The groom who was supposed to be standing at an altar on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan was hiding in a dark confessional when Madison Clark slammed the door on the other side.

The church rose like a stone ship in the middle of New York City traffic, its Gothic spires slicing into a gray afternoon sky. Outside, horns blared and yellow cabs fought for inches on Fifth Avenue. Inside, the air was thick with incense, candle wax and the faint sweetness of lilies wilting near the altar. Stained-glass windows painted fractured rainbows onto rows of wooden pews polished by generations of restless hands and whispered prayers.

Madison’s heels cracked against the marble aisle as she rushed in, breath catching in her throat, lungs burning from three blocks of dead sprint through Midtown. The heavy oak doors thudded shut behind her, slamming the city’s noise out in a single, blessed heartbeat. Her palm pressed flat against her chest, feeling her heart thud wild and panicked against her ribs.

Three blocks back, outside a coffee shop on East 51st, her ex-boyfriend had said her name.

Nathan.

The same Nathan who had slept with her roommate, drained their joint savings to buy another woman jewelry, and still somehow believed that a bouquet of flowers and a few apologetic texts could rewind two years of damage. When she’d seen his reflection in the café window, moving toward her with a hopeful, familiar smile, every survival instinct had fired at once.

She’d run.

Now, inside the cool half-light of the Manhattan church, Madison scanned the nave. An elderly woman knelt near the front, rosary beads slipping through gnarled fingers. A young man sat alone in the back pew, gaze fixed on the flickering red sanctuary lamp. To the right, along the side wall, squatted a row of dark wooden confessional booths like small, watching closets.

Perfect.

She moved quickly, her steps echoing softly in the cavernous space. She grabbed the brass handle of the nearest booth and yanked the door open. The tiny enclosure swallowed her in shadow as she stepped in and pulled the door shut behind her, her back pressed against carved wood.

The confessional smelled like old varnish and secrets: incense soaked into timber, the faint salt of stale breath, a hint of someone’s cologne from earlier in the day. A latticed wooden screen separated her side from the other. Thin lines of light slipped through the patterned cutouts, drawing a grid of gold across her hands.

Madison exhaled shakily. Here, at least, she was out of sight. Nathan couldn’t follow her into a confessional. There had to be some unwritten rule about that, even for him.

She closed her eyes and tried to slow her breathing.

On the other side of the screen, a voice emerged from the shadows. Deep. Smooth. Amused.

“Are you running from the law,” he asked, “or just a really bad date?”

Madison jerked so hard her head bumped the wood behind her. “Oh my God,” she hissed, hand flying to her mouth to stifle the sound. “There’s someone in there?”

“Last time I checked,” the voice said. “You barged in like you’d just robbed a bank. I figured either the NYPD is chasing you, or someone seriously misread the word ‘closure.’”

She squinted at the lattice, trying to see through the tiny diamond-shaped holes. All she could make out was a darker shadow in the darkness. No white collar. No murmur of practiced absolution.

“You’re not a priest,” she said flatly.

“Correct.”

“Then what are you doing sitting in a confessional?”

There was a rustle of fabric, like he was shifting to get comfortable. “Avoiding a wedding.”

She blinked. “Whose?”

“Mine.”

The answer was so dry, so matter-of-fact, that Madison barked a short, stunned laugh. It bounced off the confessional walls and sounded slightly hysterical in the small space.

“You’re hiding from your own wedding,” she said, “inside a church.”

“Ironic,” the man agreed. “Somewhere on Park Avenue, there’s a florist freaking out and a string quartet warming up. In about…” He paused as if checking a watch. “Fifteen minutes, I’m supposed to be standing at the front of St. Andrew’s—two blocks from here—promising forever to a woman I’ve spoken to maybe five times. My family calls it a union. Our lawyers call it a merger. I call it a hostile takeover of my life.”

Madison forgot Nathan for a moment. “So you just…left?”

“Walked out the side door while everyone was distracted by the photographer,” he said. “No one notices the groom. They only notice him when he doesn’t show up.”

She pressed her palms against her knees, letting her head thunk back against the wood. “New York City really is insane.”

“This is Midtown,” he said. “Insane is extra.”

The absurdity hit her all at once: a corporate attorney from Chicago hiding from her cheating ex in a Fifth Avenue church, sharing a confessional booth wall with a runaway Manhattan groom.

She should have left, moved to another pew, done something normal. Instead she stayed exactly where she was.

“Your turn,” he said. “Why were you sprinting up Fifth like your hair was on fire?”

“Ex-boyfriend,” Madison muttered.

“Ah. The classic American horror story.”

“He saw me outside a coffee shop. I haven’t answered a single one of his calls in three months, and he somehow decided that meant ‘surprise visit in New York.’”

“You live here?”

“Chicago,” she said. “I’m in Manhattan for work. He found out from a mutual friend, I guess. He was coming toward me with this bouquet of corner-store roses like we’re starring in some budget rom-com. So I ran.”

“And straight into confession,” the man said. “Catholic guilt must be wild in Chicago.”

“I’m not even religious,” Madison said. “I just…needed a door that closed.”

“A sanctuary,” he said quietly.

“Something like that.”

There was a beat of silence between them, not quite comfortable but not hostile either. Outside the booth, the church sighed and creaked the way old buildings do, settling around them. Somewhere, a siren wailed faintly on Fifth Avenue, muted by stone.

“So,” he said, “what did this guy do to earn a sprint-level avoidance?”

She could have brushed it off. But the anonymity of the screen and the stranger made honesty strangely easy.

“He cheated,” she said. “With my roommate. Emptied twelve hundred dollars out of our joint account to buy her a necklace. Then lied about it. Then cried about it. Then lied about it again.” She let out a humorless laugh. “Now he thinks showing up in New York with discount roses makes it romantic.”

The voice on the other side lost its teasing edge. “Some men don’t deserve second chances.”

“Agreed,” Madison said. “And some women don’t deserve to be married off like they’re part of a business strategy.”

“Touché,” he said. “I see we’re both having a banner day.”

Silence settled over them again, thicker this time but oddly companionable. It felt like the world outside the booth had paused: the traffic lights on Fifth frozen on red, the crowds on the sidewalks held mid-step, the clock over the altar delaying its next tick.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

She hesitated, watching light from the nave leak through the screen and stripe her fingers.

“Does it matter?” she said. “We’re never going to see each other again.”

“Probably not,” he agreed. “But if I’m going to hide from my own wedding with a stranger, I’d at least like to know what to call her in my therapy sessions.”

“Madison,” she said. “Madison Clark.”

“New York says hello, Madison Clark from Chicago,” he said. “I’m—”

“Don’t tell me,” she cut in. “Let’s keep one mystery alive. You’re just the runaway groom. I’m just the girl hiding from her ex.”

He laughed quietly. The sound slid through the lattice and curled around her like something warm. “Deal.”

For a few blessed minutes they simply sat there, breathing the same thick air, two heartbeats muffled by a wall of carved wood.

Outside, the church’s front doors creaked open and closed as people drifted in and out of the Manhattan afternoon. Steps shuffled on marble. Someone coughed. The older woman near the altar whispered another Hail Mary.

“Do you think they’ve noticed you’re gone yet?” Madison asked.

“Oh, definitely,” he said. “My mother has probably fainted decoratively into someone’s arms. My father has already called our attorney twice. Somewhere on Park, a PR team is drafting a statement about ‘unforeseen logistical issues.’”

“And the bride?” Madison asked softly.

He was quiet for a moment. “I think she’s relieved,” he said. “She didn’t want this any more than I did. We met at a gala, talked about market share and charity boards and where the best martinis are in Manhattan. Our parents saw dollar signs and social pages. She likes fashion. I like architecture. We both like not being told what to do. That was apparently irrelevant.”

“Then why were you going to marry her?” Madison asked.

“Duty,” he said simply. “Legacy. Ashford men build and maintain. We acquire companies, not dreams. Marriage to the right heiress is just another strategic move. Love is optional. Obedience is not.”

“Ashford,” she repeated. The name rang a bell. “Ashford Enterprises? The Ashford Tower downtown?”

“Among other things,” he said, sounding tired.

“So you’re…?”

“A very well-dressed disappointment,” he said. “At least in my father’s eyes.”

Madison let that sink in. On the other side of the screen, the shadow of him shifted, broad shoulders rolling like a man trying to shrug off a weight that had been strapped to his back since childhood.

“I’d rather be broke and free than rich and trapped,” she said.

“Spoken like someone who has never been truly broke,” he replied, but there was no cruelty in it, just weary accuracy.

“I have been,” she shot back. “I’m a junior associate at a Chicago firm paying off law school loans that could buy a condo in Brooklyn. My ex stole from me and I still almost forgave him because I was more scared of starting over than of staying hurt. I’m broke and trapped.”

“Corporate attorney,” he said. “That explains the very specific mention of twelve hundred dollars.”

She snorted. “Lawyers remember the numbers.”

“You ran into a New York church instead of serving him with a restraining order,” he observed. “Very off-brand of you.”

“I’m off duty,” Madison said.

“Convenient.”

He shifted again. She found herself wondering what he looked like: how his hair fell, whether he had the same sharp cheekbones as the Ashford patriarch she’d seen on financial news segments, whether his tie was still knotted properly while he hid like a teenager skipping class.

“What happens now?” she asked.

“For you or for me?” he said.

“Both.”

“For me,” he said slowly, “I either go back, straighten my tie, and step into a life someone else built for me…or I walk out of this church and keep walking.”

“And for me?” she asked, half-dreading the answer.

“You wait until your ex gives up,” he said. “Then you walk back into the city you came from. Back to your firm and your overworked inbox and your student loans and the guy who thinks twelve hundred dollars is a rounding error.”

“So basically,” she said, “we both go back to our cages.”

He was quiet for a beat. Then he said the worst, most intoxicating thing he could have said.

“Or,” he said, “we don’t.”

Madison’s heart thumped once, hard. “What do you mean?”

“Come with me,” he said.

She frowned at the darkness. “I just met you in a confessional.”

“Exactly,” he said. “We met in a church on Fifth Avenue because both of us were running from something we should never have agreed to tolerate. I’m already a scandal. It’s only going to get bigger when I don’t show up on Park. I have a car outside and access to airports. You have a passport, judging by your Midwest corporate-lawyer energy.”

“That’s not a thing,” she muttered.

“It is now,” he said. “Come with me, Madison. Let’s walk out of this church together, get in a car, and go somewhere my father doesn’t own. For once in our lives, instead of doing the reasonable thing, we do the true thing.”

“Which is what?” she whispered.

“We leave,” he said. “We disappear for a while. No board meetings. No ex-boyfriends. No arranged vows in front of a hundred people in New York who care more about the champagne than the couple. Just…two people who decided not to be chess pieces anymore.”

“That’s insane,” Madison said. Every piece of her lawyer brain screamed the same word. Liability. Danger. Stranger.

“So is marrying someone I don’t know,” he said. “At least this way we choose the madness instead of having it arranged for us.”

She laughed despite herself. “You don’t even know if I’m a serial killer.”

“Are you?” he asked calmly.

“No.”

“Then we’re already ahead,” he said. “I’m not either.”

“That’s not how trust works,” she said.

“Then how does it work?” he asked.

She opened her mouth and realized she didn’t actually know. Trust, for her, had been something she gave too easily and got back broken.

“I can’t,” she said. “I have a job. A life. Responsibilities.”

“Do you?” he asked softly. “Or do you have expectations you’ve mistaken for a life?”

The words lodged in her chest because they were too close to the ones she’d been afraid to say to herself at three in the morning in her cramped Chicago apartment.

“This is ridiculous,” she said, but her hand had already found the confessional door handle.

“Thirty seconds,” he said. “Side exit on the left. If you’re there, we go. If you’re not, we never met.”

She heard the soft squeak of his side of the booth opening. Footsteps, sure and unhurried, moved away down the wooden floor.

Madison remained frozen for three heartbeats.

Then she shoved her door open.

The church seemed brighter after the confessional, the stained glass sharp enough to cut. Her eyes found him immediately: a tall man in a dark suit walking toward the side door near the statue of St. Joseph.

He moved like someone used to taking up space—broad shoulders, straight back, the casual confidence of a New York-born billionaire heir walking through his own city. At the side door he paused and looked back.

Their eyes met across the nave.

He was, annoyingly, exactly as handsome as his voice suggested. Dark hair, a strong jaw that looked carved, eyes the color of good coffee with flecks of gold in the light that spilled from the high windows. His tie was still perfect. His expression, however, was not polished at all. It was raw and questioning.

Are you coming?

Madison’s phone buzzed in her purse. Nathan, probably. Or her boss. Or her mother from suburbia. It buzzed again, desperate and insistent.

She hit the side button to silence it.

Then she walked.

Her heels clicked on marble like a countdown. Each step felt both heavier and lighter than the last. When she reached him, his mouth curved into a slow, astonished smile.

“I didn’t think you’d actually do it,” he said.

“I didn’t either,” she said, slightly breathless.

“Now we run,” he said, and pushed open the side door.

New York air hit them like a slap. The alley behind the church smelled of damp concrete, exhaust from Fifth Avenue, and a hint of hot dog cart from the corner. A sleek black sedan idled at the curb, engine purring. The driver—a middle-aged man in a cap and dark coat—stood by the rear passenger door, as calm as if grooms fled churches in Manhattan every day.

“Mr. Ashford,” the driver said, opening the door. “Your father has called three times.”

“I’m sure he has, Charles,” Ethan said. “We’re going to JFK.”

The name clicked into place. Ethan Ashford. The Ashford Enterprises heir. The son of the man whose name was on half the glass towers in Midtown and more than a few in Chicago.

Madison hesitated. Ethan looked at her, suddenly less like a billionaire and more like a man barely holding his nerve together.

“This is your last exit,” he said quietly. “You can walk back into the church, sit in a pew, and in ten minutes you’re just a woman who had a strange conversation with a stranger. Or you get in the car and your life becomes a very different story.”

She thought of Nathan’s roses, of her boss’s emails, of her mother’s voice on the phone asking when she’d finally “settle down and stop chasing cases.” She thought of the way her chest had felt tight for months, like she was breathing through someone else’s expectations.

She got in the car.

The leather was soft and cool under her fingertips. The door closed with a solid, final thunk. Ethan slid in beside her. Charles returned to the driver’s seat and pulled smoothly into Manhattan traffic.

“JFK?” Madison asked, incredulous.

“You told me to get on a plane and disappear,” Ethan said. “I’m just following instructions.”

“That was theoretical advice,” she said. “Not binding legal counsel.”

“You’re a contracts attorney,” he pointed out. “If it’s not in writing, it’s flexible.”

The city streamed past outside the tinted windows: Fifth Avenue giving way to Lexington, Manhattan skyscrapers narrowing into corridors of glass and steel. Madison watched the familiar chaos of New York—honking horns, steam rising from subway grates, tourists lining up outside Rockefeller Center—and felt like she was already watching a life she’d never lived slip away.

“Where are we even going?” she asked.

“Paris,” Ethan said without hesitation.

She stared at him. “Paris, France?”

“There’s also a Paris in Texas,” he said. “Trust me, we don’t want that one.”

“You can’t just decide to fly to Paris on a whim,” she said.

“I can,” he said. “Privilege is disgusting, but it’s very efficient.”

She wanted to be offended. She wanted to tell him this was insane, irresponsible, arrogant. Instead, she heard herself say, “I don’t have clothes.”

“They have stores in Europe,” he said. “Rumor has it.”

“I don’t have my passport,” she said.

“You do,” he said, nodding toward her purse. “You grabbed your bag when you ran from the café. I saw the corner of a navy booklet in the zipper pocket.”

Her hand moved automatically, fingers finding the zipper, sliding it open. The navy cover of her U.S. passport stared back at her, the gold eagle catching a shard of light.

She’d tossed it in there after a firm retreat in Montreal last month and never taken it out.

“This is insane,” she whispered. But she was checking the expiration date anyway.

“Insanity,” Ethan said, watching her, “is doing the same thing every day and expecting your life to magically change. This is spontaneity. It just happens to involve a transatlantic flight.”

“And what exactly is the plan when we land?” she asked.

“We don’t have one,” he said. “That’s the point.”

John F. Kennedy International Airport was its usual controlled chaos: blinking screens and rolling suitcases and voices over loudspeakers announcing departures to cities all over the world. Ethan moved through it like someone who’d been raised in first-class lounges and private terminals.

They bypassed check-in entirely and went straight to a separate security line that seemed to exist just for people with last names like Ashford. Madison kept expecting someone in a TSA uniform to stop them and say, “Ma’am, are you being kidnapped?” She wasn’t sure how she would answer.

In the international terminal, a glass-and-chrome lounge opened in front of them. Soft jazz. Floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of parked jets lined up like metallic birds. People in tailored suits pecked at laptops, pretending they weren’t watching everyone else.

A woman behind a polished counter looked up and smiled. “Mr. Ashford. Welcome back.”

“Good to see you, Carla,” Ethan said. “Two seats on the next flight to Paris, please. First class.”

Madison stood beside him, trying to look like she did this all the time. Like she wasn’t a Chicago lawyer whose last flight had been in economy, crammed between a crying toddler and a guy who’d taken off his shoes and socks.

“The 6:45 p.m. to Charles de Gaulle has two seats remaining in first,” Carla said after a few keystrokes. “I can put you and your companion together.”

“Perfect,” Ethan said, handing over a black metal credit card that looked heavier than some of Madison’s furniture.

Her phone buzzed. She glanced down.

Seventeen missed calls.

Eight from Nathan.

Three from her mother in Naperville.

Four from her assistant.

One from her boss: Madison, I need the Morrison file on my desk tomorrow at 9 a.m. No excuses.

Her entire existence in Chicago reduced to tiny lines of text glowing in her palm.

“You okay?” Ethan asked.

“No,” she said honestly. “But I’m going to see what happens anyway.”

She held down the power button and turned her phone off.

On board, first class was a different planet. The seats were more like small pods, each with its own screen, its own footrest, its own little universe. A flight attendant offered champagne before they’d even pushed back from the gate.

Madison stared at the flute in her hand. “This is so far outside my tax bracket it might violate federal law.”

“Consider it reparations from the one percent,” Ethan said.

New York City shrank below them as the plane climbed. Midtown’s towers became toothpicks, the Hudson River a smear of silver. The sun dipped, staining the horizon orange.

“Tell me something real,” Ethan said when the city was gone and only clouds and sky remained.

She turned toward him in her seat. “Like what?”

“Everyone asks me the same questions,” he said. “How’s the market, how’s the company, how’s the Ashford portfolio. Tell me something real about you, Madison. Something that doesn’t fit on your firm’s website.”

She took a breath. The altitude, the champagne, the absurdity of the day loosened something in her.

“I hate being a lawyer,” she said.

One of his eyebrows arched. “That’s an expensive thing to hate.”

“I know,” she said. “My parents aren’t wealthy. They worked double shifts and picked up weekend jobs so I could chase this ‘stable profession.’ I’m good at it. I can tear a contract apart in my sleep. But every document review feels like my brain is slowly drying out. I don’t remember the last time I did something that wasn’t on a to-do list.”

“What would you do,” he asked, “if law school scholarships and parental expectations and student loans didn’t exist?”

The answer leaped to her tongue, surprising her with how ready it was. “Write,” she said. “I used to fill notebooks with stories in high school. My English teacher told me I had something. My parents told me writers starve and lawyers eat.”

He looked at her, really looked, like he was filing away every syllable. “I’d read what you wrote,” he said.

“What about you?” she asked. “If you weren’t the Ashford heir.”

“Architecture,” he said, without hesitation. “I studied it in college before my father reminded me that Ashfords don’t draw buildings, we own them. I wanted to design spaces that made people feel something. Instead I approve budgets for high-rises with my name on them.”

“You still could,” she said.

He gave a short laugh. “You don’t just step out of Ashford Enterprises and into an artist’s loft in Brooklyn. In Manhattan, if you fall from a glass tower, you hit concrete, not a safety net.”

“Maybe,” she said. “But you hid in a confessional and flew to Paris with a stranger. Seems like you’re already halfway out the window.”

They ate dinner—salmon for her, steak for him—on real plates at 30,000 feet. They talked about everything and nothing: his childhood in a Park Avenue penthouse, twelve-year-old him building cardboard skyscrapers in his bedroom; her growing up in a small Illinois suburb, library books stacked under her bed because the house was too noisy to read anywhere else.

When the flight attendant dimmed the cabin lights and offered to turn their seats into beds, exhaustion finally crawled over Madison’s bones. The adrenaline that had fueled her since the coffee shop ebbed, leaving something tender and raw.

“You should sleep,” Ethan said gently. “I’ll keep watch for rogue priests.”

“Do you ever stop deflecting with jokes?” she asked.

“Only during mergers,” he said. “And sometimes funerals.”

She reclined her seat. A blanket appeared, tucked around her by careful hands. She felt the slight weight of him adjusting her pillow, fingers brushing her hairline for a second longer than necessary.

“Thank you,” she murmured, eyes already heavy.

“For what?” he asked.

“For letting me be crazy,” she said. “Even if we both wake up tomorrow and regret it.”

“I don’t think I will,” he said quietly. “Regret is for people who never tried. Whatever happens, you gave me one honest day.”

She fell asleep to the hum of the engines and the awareness of him breathing within arm’s reach.

Paris greeted them with a pale blue sky and air that smelled like coffee and possibility. Charles de Gaulle airport was a maze of signs and accents and jet lag. They had no luggage, just Madison’s carry-on and Ethan’s wallet heavy with cards that opened doors.

They took a taxi into the city. As they crossed the Seine, Madison watched the Eiffel Tower slide into view, its iron lattice cutting against the morning. This, she decided, was officially the strangest day of her life.

Their hotel wasn’t a grand palace on the Champs-Élysées. Ethan chose a small boutique place in Le Marais instead, a narrow building with wrought-iron balconies and a tiny lobby that smelled faintly of croissants.

Their room was on the fourth floor, reached by a spiral staircase that forced Ethan to duck his head.

Madison paused in the doorway, taking in the exposed wooden beams, the tall windows, the two beds pushed against opposite walls.

“You booked one room,” she said.

“It was all they had last minute,” he said quickly. “Two beds. I’ll sleep on the floor if you want. Or the hallway. I’ve heard Paris hallways are very romantic.”

She rolled her eyes. “The beds are fine, Ashford. Just don’t snore.”

“I don’t snore,” he said, offended.

They collapsed for a few hours, the time zones finally demanding their due. When they woke, the sun was higher and hunger drove them out into the streets.

They walked along cobblestone roads lined with cafés and small boutiques, Ethan translating menus and street signs with effortless French. Madison bought a dress in a shop where the owner called her “chérie” and insisted she try on something “plus audacieux.” Ethan paid without comment.

“You didn’t have to buy all of this,” she protested as he carried bags.

“I know,” he said. “I wanted to. Consider it hazard pay.”

“For what?”

“For being the only person I’ve ever met who told me to my face that my life is a cage.”

They stood on the Pont Neuf at sunset, the Seine turning molten under a sky streaked gold and pink. Madison leaned against the stone railing, watching tour boats slip past, their lights flickering on as the city shifted into evening.

“This doesn’t feel real,” she said.

“Good,” Ethan said, standing beside her, his arm brushing hers. “Real is overrated.”

“I’m serious,” she said. “Yesterday I was in a Manhattan coffee shop, dodging my ex. Today I’m in Paris with a man who was supposed to be married an hour ago in New York. This is either fate or a very specific mental breakdown.”

“Call it a limited series,” he said. “Season one: Escape.”

“What happens in season two?” she asked.

He was quiet for a moment. “Season two is what I’m trying not to think about.”

His phone rang.

He cursed under his breath, pulling it out of his pocket. The screen lit up with a name: Marcus.

“My brother,” he said. “If I don’t answer, he’ll send a search party.”

He stepped away a few feet, voice low. Madison watched his posture change as he spoke, the easy line of his shoulders tightening, his jaw clenching.

“Yes, I know,” she heard. “I’m aware the wedding is off…No, she didn’t faint, she negotiated…Of course the stock dropped. Wall Street loves a scandal.”

Madison turned back to the river, giving him privacy, but the words drifted anyway.

“I’m not coming back yet,” Ethan said. “I need time…No, I’m not having a midlife crisis in Europe. I’m figuring out what kind of life I’m willing to live.”

He hung up a minute later, staring at the phone like it had personally betrayed him.

“They’re furious,” he said, returning to her. “The bride’s family is threatening legal action. Our general counsel is trying not to have a nervous breakdown. The board wants an emergency meeting in New York on Monday. If I’m not there, my father says I’m out.”

“Out of what?” Madison asked.

“The company. The trust. The Ashford empire,” he said. “Everything.”

Her stomach dipped. “He can do that?”

“He’s done it before,” Ethan said. “My cousin dropped out of Harvard to join a band in Austin. My father cut him off so completely you’d think he never existed. The man treats his children like assets on a spreadsheet.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“For once,” Ethan said, looking out over the river, “I don’t know.”

They walked in silence for a while, the weight of his answer hanging between them. Street musicians played Edith Piaf on corners. Couples kissed on benches. Somewhere behind them, bells chimed from a church that looked different from the New York one but smelled the same in her memory.

“You have all this power,” Madison said finally. “You sign deals that move markets from New York to LA. But when it comes to your own life, one man in a Manhattan office still holds all the strings?”

“It’s complicated,” Ethan said quietly.

“It’s not that complicated,” she said. “You either go back on Monday and do exactly what he expects, or you don’t.”

“And if I don’t?” he asked. “If I let him cut me off? Do you know how ridiculous a thirty-two-year-old man sounds saying he’s scared of being broke when he’s never paid an electric bill himself?”

“You’d figure it out,” she said. “You’re smart. You could build something on your own.”

“Could you?” he countered. “If your firm fired you tomorrow, if your loans still existed, if you had no safety net?”

She flinched, because the answer was too close to home.

“That’s not fair,” she said.

“Life isn’t,” he said. “Especially in New York and Chicago.”

Later, at a small restaurant tucked on a side street, they shared duck with crispy skin and potatoes that tasted like sin. Candlelight flickered between them. The owner fussed over Ethan in rapid French, clearly recognizing him from some earlier, less dramatic visit.

“You know this place,” Madison said.

“I used to come here with my mother when she still painted,” he said, swirling wine in his glass. “Before she decided being an Ashford wife was a full-time performance. She taught me that architecture and food are the two arts you can live inside.”

“And now?” Madison asked.

“Now I sit in conference rooms on Park Avenue,” he said. “And sign documents for buildings other people design.”

“Maybe that’s what changes,” she said softly.

He looked at her across the table, candlelight catching the planes of his face. “You say that like it’s easy.”

“It’s not,” she said. “But staying is killing you slowly. I can see it in the way your shoulders go up two inches every time your phone rings.”

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re very perceptive for someone who was running from a gas-station-roses ex yesterday.”

“Trauma builds pattern recognition,” she said.

That night, back in the hotel room, with the city’s lights bleeding through the curtains, the air thickened.

Madison changed into a pair of soft pajamas she’d bought earlier: a simple t-shirt and cotton shorts. When she opened the bathroom door, Ethan was sitting on his bed in dark pants, his shirt off, head bent over his phone. The light from the bedside lamp traced the lines of his chest, the scars and shadows of a life that might have looked perfect from the outside but clearly wasn’t.

She stumbled. “Wow,” she blurted, then squeezed her eyes shut. “Sorry. That came out loud.”

He looked up, a slow grin spreading. “I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“Don’t get cocky,” she said, diving for her bed and yanking the covers up to her chin. “Your personality is still under review.”

In the dark, separated by a sliver of space and a lifetime of differences, they lay awake longer than either of them admitted.

“Madison,” he said finally.

“Yeah?”

“Tell me something you’ve never told anyone.”

She stared up at the ceiling she couldn’t see. “Why?”

“Because this…thing we’re doing,” he said, “only works if we’re honest in the places where it would be easier to lie. Paris feels like a dream. Maybe that makes telling the truth safer.”

She thought of all the stories she’d never written, all the nights she’d sat in her Chicago apartment staring at a blank document because she was too tired from billing hours to string sentences together.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been in love,” she said.

“You had a serious relationship,” he said.

“I had a long relationship,” she corrected. “I liked having someone. I liked checking the box that said ‘in a relationship’ on holiday cards. But that breathless, can’t-think-straight, would-choose-them-over-everything feeling?” She swallowed. “I’ve never had that. Part of me thinks there’s something wrong with me. That maybe I’m just not built for it.”

“You’re not broken,” he said, his voice soft in the dark. “You’re honest. Most people lie to themselves and call the lie love. You’re refusing to settle.”

“Your turn,” she said, thankful the dark hid the gloss in her eyes. “Something you’ve never told anyone.”

He was quiet for so long she thought he’d fallen asleep.

“I’m terrified I am exactly like my father,” he said at last. “Cold, strategic, willing to sacrifice anything for a quarterly report. I ran from that wedding, but there’s a voice in my head that says I’ll end up back in that church one day, marrying whoever the board approves, because I’m too weak to walk away from everything else.”

“You’re not him,” she said firmly.

“How do you know?” he asked.

“Because he would have stayed,” she said. “You left.”

They didn’t say anything else. At some point, sleep finally pulled them under, both of them clutching their separate blankets like lifelines.

The week that followed blurred and sharpened at once.

They strolled through the Louvre, Ethan explaining how the museum itself—its courtyards and glass pyramid and endless wings—was as much a work of art as anything on the walls. He bought a sketchbook from a vendor outside and spent an hour drawing the façade instead of looking at the Mona Lisa.

“You’re good,” Madison said, watching the clean lines and shading appear under his pencil.

“It’s just a hobby,” he said.

“So is breathing,” she said. “Doesn’t make it less important.”

They ate pastries that shattered into a thousand buttery flakes on their fingers, drank coffee at sidewalk tables while Parisians smoked and debated politics in rapid French. Madison watched Ethan relax, inch by inch, every day they were further from New York.

He still checked his phone. Emails from Ashford executives, from lawyers, from the bride’s father, from his own. The messages got more urgent as Monday approached.

He ignored them.

But Monday came anyway.

They were sitting at a small café in Montmartre when his phone buzzed again. He glanced at the screen, jaw tightening.

“My father,” he said. “Round two.”

“Answer,” she said. “Hiding from his calls doesn’t make him disappear.”

He stood, stepped a few paces away, and answered. Madison tried to focus on her coffee, but his side of the conversation spilled over.

“I’m in Paris,” he said. “Yes, with someone…No, this isn’t a joke…You can’t threaten to cut me off like I’m a line item on a budget, Dad.”

A pause. His shoulders stiffened.

“You really would,” he said quietly. “You’d strip everything because I didn’t show up where you put me on the schedule.”

Another pause.

“Fine,” he said. “Then here it is. I’m not coming back this week. If you want to have an emergency meeting in New York, have it without me.”

He hung up, hands shaking faintly.

“He’s serious,” Ethan said, sitting back down. “If I’m not in that boardroom in Manhattan by tomorrow morning, I’m done. No CEO track. No Ashford money. No trust fund, no Hamptons house, no nothing.”

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Like someone just kicked out the floor under me,” he said. “And also like I can finally breathe.”

Her heart twisted. She knew that feeling too well.

“What if,” she said slowly, “this is the clean break you needed?”

“And what if it’s the biggest mistake of my life?” he asked.

“This entire week has been one long mistake by that logic,” she said. “And it’s the first time in months I’ve seen you look alive.”

He laughed once, roughly. “You’re very stubborn.”

“So are you,” she said. “Runs in the Ashford genes, apparently.”

Later, walking along the Seine, watching the Eiffel Tower spark with lights, he took her hand.

“This week,” he said, “I’ve done more things for myself than in the last ten years. And the only constant in all of them has been you. I don’t know exactly what this is, Madison. I just know I don’t want it to end in Paris.”

She swallowed. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I’m falling for you,” he said. “Hard. Fast. Inconveniently. I’m saying the idea of going back to New York without you makes my chest hurt in a way quarterly reports never have. I’m saying…” He exhaled. “I’m saying I want this to be more than a week.”

Her heart punched against her ribs.

“I’m falling for you too,” she said, voice unsteady. “Which is ridiculous, because this is insane and we barely know each other and I watched you flee your own wedding. But I haven’t felt this…seen…in a very long time.”

“Then come to New York,” he said impulsively. “Move there. We’ll figure it out together. I’ll help with whatever you need—loans, rent, job contacts. We’ll build something that’s ours, not my father’s.”

It would have been so easy to say yes. To let herself be swept into a Park Avenue apartment and dinners downtown and a life where she didn’t have to panic every time she opened a bill.

But the word curdled in her throat.

“I can’t,” she said.

His face fell. “Because of Chicago?”

“Because of me,” she said. “If I move to New York, into a life that exists because you opened the door, I will always wonder who I am without you. I never stood on my own, Ethan. I went from my parents’ expectations to my firm’s expectations to Nathan’s. I can’t add Ashford’s to that list.”

“I wouldn’t own you,” he said.

“You’d want to help,” she said. “And I would let you, because I love you. And slowly I’d stop knowing where you ended and I began.”

The words hurt them both.

“So what?” he asked quietly. “We go back to our separate cities and pretend the best week of our lives didn’t happen?”

“No,” she said. “We go back and build lives we chose. You decide what Ethan looks like without the Ashford script. I decide what Madison looks like when she’s not performing ‘ideal associate.’ And then, if we still want this, we choose it. Not as an escape, but as something we’re willing to fight for.”

He stood there on the bridge in Paris, wind ruffling his hair, lights flickering on in the city behind him, and looked at her like she was both salvation and punishment.

“You’re going to break my heart,” he said.

“Maybe,” she said, throat aching. “Or maybe I’m trying to keep us from building something beautiful on a rotten foundation.”

They flew back separately.

His flight to New York left first. At Charles de Gaulle, he held her so tightly at the security line she could feel his pulse beating against her cheek.

“I’ll call you when I land,” he said. “When I know whether I still have a job. Whether my father still considers me his son.”

“I’ll answer,” she said. “Even if it hurts.”

On the plane to Chicago, Madison sat in economy between a snoring businessman and a toddler kicking the seat in front of him. Without Ethan’s presence, the recycled air felt heavier. The plastic cup of water tasted flat. She cried quietly into the thin airline napkin, ignoring the curious glance from the kid’s exhausted mother.

Reality hit her three steps into her apartment.

Her inbox was a battlefield. Seventeen new voicemails. Forty-three emails. A termination letter from her firm, citing “unapproved leave and dereliction of duty.” Nathan had attempted to file a missing person report when she didn’t answer his calls. It had been dropped when her credit card charges in Paris hit.

Her landlord had taped a note on her door reminding her she was two weeks away from eviction if she didn’t catch up on rent.

Her phone rang. Ethan.

“Hey,” she said, wiping her face with the back of her hand.

“I just landed at JFK,” he said. “Are you home?”

“Yes,” she said. “Also unemployed. Also possibly homeless.”

Silence. Then, carefully, “Tell me.”

She gave him the headlines. The firing. The rent. The chaos.

“Let me help,” he said immediately. “I can wire money for rent. Just for a few months. Give you space to figure things out—”

“No,” she cut in.

“Madison—”

“I can’t take your money,” she said. “If I do, everything I said in Paris was a lie. I’d be building my life on your foundation. I need to stand up by myself first.”

“That’s pride,” he said, frustration threaded through his voice.

“Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe it’s survival.”

Another silence, longer this time.

“I love you,” he said suddenly. The words tumbled out like they’d been pressing against his teeth for days. “I should have said it weeks ago, before we left New York, before Paris. I love you, Madison Clark. I love you when you’re stubborn, when you’re scared, when you make my life ten times more complicated than it needs to be. I needed you to know that, even if you hang up on me right now.”

She leaned back against her apartment door, sliding down until she was sitting on the worn hardwood.

“I love you too,” she whispered. “But if we’re going to make this real, I have to know who I am when I’m not being rescued.”

“You don’t have to do that alone,” he said.

“I do,” she said. “For now.”

“I’ll wait,” he said. “Call me when you’re ready. Or when you’re tired of being noble.”

The weeks that followed were brutal and ordinary, the way real life always is after a cinematic high.

Madison signed up with a temp agency. She did document review for firms she’d never heard of, scrolling through hundreds of pages of discovery for twelve dollars an hour. She brewed coffee in break rooms and kept her head down. She came home to a fridge with more condiments than food and a stack of bills she shuffled like a deck of cards.

She did not look Ethan up online. She did not stalk Ashford Enterprises stock. She did not check to see if he had shown up in photos at charity galas on Park Avenue.

Every night, she hovered her thumb over his name in her contacts. Every night, she locked her phone instead.

Six weeks after Paris, an envelope arrived.

Heavy cream paper. New York return address. The Ashford Enterprises logo at the top.

Her stomach flipped as she read.

Dear Ms. Clark,

We are pleased to offer you the position of Senior Legal Counsel for Ashford Enterprises’ new Chicago office…

She read the letter twice, then a third time. Salary. Benefits. Moving stipend if needed. The signature at the bottom: Marcus Ashford, Vice President of Operations.

She called the HR number listed at the bottom.

“Ashford Enterprises, Elena Rodriguez speaking.”

“Hi,” Madison said. “This is Madison Clark. I received a job offer today and—”

“Oh, Ms. Clark,” Elena said warmly. “Yes. We’re very excited about the possibility of you joining the team. Your experience in corporate contracts is exactly what we need to expand in the Midwest.”

“I was fired from my last firm,” Madison said bluntly. “My résumé probably looks like a crime scene right now.”

“Mr. Marcus Ashford personally recommended you,” Elena said. “He spoke very highly of your work. The Chicago office is a key initiative. This is not charity, Ms. Clark. It’s strategy.”

Madison thanked her and hung up, mind spinning.

Her phone buzzed almost immediately. Ethan.

She stared at the screen until the call went to voicemail.

Then she booked a flight to New York.

The Ashford Enterprises headquarters towered over Midtown like a glass exclamation point. The lobby was all marble and stone and art that clearly cost more than her law degree. Men and women in sleek suits moved through the space with purpose.

The receptionist took one look at her and smiled in that neutral New York way. “Can I help you?”

“I’m here to see Ethan Ashford,” Madison said. “I don’t have an appointment. Tell him Madison Clark is in the lobby, and if he doesn’t see me I’m going to start shouting about Paris until your security footage goes viral.”

The receptionist’s eyebrows climbed. She picked up a phone, spoke quietly, listened, then nodded.

“Thirty-fourth floor,” she said. “His assistant will meet you.”

The elevator ride felt like being loaded into a cannon. On thirty-four, a woman in a navy dress and heels sharp enough to cut waited by a glass door.

“Ms. Clark,” she said. “He’ll see you. Right this way.”

Ethan’s office could have been a magazine spread: floor-to-ceiling windows looking over Manhattan, a desk that probably required its own insurance policy, shelves lined with models of buildings Ashford Enterprises owned.

He stood when she walked in, the phone still in his hand. The expression on his face when he saw her shifted from polished CEO to something raw and unguarded.

“I have to call you back,” he said into the phone, not waiting for an answer before hanging up.

“Did you create a job for me?” Madison asked by way of hello.

He blinked. “Hi. You look—”

“Don’t do that,” she said. “Don’t charm your way around it. Answer the question. Did you create a position in Chicago so I’d have a reason to orbit your life again?”

He came around the desk slowly, like he was approaching a frightened animal.

“The Chicago expansion was already on the table,” he said. “We’d been discussing it for a year. I suggested we move it up. And when Marcus and I went over potential candidates for legal counsel, I suggested you because you’re smart and good at your job, not because I’m trying to play puppet master with your life.”

“Did you tell Marcus about Paris?” she asked.

“I told him I met someone,” Ethan said. “That she was brilliant and stubborn and exactly the kind of mind we needed in Chicago. I did not give him a week-by-week breakdown of our European escapades.”

Madison held up the offer letter.

“This feels like a rescue,” she said. “A very classy, very well-paid rescue.”

“It’s an opportunity,” he said. “You needed a job. We needed counsel in Chicago. This is mutually beneficial capitalism.”

“You recommended me,” she said. “You pressed fast-forward on your company’s plans because of me.”

“Because of us,” he said, voice rising. “Because I am tired of pretending that my personal life and my professional life exist in separate universes. I want to build something with you, Madison. Something that doesn’t require you to starve to prove you’re independent.”

She let out a sharp laugh. “There it is. You still think if you throw enough resources at a problem, you can fix it. That works in hostile takeovers, Ethan. It doesn’t work on people.”

“Maybe not,” he said. “But watching you drown while I stand on the shore with a life raft seems like a pretty twisted idea of love.”

“Oh, so this is love now?” she asked. “Creating positions for me in buildings you own?”

“This is me trying,” he snapped. “You disappeared for six weeks. Six weeks, Madison. No calls, no texts, nothing. I wasn’t sure if you’d decided Paris was a fluke or if you were lying in a ditch in Chicago. I told you I loved you, and then you ghosted me.”

“I was trying to prove to myself that I could survive without you,” she said, her own voice rising. “That I wasn’t just some girl you picked up in a Manhattan church whose entire existence now depended on whether Ashford Enterprises wanted her.”

“And did you?” he shot back. “Prove it?”

She thought of the nights she’d cried into microwaved noodles.

“I proved I can suffer alone,” she said. “I don’t know if that counts as survival.”

Silence dropped between them, heavy as the glass walls.

“I don’t want to fix you,” he said finally, quieter. “I want to stand next to you. But I can’t pretend I don’t have the ability to open doors for you that other people can’t. Am I supposed to pretend I don’t know people in Chicago? That I can’t give you an in to work you’re overqualified for?”

“I want to walk through doors I opened,” she said. “Not ones you sliced off their hinges for me.”

He stared at her, then moved closer until they were a breath apart.

“I am scared out of my mind,” he said. “Scared of losing you. Scared of becoming my father. Scared that no matter what I do, I’ll mess this up because all I’ve ever known is obligation and strategy, not whatever this is.” He gestured between them.

“I’m scared, too,” she said, her throat tight. “Scared that if I let you carry any of my weight, I’ll forget how to stand. Scared that you’ll wake up one morning, look at the life you built around me, and resent the hell out of me for it.”

“Maybe we’re both cowards,” he said.

“Or maybe,” she said, “we’re both still learning how to be brave.”

He exhaled, then cupped her face in his hands.

“I love you,” he said again, softer this time. “Not as a project. Not as a problem. Not as a fantasy I flew to Paris with. I love the woman who argued with me in a confessional on Fifth Avenue. I love the lawyer who knows exactly how much her ex stole and still ran instead of throwing a lawsuit at him. I love the person who told me to walk away from a life my name was built on because it was killing me.”

Madison closed her eyes. “I love you too,” she said. “Even when you try to fix things with money. Even when you think your only value is what you can give away. I love the guy who hid in a church instead of standing at an altar for the wrong reasons.”

He kissed her then. Not the gentle test of Paris, but something deeper and messier. When they broke apart, breathless, he rested his forehead against hers.

“Take the job if you want it,” he said. “Because it’s a good opportunity. Because it pays well. Because you’d be incredible at it. Don’t take it if the only reason is me. I’ll love you either way. I’ll fight like hell for us either way.”

She looked around the office—the view of Manhattan, the models of skyscrapers, the life he was trying to reshape without entirely burning down.

“Senior legal counsel in Chicago,” she said. “Reporting to someone who isn’t you.”

“Correct,” he said. “Marcus would be your direct line in New York, but you’d be your own boss in that office.”

“And I’d still live in my crappy apartment,” she said.

“For as long as you want to,” he said. “Ashford doesn’t get veto power over your landlord.”

She smiled, watery. “You’re impossible.”

“So are you,” he said. “That’s why this might actually work.”

Three months later, Madison stood in an office with floor-to-ceiling glass overlooking Lake Michigan.

Ashford Enterprises Chicago wasn’t a gleaming tower yet. It was three floors in a downtown building near the river, open-plan with boxes still stacked against walls. But her name was on the door of a corner office. Her title on email signatures read Senior Legal Counsel, not Junior Associate. The work was hard, messy, consuming—and for the first time, it felt like hers.

She’d taken the job after a week of spreadsheets and pros and cons lists and sleepless nights. She’d negotiated her salary herself, refused a relocation stipend on principle, and kept her apartment. Ethan had argued about the last part, but eventually he’d relented, laughing that her stubbornness could probably power half of Chicago.

They saw each other twice a month.

Sometimes Ethan flew in on Friday nights, fresh from board meetings in Manhattan, hair still bearing the faint stress of the East Coast. They’d eat deep dish on her couch and argue about whether New York or Chicago had better pizza. Sometimes she flew to New York for a weekend, waking up in his place to the sound of traffic on the Upper East Side and the smell of coffee from his kitchen.

They fought.

About how often he tried to pick up checks. About the way she bristled whenever he said “we” when talking about her career. About his father’s refusal to accept his architecture classes as anything more than a phase.

And then they made up, learning the language of compromise and apology like any other couple that hadn’t met in a confessional on Fifth Avenue.

One Friday, as Madison was buried in a thick contract, her phone buzzed with a number she’d only seen twice.

“Mrs. Ashford?” she asked cautiously.

“Madison,” Catherine said. Her voice was smooth, East Coast polish with something steely beneath. “I’m in Chicago for the weekend. A charity board meeting. I was hoping we could have lunch.”

Madison’s stomach tightened. “Of course,” she said. Declining wasn’t really an option when the Ashford matriarch called, even if Madison technically reported to Marcus, not Ethan.

They met the next day at a restaurant overlooking the river, the kind with white tablecloths and waiters who refilled water glasses if you took two sips. Catherine arrived in a cream suit that probably cost more than Madison’s monthly rent, silver hair styled perfectly, pearl earrings gleaming.

“Thank you for making time,” Catherine said, after the waiter had taken their orders. “Ethan speaks of you often.”

Madison folded her hands in her lap to keep them from fidgeting. “I’m surprised you wanted to see me alone.”

“I wanted to understand the woman my son is willing to fight his father over,” Catherine said frankly. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him so determined about anything that wasn’t profit and loss.”

“Is that…good?” Madison asked carefully.

“That depends,” Catherine said, studying her with eyes that missed nothing. “How long do you plan on encouraging him to defy his father?”

Madison swallowed. “I’m not encouraging him to rebel,” she said. “I’m encouraging him to be honest about what he wants.”

“What he wants,” Catherine said, cutting into her salmon, “does not always align with what is best for the family.”

“With respect,” Madison said, “isn’t it his family too? His life?”

“Want is a luxury,” Catherine said. “Duty is not. Not in New York. Not with our name.”

Madison thought of that name on skyscrapers in Manhattan, in Chicago, in half a dozen other American cities.

“I grew up in Illinois,” she said. “My family name doesn’t open any doors. I had to kick them down myself. I know what duty looks like. I also know what it looks like when people spend their entire lives serving everyone else’s expectations and die with a list of things they never did. I don’t want that for him. Or for me.”

A muscle in Catherine’s jaw twitched. “You think I do?”

“I don’t know what you want,” Madison said. “That’s why I came.”

Catherine sat back, studying her. Something in her expression softened.

“When I was your age,” she said, “I painted. Badly, but passionately. I thought I would move to Brooklyn, rent a tiny loft, and starve happily with other artists. Then I met Ethan’s father. He swept in with Park Avenue promises and a last name that made gallery owners call back. I told myself I could paint on weekends.” She took a sip of wine. “The last time I held a brush was the day before our wedding.”

Madison blinked. “I didn’t know that.”

“No one does,” Catherine said. “My husband likes his wife polished, not messy. The Ashford name consumed me slowly enough that I didn’t notice until it was done.”

“I’m sorry,” Madison said, and meant it.

“I don’t want that for my son,” Catherine said quietly. “But I also don’t know how to separate him from the empire. He was born in a Manhattan hospital with a trust fund waiting. He took his first steps in a Park Avenue penthouse. He has never known life without expectation. Then he met you, ran to Paris, and came back willing to burn the boardroom down. So yes, I wanted to see you. I wanted to know if you’re a temporary fire or a sustainable light.”

Madison stared at the tablecloth, the neat folds, the precise place settings.

“I don’t know what we are yet,” she said honestly. “We’re trying. We’re fighting. We’re figuring it out. I love him. That’s the only thing I’m completely sure of.”

Catherine’s gaze sharpened. “Enough to stay when it’s no longer romantic? When it’s just him juggling New York and Chicago and the family and his own dreams? Enough to stay when the Ashford name makes everything heavier?”

“Yes,” Madison said, surprising herself with how quickly the word came. “If he keeps fighting for himself, not just for the company. If we keep choosing each other instead of falling back on what’s easy.”

Catherine watched her for a long moment. Then, unexpectedly, she smiled. A real smile, small but genuine.

“You remind me of myself,” she said. “Before I put down my paintbrushes.”

Madison’s throat tightened. “Is that a warning?”

“That’s a warning and a blessing,” Catherine said. “Ethan called me last week. He asked if he could have his grandmother’s ring. The one his father gave me. He’s going to propose. He didn’t want my permission, but he asked for my blessing. I gave it.”

Air left Madison’s lungs in a rush. “I—”

“I will not pretend it will be easy,” Catherine said. “My husband is not a man who lets go of control easily. There will be fights. There will be boardroom battles and family dinners that feel like interrogations. But if you are as stubborn as you appear to be, and if you keep reminding my son that he is more than his last name, we might survive it.”

Madison laughed shakily. “High praise.”

“From me, yes,” Catherine said, chuckling. “Welcome to the family, Madison. Whether you say yes next week or not, you’re already in the middle of it.”

They parted with a kiss on the cheek and mutual respect that would have seemed impossible a few months prior.

That night, Madison lay in her bed in Chicago, staring at the city lights outside her window, Ethan’s name glowing on her phone.

He called first.

“How was your day?” he asked.

“Interesting,” she said. “I had lunch with your mother.”

Silence. “Should I book a flight to identify the body?”

“Relax,” she said, laughing. “We’re both alive. She told me you asked for your grandmother’s ring.”

He sucked in a breath. “I was going to surprise you.”

“You still can,” she said. “I’ll act shocked.”

“How do you feel?” he asked carefully.

“Like my life is about to change again,” she said. “But in a way I’m choosing this time.”

“Good,” he said. “Because I’m flying to Chicago on Saturday. And I’m going to ask you a very important question. And you’re going to take at least thirty dramatic seconds before answering so I can sweat a little.”

“We’ll see,” she said. “Maybe I’ll say yes right away and ruin your dramatic arc.”

“Don’t you dare,” he said, laughing.

Saturday night, he showed up at her door in jeans and a sweater, looking less like a CEO and more like the guy who’d once been too scared to walk down an aisle on Park Avenue.

“No suit?” she teased.

“I’m off duty,” he said. “Tonight’s not about Ashford. It’s about us.”

He’d made reservations at a cozy Italian spot in her neighborhood, the kind with checkered tablecloths and candles stuck in old wine bottles. They shared pasta and laughed about the worst opposing counsel stories they’d each encountered. After dinner, they walked to the lakefront.

Chicago’s skyline glittered behind them, all glass and light reflecting off the dark surface of Lake Michigan. The wind coming off the water was sharp, biting through her coat, but she barely felt it.

“Remember the confessional?” Ethan asked, stopping by the railing.

“The one on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan,” she said. “Where you were hiding from your wedding and I crashed your existential crisis?”

“The one where you told me to blow up my life,” he said. “Best advice I’ve ever gotten.”

“You’re welcome,” she said. “My hourly rate is steep.”

He turned to face her fully, hands sliding into his coat pockets like he needed to keep them from shaking.

“I’ve stood in a lot of important rooms,” he said. “Boardrooms in New York, offices in LA, fancy ballrooms in DC. None of them felt as terrifying as that booth did when you opened the door. And none of them have felt as right as this does.”

He dropped to one knee.

Madison’s breath caught.

“Ethan,” she whispered.

“Madison Clark,” he said, looking up at her with eyes she now knew better than her own reflection, “you are the most infuriating, brilliant, grounded person I’ve ever met. You argue when people expect you to agree. You tell me uncomfortable truths instead of flattering lies. You make my life harder and better at the same time.” He pulled a small velvet box from his pocket and opened it.

The ring inside was vintage and understated, a diamond set in a delicate band that looked like it had stories of its own.

“This was my grandmother’s,” he said. “She wore it for fifty-three years. My mother told me she would have liked you, which is probably the highest compliment an Ashford can offer.”

He took a breath.

“I don’t know exactly what our life is going to look like,” he said. “I don’t know how many times we’re going to have to fight my father, or your student loans, or our own stubbornness. But I know there is no version of my future that I want to live in if you’re not standing there with me. So I’m asking you the only way I know how. Will you marry me?”

The wind whipped her hair around her face. The city hummed behind them. Time seemed to fold.

“Yes,” she said, the word breaking on a laugh and a sob. “Yes, you ridiculous runaway groom. I’ll marry you.”

He slid the ring onto her finger with hands that weren’t quite steady. It fit like it had been waiting for her.

He stood, and she launched herself into his arms. He kissed her with all the pent-up fear and hope and love of the last months.

When they finally pulled apart, both breathless, she pressed her forehead to his.

“We’re insane,” she said. “We met in a confessional booth and now we’re planning a wedding.”

“We’re consistent,” he said. “We just upgraded the venue from Manhattan panic to Chicago skyline.”

“You’d better not run from this one,” she warned.

“If I do,” he said, “it’ll be toward you, not away.”

She laughed, and it tasted like everything they’d fought for.

Later, back in her apartment, curled up together on her couch with the Chicago lights spilling in, Madison looked at the ring on her finger and the man beside her and felt something she’d never quite had before.

Not perfection. Life was still messy. Ashford board meetings still happened. Chicago winters still bit. Student loans didn’t vanish magically, and her inbox still filled with contracts that needed careful eyes.

But there was balance. There was choice. There was a future she was walking into with her eyes open, hand in someone else’s by choice, not desperation.

Their story had started with running away from everything that was wrong in their lives—a cheating ex, an arranged Manhattan wedding, families and bosses and expectations that strangled. Somewhere between Fifth Avenue and Paris and Chicago, it had turned into something else.

They weren’t running anymore.

They were walking toward something they’d chosen, together, one imperfect, honest step at a time.