Page 117 of Don't Be in Love

“Next one,” Mia ordered, sliding the smaller box across the table.

I peeled off the tape and ripped open the side only to find a gift bag. Carefully sliding it out, the tissue paper ruffled as I found the contents.

A note:I should’ve given you this on your birthday.

And a Beverly crescent bag. AnoriginalBeverly from theoriginalthe 90s collection.

I lifted the crescent moon-shaped purse made of a pearlescent silk and almost screamed with joy.James.

“Remind me to ask James for gifting advice,” Mia commented.

“Is that what I think it is?” Brina inhaled.

I nodded my head, refusing to look away, afraid it was going to evaporate into strands of thread.

“It matches the dressperfectly. Go try it on!” Sabrina urged.

My stomach lurched. “Oh, I can’t, really. I can’t accept something that … nice.”I can’t wear a dresshepicked out.

I looked to Mia for help, but she was running her fingers over the beading still.

“Of course, you can!” Brina argued. “It’s a gift, you should always accept a gift. I also doubt you remembered to buy a dress. Not like anything could top this anyway.”

40

Don’t Let Her Change Your Mind in that Dress — Dorian

Where the hell was James? It couldn’t take himthatlong to get another drink. Unless he somehow ran into his mother. Or my mother. Or Gretchen. They most likely had a running list of people that needed to be greeted who hadn’t been welcomed yet.

Hopefully he’d speed up the greetings because without him here, people thought I wanted to talk to them.

Little did they know, I wasn’t much for talking right now. Not when every thought I had went back toher.

You have to pretend that you never met me.

She couldn’t have cared less about letting me go. I walked into that bookshop, and she’d already made up her mind about us. It didn’t matter what I said. She was done.

After my heart was ripped from my chest, she simply returned to work, unaffected.

One half of me prayed she wouldn’t come tonight, for my sanity. While the other half had thisinnate needto see her.

In the meantime, I was trapped talking to this egotistical investor about his plans to “transform” my father’s movie into the next box office hit because James abandoned me.

“Action movies these days never have enough pyrotechnics. So I told your father, the more pyrotechnics, the better,” he said, pointing his overpriced pinky ring at me.

“Of course,” I repeated for the fifth time. They were always so busy listening to themselves talk, they never noticed. I could probably start responding with the ingredients to a meat pie and he wouldn’t notice.

I tried to tune his voice out with the ensemble of string music playing at the back of the room.

I watched velvet suits and glittering gowns enter from the grand marble staircase, down into the ballroom. I recognized many of the guests since they attended every year. Some were in the entertainment industry who worked directly with my parents, while others were from old money, politics, or friends of Mrs. Beverly’s from the fashion industry.

I didn’t see James by the stairs greeting anyone, but he could also be in the gardens right outside. It was too dark to tell, especially with the tall French doors at the side of the ballroom closed from the cold.

“Did you know it was my idea to keep that last scene in? Your father didn’t like—” The man’s mouth was moving, but I wasn’t hearing the words.

I could feel her in the room before I saw her.

Standing at the top of the staircase somehow looking more gorgeous than the first day I met her.