The room was too quiet. The kind of quiet that made her thoughts louder than she wanted.
Isla sat on the edge of the bed, hands loose on her lap, staring at the gown laid out like a question she wasn't ready to answer. Ivory—soft and luminous, gleaming like poured cream in the lamplight. The fabric shimmered faintly when she shifted, catching light along delicate folds that looked almost liquid. Elegant. Expensive. Everything she hadn't planned for tonight.
She told herself to breathe, to stop imagining things. This wasn't a plot. It couldn't be.
If it had been Dorian... maybe. She could picture that. A prince pulling strings was almost expected. But Cael? No. He wasn't built that way. He wasn't the type to scheme, to twist situations just to get what he wanted.
Still—her stomach didn't believe her brain.
Because here she was, sitting in a room that wasn't hers, staring at a dress she'd once handed back. And no matter how many times she told herself it didn't mean anything, it felt like something.
Her teeth caught her lower lip. If she refused, if she stayed wrapped in her old dress, wine clinging to the fabric like a scar, she'd be walking out of this hotel and out of the night. Tyler would agree. He'd probably insist. And what then? The gift would sit untouched, Cael's gesture wasted, and the night would end on the wrong note.
But if she stayed? If she walked back out there in that dress?
Her chest tightened. Tyler's face flashed in her mind. His smile—not the easy one, but the one that meant his jaw was locked just out of sight. The one she'd seen more than once when the world remembered her name.
Either way, she lost something tonight. The question was: which loss cut less deep?
Her gaze slid back to the gown. It lay there like a question she didn't want to answer. She reached out anyway, fingers brushing the fabric. God—it felt unreal. Heavy and soft at once, smooth as sin. She curled her hand around it, lifted it an inch. The light skimmed over the folds, a soft sheen chasing along ivory silk like liquid cream.
Her throat was dry when she set it down again.
"It's just a dress," she whispered, voice barely a thread.
But her fingers lingered, knuckles stark against the pale silk, like she already knew she was lying.
A knock broke the silence, soft but startling against the hush.
"Miss?" A soft voice, polite. The door cracked, and the attendant stepped inside, her smile warm but precise, the kind that never reached past her job. "Do you need assistance?"
Isla swallowed, the polite refusal catching in her throat before she could give it voice.
"I'll be fine," she said instead, forcing a small smile. "Thank you."
The attendant nodded once, unfazed. "I'll return shortly to escort you back."
And then she was gone, the door shutting with a muted click.
Isla let the silence rush back in.
For a moment, she just sat there. Then, slowly, like pulling a thorn, she began to move. Fingers at her zipper, fabric sliding down her skin. The dress pooled at her feet in a soft sigh. She didn't look at it when she reached for the other one.
The gown slid over her skin like a sigh, settling against her frame as if it had been waiting for her—even if she knew better.
She turned to the mirror.
The woman staring back didn't look like someone who baked bread for a living. She didn't look like someone who tripped into royalty by accident and then spent weeks trying to vanish from the spotlight. She looked—God, she hated this—she looked like she belonged here.
Isla gripped the edge of the vanity until her knuckles whitened.
"This wasn't the plan," she told her reflection. It didn't care.
Her hand trembled when she reached for her purse, pulling out a simple elastic band. She gathered her hair—dark waves spilling over her shoulders—and twisted them into a bun, fastened tight. It made her face sharper. Made her feel less like a glittering target and more like a woman who had a say in something.
Except she didn't. Not tonight.
She sat again, hands folded in her lap, waiting for the knock that didn't come. Seconds stretched. Then minutes. A prickle of unease crawled down her spine.
How long had it been? Was Tyler starting to wonder? Enough. She couldn't sit here like a coward. She'd find her own way back.
She sat again, hands folding and unfolding in her lap, the silence pressing closer with every second. The room felt too still, too bright, like it was watching her. She stared at the door, waiting for the knock that never came.
Seconds bled into minutes. A prickling unease crawled down her spine, slow and sharp, like the brush of a spider's leg.
How long had it been? Five minutes? Ten? She couldn't tell anymore. Her mind wouldn't stop spinning. Was Tyler starting to wonder? Was he out there looking for her—checking the time, checking the doors, wondering why she was gone so long?
The thought punched through her chest hard enough to make her move. Enough. She couldn't just sit here, waiting like some helpless thing in a fairytale tower. She needed to get back before this absence turned into a question.
She grabbed her clutch, smoothed her dress with shaking hands, and slipped out the door.
At first, it seemed easy. The hallways looked familiar, lined with the same soft sconces spilling buttery light across walls dressed in cream and gold. Her heels hushed against the thick carpet, each step neat and measured. She whispered the directions under her breath—left, then right, then down the main corridor—certain she remembered.
Her breath began to steady. She could do this. She wasn't lost.
Then she heard it.
"Is that—?" A voice, sharp as a pin. A whisper, but it sliced through the air like glass.
"Toast girl?"
The nickname hit her like a bucket of ice.
Another voice, softer, but no less eager: "No. No way. Can't be. Could it?"
Isla's lungs forgot what they were for. She kept walking, faster this time, her eyes locked on the path ahead. Pretend you didn't hear. Pretend you're no one.
But the whispers moved like smoke, curling after her, threading between the beats of her pulse. She didn't catch every word, but the ones she did landed like blows: viral... video... that's her.
Her pulse stumbled. Her legs moved before her mind did—faster, sharper. The gown swayed against her knees, and the glittering straps felt like chains.
How would Tyler take this? If someone posted a photo? If this turned into another headline—#ToastGirlAtTheGala or worse—how would she explain?
The thought tightened around her throat until breathing felt like a lie.
She turned left without thinking. Then right. Then another left. The walls began to blur, pale and endless. A gilded maze swallowing her whole.
Another corner. Another wrong turn.
She didn't care anymore. She just needed to get away—from the eyes, from the murmurs, from the memory of that damned hashtag scratching like sandpaper in her head.
The silence hit her like a wall.
Isla stopped so suddenly her heels scraped against the marble, the sound too loud in the hush. Her chest rose and fell, sharp and shallow, as the echo of voices died behind her. No laughter. No music. No clinking glasses. Just the muted hum of sconces burning low against pale walls.
And the mirrors. God—the mirrors. They lined the corridor in a perfect row, each one catching her reflection and throwing it back at her in fragments: a dozen Islas, wide-eyed and breathless, gown whispering around her legs like smoke.
Her throat tightened. Where the hell was she?
The hotel wasn't just big—it was a labyrinth, dripping gold and marble and quiet menace. Everything gleamed. Everything whispered of wealth and power and doors that didn't want to be found.
And right now, it felt like a trap.
Her pride told her to keep going. To prove she could handle this. Her gut whispered to turn back before she disappeared entirely.
She didn't listen to either.
She just walked.
Each step skimmed against the hush, soft and quick, like a secret she wasn't supposed to tell. Her pulse throbbed in her ears, loud enough to drown reason.
Then, up ahead, a set of double doors broke the endless stretch of marble—tall and dark against the pale wall, one standing slightly ajar, the gap breaking the neat symmetry.
Relief rushed in so fast it made her dizzy. Finally, someone had to be in there. Someone who could point her back before this turned into a complete disaster.
She didn't stop to think. She crossed the space in quick strides and pushed the door open, slipping inside before she could second-guess herself.
At first, the room seemed empty. Quiet, warm light spilling over polished floors. She exhaled, relief loosening her chest—right until the sound reached her.
Laughter. Low, soft, from the corner.
Isla turned—and froze.
A man in a chair, angled away from the door. A dark suit, sharp against the muted glow. And across his lap—a woman, sleek in silk, her pale hair tumbling over his shoulder as she bent close, lips grazing his jaw.
Heat shot up Isla's neck so fast it made her dizzy. She shifted back a step, pulse roaring in her ears—
And then his eyes lifted.
Dorian. Calm, steady, cutting through the dim like a blade.
For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. The woman murmured something, but he didn't glance at her. His gaze was locked on Isla, cool and unhurried, a question curled in its depths.
And then—his mouth curved. Slow. Deliberate. Like a dare.