Philip had stopped breathing somewhere between the highway exit and the gates.
Not literally, of course, but close enough that I noticed the way his chest went shallow and the white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel. The muscles in his jaw kept twitching. He’d been fine twenty minutes ago. Tense as always, but functional. Now he looked like he was driving toward his own execution.
I’d seen wealth before. I cleaned up after it, coordinated events for it, and smiled pretty while it barely noticed me. I’d been in Hamptons mansions where hedge fund managers partied until dawn, Manhattan penthouses where the view from forty floors up erased the city below, and a vineyard in Napa where the owner had more money than taste. He kept asking if I wanted to see his wine cellar, as if that particular euphemism hadn’t been tired twenty years ago.
This was different.
The gates opened before we reached them. Automatic sensors, probably, or cameras I couldn’t see. We rolled through onto grounds that belonged in a period drama, all manicured lawns and bare trees forming perfect arches over the driveway.
“Jesus—”
Philip’s childhood home sprawled across the Connecticut waterfront like something out of a fever dream, all white stone and soaring windows that caught the December sun and threw it back in our faces.
The house existed in a reality that I couldn’t quite comprehend. I saw the glitz and glamour, the opulent representation of old-world money and sophistication, but I could also imagine the horror behind it all. The empty halls, the cold family dinners. Everything that Philip had warned me about, cornered and caged and struggling within all that stone.
Philip’s knuckles had gone white on the steering wheel. He’d pulled the car to a stop just past the entrance, the gravel drive stretching another hundred yards toward the house itself. I could make out twin staircases curving up to massive double doors. The chandeliers glittered through the windows. They looked sharp, like pointed threats in the night.
“Second thoughts?” His voice had a brittle quality I’d learned to recognize. The one that meant he was two seconds from retreating behind his wire-rimmed glasses and returning to the cool, corporate mask he wore in the city.
I couldn’t allow that to happen. Not today.
“About you?” I shifted in the passenger seat and let my hand find his thigh. The muscle jumped under my palm, tense as hell. “Never.”
“Rafe.” He didn’t look at me. He just kept staring at that house as if it might swallow him whole. “You don’t know what you’re walking into.”
“So, tell me.”
“I have.”
He had. Sort of. Bits and pieces over late-night conversations and wine. The dead father. The perfect older brother, who’d probably never put a foot wrong in his life, and the mother, who’d remarried someone Philip still refused to call family even after a decade.
And the other thing. The fuck-up Philip never quite named but carried around like a stone in his chest.
That was the real monster I was here to save him from.
“Philip. Look at me.”
It took him a moment, but he did. Those dark eyes behind the glasses looked haunted, and the fear in them pulled my chest tight. Fuck. I still wasn’t used to how much I wanted to fix things for him. It was a bad habit for someone like me and one I needed to get in check. Feelings like those were leverage, and leverage got you hurt.
But Philip’s anxiety was doing a number on him, and I couldn’t just sit here.
“We’ve got this.” I squeezed his thigh, my thumb rubbing a slow circle over the expensive fabric of his slacks. “I’m good with parents, remember? I’ll win them over.”
“You haven’t met Victoria.”
He was right. I hadn’t met her; I hadn’t even bothered to Google her.
Everyone knew Victoria Barclay, no matter how she hyphenated her name with each marriage. She featured in society pages and at charity galas, always photographed in sleek and understated designer outfits that screamed money louder than any logo could. She’d been on the board of the Met, chaired fundraisers that pulled in seven figures, and had opinions on everything from contemporary art to urban development and politics. They were opinions that people actually listened to.
She was old money wrapped in newer money, with the kind of social currency that opened doors most people didn’t even know existed.
“Then she’ll tolerate me with impeccable manners.” I grinned, going for cocky. It was easier than admitting I was nervous. I was walking into a lion’s den on the arm of her son with nothing more than a charming smile and a suitcase of freshly bought clothes—I had a lot to be worried about.
“Either way, I’ll charm the hell out of her.”
Philip’s smile widened, just a fraction. It was progress, but he still looked like he was ready to hurl.
“Everyone’s going to love me.” I continued, letting warmth bleed into my voice. “How could they not?”
“It’s not you I’m worried about.”
I’d never intended to become some kind of motivational speaker. Two years of a psych degree I couldn’t afford to finish and half a decade dealing with stressed executives had turned me into one, anyway. I’d talked down a hedge fund manager having a panic attack in a hotel bathroom and coaxed a venture capitalist through performance anxiety when his wife was three floors below waiting for her anniversary serenade. So yeah, I’d learned how to read the moment and how to guide people through their own bullshit.
Philip was different, though. His stress came from trauma rooted deeper than anyone I’d known. It was a place that money and charm couldn’t fix.
“The past is the past, Philip. You’re brilliant, successful.” I could tell he wasn’t buying a word of it, so I switched tactics. “And you managed to land someone as pretty as me.”
That got him. I was rewarded with a surprised laugh, and though it was soft, it was genuine.
I let my hand slide higher and watched his breath catch. “Life goes on. You will too.”
“I don’t know if it works that way here.”
“Then we’ll make it work.” I leaned closer, close enough to catch the scent of his cologne. It was understated and expensive and a scent that called to me on a primitive level.
“And what if it’s hell? If my family’s impossible and the whole thing’s a nightmare? What then?”
I took a breath, trying to find my own center. My stomach was doing flips, but I’d be damned if I let Philip see that. Meeting the family was always a huge deal, but when that family was basically American royalty? When that family had this much money and expectations and history? I was fucking terrified.
But it was better if Philip didn’t know that.
“Then it’s six days, Philip.” I kept my voice steady and reassuring. “Just six days, and we’re gone. Back to the city. Back to normal.”
Philip’s jaw worked. He still hadn’t started driving again, the car idling in neutral while the house waited for us like some enormous beast.
“You make it sound simple.”
“It is simple.” I squeezed his thigh again, letting my fingers dig in just enough to ground him. “Look, worst-case scenario? If it’s really that bad, I’ll fake a stomach bug or something. Food poisoning. Very tragic. Then we’ll lock ourselves away in your room and fuck like rabbits for six days straight.”
That startled a genuine laugh out of him. “Rafe!”
“What? I’m just saying, there are worse ways to spend the holidays than naked in a mansion.” I grinned shamelessly. “Besides, look at the size of this place. It’ll take us a month to christen just half of the rooms!”
He looked at the house again. At those gleaming windows and the opulence that sprawled across manicured lawns down to the private waterfront. This was where he’d grown up. This was the world that had shaped him into the tightly wound, desperate-to-prove-himself man who was too scared to face his family for Christmas.
“Okay.” Philip’s voice came out steadier. “Okay.”
Philip adjusted his glasses. It was nervous tell number one for him. I’d cataloged them all by now. The hair touching or the way he’d go dead still, like a rabbit trying not to be seen. He also got a clipped, formal tone that crept into his voice when he felt cornered.
He reached for the ignition, and the engine clicked back to life.
We started forward, and I watched the house grow larger through the windshield. Imposing didn’t cover it. This place had gravitas. History. The kind of weight that crushed people who didn’t belong.
People like me.
I kept my expression neutral. Confident. My hand stayed on Philip’s thigh, grounding him as we approached the entrance.
“Remember. We’ve got this.”
He nodded but didn’t look convinced.
It was just six days. Less than a week.
How bad could it be?
