“About that,” Saxim says, and a shiver goes through me at the sight of her, graceful and gentle—

“Erm, there’s a handsome man for you here, my dear,” calls the manager, and I poke my head out into the hall again, the gown still only half-zipped, to spot the flummoxed manager, and there, beyond him:

Linos.

In a linen shirt and trousers that look like they cost as much as a yacht tender, hair artfully rumpled, making his way toward me with an irresistible smile that should be illegal.

“Are we shopping?” he asks, in his British accent, and I rush for him, only wanting a taste of his soft pink lips now, pulling him toward the changing room opposite mine, shutting the door with a slam. It’s mirrored and dark except for a solitary spotlight on a wilting orchid. When I wrap my arms around him, I can feel his heartbeat, faster than mine, its kick kick kick feeding me hope again, and I’m feeling better already, buoyed by him, more my best self.

“Tai?” he asks, pulling away to look at me. His eyes are dark, and they swim in my vision. I fight a champagne burp crawling up my throat.

“Why don’t we just go public already?” I ask playfully, squeezing his hands in my tingling ones, light-headed and eager, my voice tinny with a desperation I swear I don’t feel—I swear, I swear, I swear.

He leans back, away from me, and turns to look at the orchid with an openmouthed half smile, a kind of perverted cousin of a sigh. I clench my sour teeth.

“You know we can’t do that,” he whispers, already looking at the door. Anywhere but me.

The words gurgle up before I can stop them, filled with all of the shame I’ve carried in my stomach for months. “Why are you so embarrassed by me?” I ask, a touch louder than I should.

His eyes flick to mine. There’s something haunted there, or at least that’s what I tell myself. “It’s not you. It’s my family.”

I swallow something spiny in my throat, smell the heady honeysuckle outside their compound. “Liar.”

“Fine.” He pauses, avoiding my eyes. “My mother doesn’t approve.”

My hands curl into damp fists. I am so tired of Antella Arnoix. Matriarch of “the oldest family on Viloxin” and—as Teddy once put it—the most inbred. A reluctant member of the board, there only to keep Dad in check. An elitist, classist snob, a woman of great depth and nuance, and—

“Your mother is a bitch.” The sourness invades my open mouth. “And a hypocrite. She doesn’t approve of me, but she hosted the retrospective? Give me a fucking break.”

Linos’s eyes sharpen. “Really?”