.

Finn looked up at the ceiling and — despite himself — almost smiled.

A blind date. Worst case, it'd make a great story.

He got up and walked to the window. The city beyond the glass shimmered the way it always did — indifferent, full of other people's stories. His own face reflected weakly in the dark pane, blurred by a thousand lights behind it.

"Whatever happens tomorrow," he murmured to that reflection, "happens."

Chapter 2

Elodie locked the last display case. The dry click of the latch carried through the main gallery of The Blue Muse like a period at the end of a sentence. Afternoon light pushed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, gilded the white walls, pooled across the polished concrete — unhurried, almost lazy, as if it knew there was no point rushing.

A few guests were still drifting near the exit, finishing conversations about the new installation in the quiet, respectful tones Elodie liked almost as much as silence.

"Have a good weekend!" Ivy called from the front desk, laptop already in her bag, coat already on.

"You too." Elodie's heels tapped against the concrete as she headed for the door.

Two hours. That's what she had to transform herself into someone Mrs. Hall would consider a suitable match for a candidate from the upper tier of Manhattan's elite. The plan was completely insane. But a promise to Tessa was sacred — that particular kind of sacred that applies especially to stupid ideas.

Her apartment met her with quiet and its own smell — cedar from the diffuser, the old couch cushion, tea she hadn't finished yesterday. She dropped her shoes in the hallway and nearly ran to the wardrobe.

The black dress was waiting. She'd been mentally cataloguing it all afternoon — simple, sleek, fabric that whispered expensive up close without announcing it to everyone she passed. Right for a gallery opening, right for dinner with someone described as "very wealthy, not necessarily pleasant."

She pulled it on and stood in front of the mirror.

"Fancy rich girl," she muttered, imitating Tessa's breathless excitement. "What am I even doing."

Even if the date meant nothing to her — and it didn't — at least she could look incredible. Small compensation for the idiocy of the whole thing.

She pinned her hair into something between effortless and intentional, soft waves loose around her face. Makeup clean, precise, nothing theatrical. She stepped back. Touched up her lipstick.

Ready. Professional heartbreaker for one evening.

She took a selfie and sent it to Tessa.

Happy now?

The reply came instantly.

OH MY GOD!! I would date you 😍

Elodie smiled despite herself, then narrowed her eyes. She and Tessa looked nothing alike — different heights, different features, different shade of blond.

Are you sure this is going to work?

Tessa: He doesn't know me. Just say you're me. Trust me!!

Trust me. The last words she should ever take seriously.

Before she could think it through, she grabbed the clutch and left.

The restaurant was exactly what the Upper East Side address had promised. Heavy doors, low lighting, dark wood and crystal chandeliers calibrated so precisely that everyone at every table looked like someone important. The waitstaff moved with quiet efficiency — so smooth you forgot they existed until you needed them. No prices on the menu. If you have to ask, you're not their customer.

At least the food would be exceptional. Deserved compensation for the absurdity of the evening.

"Good evening." A waiter materialized at her side. "Name?"

"Tessa Hall."

"Right this way, Miss Hall."

He led her across the room to a window table. The tablecloth gleamed white, candles burning. The second chair was empty. She checked the time.

She was on time. He wasn't.

Even better. She could text Tessa I tried, order something obscenely expensive, eat in peace, and go home with an anecdote instead of a scar.

She was searching for Tessa's number when a shadow fell across the table.

"Tessa Hall?"

She looked up.

Oh, great.

The man standing at her table was a problem she hadn't accounted for. Tall, broad shoulders under a suit cut well enough that the fabric itself seemed to be standing at attention — the build of someone who treats the gym like a calendar item, not a hobby. Dark hair with silver at the temples, the kind that gets described as distinguished in business profiles and in practice looks like a bottle of expensive whisky you can't decide if you'll enjoy or regret. Green eyes moved over her calmly, head to toe, lingering a second longer on her mouth before returning to her face. The expression of a man used to the upper hand — in boardrooms, in articles, in every room he walked into.

And exactly the look that said: I'd rather be anywhere else.

"Yes," she said, lightly mirroring Tessa's intonation. "And you?"

"Apparently your partner for the evening." The smile had the temperature of a walk-in fridge. "Finn Knox."

Of course. Chiseled jaw and a suit worth a small car. A walking illustration of arrogant VP in some dictionary.

This was going to be a long dinner. Or a very short one, if she played it right.

"Enchanté." She leaned back slightly, gesturing to the empty chair. "Sit down. You look like a man who urgently needs a drink. Or three."

Something flickered in his eyes — a small crack in that cold surface.

"Already ordered." He sat with the controlled ease of something that doesn't rush because nothing's getting away. Leaning over the table, he brought with him the scent of warm, spiced cologne — wood and something darker, too understated to be loud, too good to ignore. "I'm guessing your mother had a hand in this as well?"

Great. Parents on both sides of the table. The grand coalition.

"What a romantic symmetry." She slipped into bored-socialite mode. "Two strangers, condemned to each other by conspiring parents. Like a fairy tale where the prince is in a terrible mood and the princess is plotting his downfall."

"A fairy tale with emotional blackmail and disinheritance threats." The smile didn't move a millimeter. "Sure, let's call it magic."

"You're absolutely charming." She produced a smile with zero warmth behind it. "A real Prince Charming."

"And you? Cinderella?" His gaze moved over her face and paused for a moment on her mouth. "I'm guessing the version with claws."

Warmth spread through her stomach — irritatingly off-topic. She crossed her legs; the tip of her shoe grazed his calf.

"Only when someone asks for it. You look like a committed provocateur."

The waiter appeared with his Scotch. Finn raised the glass without looking away from her. The air between them thickened by half a degree.

"Tell me, then." He took the first sip, ran his tongue along his lower lip, and her gaze — involuntarily, treacherously — followed that movement. "Your mother must be desperate. Why the rush? Clock ticking?"

"Darling, I'm timeless." She rested her chin on her hand, the neckline doing its job. "But since it's bothering you so much — tell me: why are you even here when your face is announcing you'd rather bite through your own wrist?"

"Entertainment." The corner of his mouth twitched upward. "I enjoy disappointing expectations. It's a hobby."

"Well, congratulations." A wide smile, innocent and sweet as a poisoned dessert. "You've already managed it."

"And you?" He settled back as if he had all the time in the world to study her. "What's a woman like you doing on an agency date? Waiting for a prince, or shopping for a scandal?"

She gave a light, theatrical laugh.

"With a face like yours? That's villain material, not prince material." She shook her head. "Heroes tend to be boring."

"Villains have more fun." His voice dropped slightly on the last syllable — not quite a joke, not quite a threat, something in between. "And you look like someone who enjoys a little danger."

"Danger? The kind where my mother auditions your prospects like a Jane Austen novel?" She rolled her eyes. "Speaking of — are you actually rich, or is that just good PR?"

He weighed something for a moment — whether she was entertaining him or testing him.

"You didn't look me up?" He leaned closer, elbows on the table, those few extra inches of space suddenly gone. "How refreshing."

"I'm not big on technology." She waved a hand. "I use my phone for Instagram and texts. The world keeps turning."

"Right." The word dripped with skepticism, thick as molasses. "So what do you actually do? Besides experiencing life?"

Time to launch the worst version of Tessa.

"I'm in my finding-myself era." She arranged her face into something slightly lost. "I used to do events, but you know… details. Exhausting."

"Details." He raised an eyebrow. "In events."

"Exactly!" She beamed. "Why does everything have to be accounted for? Can't you just show up and have fun?"

He looked at her for a moment, glass halfway to his mouth. Something between disbelief and amusement — too much of the second.

"You're joking."

"About what?" She blinked, perfectly innocent.

The waiter interrupted them to take their orders. Elodie — out of pure spite — pointed to the most expensive item on the menu.

When they were alone again, Finn leaned across the table. In the candlelight, his green eyes were darker.

"Let's recap." He lifted his fingers like a presentation. "So far: no job, no relationship with technology, no patience for details. What exactly do you bring to the equation, Miss Hall?"

"I'm very pretty." She gave him a perfectly blank smile.

His gaze moved over her face slowly — the professional thoroughness of someone who spends their life on audits.

"I can see that." He nodded. "Barbie." The smile curled under his nose. "I've met plenty of perfect women. Usually they owed it to credit cards and surgeons."

The jab landed cleanly, even though it should have slid right off her character's armor. Elodie shifted back slightly.

"Well, I'm one hundred percent natural." She blinked, over-selling it. "And I know a lot of people. That has to count for something."

"Undoubtedly."

"At least that's what my mother thinks." She shrugged. "She's obsessed with settling me down because apparently time is flying. Which is funny, because I'm only twenty-something."

"You don't know how old you are?" Dry.

"Birthdays are depressing."

Finn set his glass down, and for the first time something like a real smile appeared on his face — not cold, not polite, closer to genuine curiosity.

"Fascinating."

This was supposed to bore him, not amuse him. The plan needed adjusting.

"Tell me about these people of yours," he added. "Anyone worth mentioning, beyond plastic surgeons?"

"Oh, loads." She leaned into full gossip mode. "Madison married some tech genius. Brie's in fashion. And that one whose name starts with J… Jennifer? Jessica?" She waved her hand. "Important."

"Dazzling."

"And you?" She smiled sweetly. "What do you do? Something tedious in finance?"

"VP at an agency," he answered easily. "Deadly dull. Oceans of details and planning."

"That sounds awful." She wrinkled her nose. "Don't you feel like life is passing you by?"

"Some of us weren't born into a trust fund."

"So you are broke." She widened her eyes. "No judgment, it's fine. My mother says character matters more than money. Though in the same breath she'll add that I should marry rich. Confusing mixed signals."

This time his laugh was short and genuine.

And that was the problem. He was supposed to be put off, not starting to treat her like the most interesting project he'd had all week.

The food arrived. She focused on her plate — whatever was in front of her smelled of truffle and money — counting on a long enough run of vapid small talk to finish him off eventually.

"There's just one thing I need to clarify," he said after a moment.

"Go ahead." She took a bite, maybe a fraction too sharply.

"Who are you?"

"Tessa Hall." Steady.

His smile narrowed to an infuriating half-moon.

"I don't think so."

He picked up his phone, tapped a few times, and turned the screen toward her.

In the photo: a woman with golden-blond hair — warm, sun-kissed, alive in the way of a nineties shampoo ad that actually worked — and green eyes bright with natural warmth. Everything Elodie was clearly not. Her own hair ran cool and ashy, beige waves with smoky undertones, ends the color of milky coffee. Her eyes were brown — deep, dark brown, nothing like the emerald in the photo.

Heat climbed up her neck. Her facial muscles stayed exactly where they were.

"Oh, you're also a stalker." She gave him a slow, unimpressed look. "Charming."

"Did you really think I'd come to a blind date without doing a little research?" He leaned back, visibly enjoying every second of this. "Some of us can handle technology, Tessa."

He savored the borrowed name with deliberate cruelty, like he was tasting it.

Elodie's fingers tightened on her glass.

Fine. You want to play, Knox?

"Impressive for an older gentleman," she said, with a faintly mocking edge. "Operating a smartphone without reading glasses — respect."

"Careful, your real personality is starting to show, sweetheart." The dangerous gleam appeared in his eyes — not anger, something worse, something more enjoyable. "And I'm not an older gentleman."

"Of course not." She took a sip. "Just… distinguished. Refined. A classic."

"And still better-looking than the boys you probably date." His teeth showed in a smile that had more in common with a predator than with courtesy. "The ones who mix up a wine glass with a pint glass."

"At least they have full, thick hair." She tilted her chin toward his temples. "Very… mature."

"Your word — distinguished."

"I was being polite."

"Remarkable." He swirled the Scotch, ice tapping quietly against the crystal. "And yet here you are, having dinner across from this distinguished older gentleman. Dinner he's paying for."

"I'd be a bad actress if I left in the middle of the second act." She set her fork down. "Tu comprends?"

"French." He raised an eyebrow. "Did you pick up the accent while finding yourself during a gap year in Paris?"

"Actually—" She started answering on instinct and caught herself. "It sounds better. People buy it." She shrugged.

"Wonderful." One word, completely flat. "But since the real Tessa Hall is a green-eyed blonde who's been posting wedding content to Instagram for the last three hours—" his gaze came back to her, slowly, without hurry— "…who are you?"

Her heart hit harder. She held his gaze through willpower and two years of not flinching when someone criticized an exhibition to her face.

"Does it matter?" she asked, keeping her voice soft. "You didn't want to meet her. You walked in here looking like a man walking to the gallows."

"Fair point." The smile sharpened at its edge. "The facts remain: you showed up pretending to be her. Interesting choice."

"Maybe I'm a very good friend." She took another bite. "I take one for the team."

"Noble." He narrowed his eyes. "Though I'm starting to suspect the real Tessa took one look at my profile and sent a substitute. I don't blame her. Apparently I'm terrifying."

"Sounds like your reputation precedes you." She smiled coolly. "The fact that I'm still sitting here only means I keep my word. Even the stupid ones."

"So — insufferable." He nodded. "That was the verdict?"

"Unanimous."

"And yet—" he indicated the space between them— "here we are. Almost like a real date."

"Real dates are the ones people actually want to go on." She set her glass down. "We're both here under duress."

"Who said I don't want to be?" His voice dropped one register. "This is the most interesting evening I've had in months."

"Low bar."

"High standards." His eyes darkened. "And right now you're squarely in their crosshairs."

It got too warm under her skin. Too fast.

Enough.

"Since the curtain's coming down—" she reached for her clutch.

"At least tell me your name." Calm, firm. "Your real one."

She hesitated.

The candle flame swayed between them, shadow moving along the line of his jaw. His gaze pressed into her with the uncomfortable precision of someone who has time and intends to use it. For a fraction of a second she genuinely wanted to just say it: Elodie. See what he did with it.

But this was exactly the type of man she should be keeping her real self as far away from as possible.

"So you can run your little private vendetta?" She gave him a sweet, candy-coated smile, voice stripped of any illusion. "Not a chance, chéri. Good luck finding your dream Tessa. I'm sure she already regrets missing this."

She turned and walked away. Every step controlled, hips in a rhythm that required no effort, because the confidence of moving through a room she'd been training into herself for years, back when she'd had none. She felt his gaze on her back — not a touch, not a weight, something more precise. Like he was taking notes.

All the way to the door.

Finn sat at the table a moment longer, Scotch halfway to his mouth, watching her go.

The corners of his mouth lifted slowly.

That woman had nerve.

"Would you like—" the waiter began, approaching with the caution of someone dealing with an unidentified species.

"The check." Finn slid his phone into his pocket. "And one more Scotch."

He had the right contacts. The right tools.

And he'd just been handed a challenge worth his time.

Elodie shut her apartment door and leaned against it with her back. She pressed both hands to her burning cheeks — skin hot under her fingers, pulse too fast for someone who'd spent the last two hours playing a stupid game with a stupid man.

"Oh my God." Her voice came out strangled, caught somewhere between laughing and something that didn't want to be regret. "What a disaster."

She kicked her shoes into the corner and moved through the apartment in just the dress.

Her phone went off like it had lost its mind.

Tessa: HOW DID IT GO???Tessa: ELI????Tessa: YOU'RE NOT DEAD RIGHTTessa: IF HE MURDERED YOU BLINK TWICE

Elodie dropped onto the couch and started typing — the cold smile, the jokes about disinheritance, how he'd taken being lied to almost too lightly, like he'd just been handed a new toy he intended to play with.

In her bedroom she undressed more carefully than she felt like. Despite the frustration, the hanger won over the dramatic throw across the room — Tessa absolutely did not deserve ruined good fabric today. She pulled on soft shorts and an oversized t-shirt. Washed off her makeup until the mirror showed what always remains after evenings that were supposed to be something else.

Tessa: Oh my God

Tessa: That sounds like a nightmare but also kind of…

Tessa: No, never mind. You took the hit for me.

Elodie: Is your mom going to kill you?

Tessa: Completely. What am I supposed to tell her??? "Sorry Mom, I didn't close on the VP millionaire"?

A laugh came out of her, loud — the kind that only surfaces in truly hopeless situations.

Elodie: Maybe the truth? That he was impossible, so you've been right your whole life? Yeah, that'll definitely calm her down.

Elodie scrolled through Instagram. Her own account — private, curated, limited access. Tessa's — parties, sunshine, cocktails photographed at the perfect angle. The Blue Muse — the gallery profile, full of opening-night shots, sometimes with her somewhere in the background.

Her thumb stopped on one of them. Her face, clearer than she'd like — the gallery's public profile, anyone could find it.

"No," she said to herself. "He won't bother."

This was a man who presumably had an endless stream of candidates. One wild blind date with an impostor was at best an amusing footnote in his calendar. By morning he'd forget.

She had to believe that.

She burrowed under the covers. Tried to pull her thoughts somewhere else.

Instead she saw the line of his jaw in candlelight. That infuriating smile that appeared at her actual comebacks, not at the whole carefully constructed performance. And his voice, when he asked for her name, going softer by exactly one register — one too many, one she shouldn't be filing away.

Finn.

"Stop it," she hissed at herself and pulled the duvet over her head.

He was arrogant, aggravating, used to getting what he wanted. And they were never going to see each other again.

Sleep well! Thank you for taking one for the team ❤

Elodie sent back a heart and put her phone down.

Tomorrow everything would go back to its proper place. Work, the gallery, normal rhythm.

Finn Knox would just be a good story.

The penthouse met Finn with soft dark and the quiet he liked after long evenings. He threw his jacket over the first chair that got in his way. He poured the whisky before he turned on the lights.

Beyond the windows Manhattan ran its own life — thousands of windows, thousands of evenings, none of them his. He felt oddly off his rhythm and couldn't quite work out why — dinner was supposed to be a box to check, not something he was still thinking about halfway through the cab ride home.

His phone buzzed.

Emma: How did it go, darling?

He rested his hip against the counter.

Interesting. We'll see.

Diplomatic enough not to trigger an immediate barrage of follow-up questions. Three dots appeared — vanished. Emma would be analyzing every word, naturally.

Nate: Sooooo??? What was she like? Did she pass out from your devastating brooding charm?

Nate: Or did you manage to bore her with Q3 projections?

Finn rolled his eyes and moved to the living room.

Nate: Come on man, give me SOMETHING

Nate: I'm dying here

Nate: Was she at least hot?

His thumb paused over the screen.

She was.

In the obvious sense — tall, with that unintentionally photogenic quality, hair in a cool shade of blond with darker ends, nothing of Tessa's golden warmth. Eyes dark, brown, more watching than posing. And that contradiction between her words — the whole performance of the careless trust-fund girl — and what came through in the gaps between sentences, when she forgot to keep watch over them.

Finn: She had a personality. Unlike the standard package.

Nate: DETAILS, MAN. Don't leave me hanging that's just cruel

Finn set his phone down.

Let him wait.

The woman from the restaurant wasn't what he'd expected. She also wasn't what she'd claimed to be — and what she'd pulled off required either serious nerve or serious desperation. Probably both, in proportions he hadn't worked out yet.

Curiosity settled in. Uncomfortably.

He picked up his phone and opened Tessa's Instagram. Public account, wall of photos: confetti, flowers, ballrooms, cocktails photographed at the optimal angle. Tessa glowed in every shot — golden, delighted, surrounded by ever-changing groups of equally polished friends.

He scrolled.

There.

A photo on some trendy bar couch. Two women, two entirely different energies placed close enough that you could see how they fit together. Tessa — golden and sparkling. Next to her, a quieter face, a cooler blond, a smile more restrained, eyes that watched more than they posed.

Girls just wanna have fun!

He tapped the photo.

@El1RussO

Private.

"Christ. Of course," he muttered.

He went back to Tessa's profile and opened messages.

Hey, Tessa. Hope this is actually you this time. I have a request.

The reply came immediately.

Oh god, Finn. I'm SO sorry about that!!!

Even in text she read like a string of fireworks.

If you're really sorry, you'll tell me who she was. If not — I'll be calling the agency.

Pause. Three dots. Silence. Three dots again.

I'm not sure I should…

Finn: I can always start with your mother.

The reply shot back like it had been fired.

FINE you're terrible oh my God

He laughed quietly.

She wasn't wrong.

Tessa: Her name's Elodie. Elodie Rousseau. She works at a gallery called The Blue Muse. And please don't be mad at her, ok??? She did me a favor. I literally begged her.

Elodie.

The name fit. Soft at the front, sharper at the end — exactly like her.

He typed into the search bar: The Blue Muse New York.

The page loaded in a second. Clean typography, minimalist layout, gallery shots in cool, expensive tones. You could tell immediately this wasn't a generic space.

The Team tab.

Elodie Rousseau — Artistic Director. A subtle smile, more professional than coy. Exhibitions, artists' names, a résumé that suggested she'd invented the events career on the spot and hadn't even blinked while doing it.

A completely different face from the one she'd shown him tonight.

But the eyes were the same.

The idea that had been only a vague shape until now got sharper.

Interesting, Miss Rousseau.

Chapter 3

The weekend stretched into two separate weeks inside one. Saturday morning Elodie threw herself at a canvas — brush dragging paint in sharp, aggressive arcs, every stroke a little too hard, a little too certain, as if you could bury a Friday evening under a thick layer of acrylic and forget that's not how emotions work. Sunday she curled on the couch with a book on her knees and Netflix in the background, neither reading nor watching — just lying there, letting the hours roll over her.

Anything not to see green eyes and an infuriating half-smile every time she blinked.

Monday came like a reprieve. Work, task lists, the familiar orbit of the gallery — everything here was under control. No unexpected dinner companions. Just art, clients, and the blessed routine.

"Morning, Elodie!" Claire from acquisitions waved from the end of the corridor.

"Hey." Elodie summoned something close to her normal mood. "Coffee's on me this afternoon."

"You're an angel."

If only she knew. Angels don't impersonate their best friends at dates that go up in flames.

She spent the first hour on routine magic: moving paintings by the inches that mattered, adjusting the lighting, a quick team meeting about next month's exhibition. This was her place. White walls, precise hanging, everything exactly where it should be.

Until she heard footsteps.

Unhurried, certain. They stopped just behind her left shoulder. She caught the scent first — warm, spiced, painfully familiar — and then the voice.

"Hey."

One word, running down her spine like a finger.

Non. Non, non, non.

She turned slowly.

Finn Knox stood a few feet away, weight easy on one leg, hands in the pockets of a charcoal suit that looked pulled from a high-end editorial shoot. His gaze was entirely on her. The amusement in his eyes wasn't even pretending to hide.

"Elodie." Her name in his mouth sounded like a won hand.

"Finn—?" Her voice came out too quiet. She leveled it. "So you are a stalker."

He laughed — low, relaxed, as if that were a compliment.