The question was casual, but it landed with pinpoint accuracy.
It wasn’t an insult; it was an observation. And it was too close to the truth.
“When you’re a wedding planner, control is the entire job description,” I said stiffly.
“I’m not talking about the job. ” His voice was softer now, losing its teasing edge. He glanced at my hands, which were clenched into tight fists in my lap. “I’m talking about *you*. You look like you’re personally trying to hold the entire world together with sheer force of will. ”
I forced my fingers to uncurl.
The polished, professional mask I wore was starting to crack under the pressure of the day. “Someone has to. ”
He was quiet for a long moment, his focus on the slick, winding road. The rain was coming down in earnest now, a relentless downpour that blurred the world into a watercolor of greens and greys.
“My father was like that,” he said finally, his voice low. “Everything had a place. A schedule. An expectation. He’s the reason Chloe is the way she is. He had my whole life planned out for me by the time I was ten. Law school, a corner office at his firm, a wife from a ‘good’ family. ”
I turned to look at his profile. The strong line of his jaw, the faint shadow of stubble. This was the man from the studio, the artist who saw the souls in his portraits.
“I take it you chose a different path,” I said, my own voice softer than I intended.
A wry smile touched his lips. “I ran. As far and as fast as I could. Bought my first real camera with the money I was supposed to use for LSAT prep books. Never looked back. ” He glanced at me. “He still sends me brochures for the local community college, just in case I ‘come to my senses’. ”
“And you. Did you ever… want that life?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“The stability. The certainty?” He shrugged, a casual movement that didn’t quite hide the depth behind his words. “Sometimes. When I’m sleeping in a questionable hostel in a country where I don’t speak the language. But then I’ll see a shot. . . the way the light hits a woman’s face in a crowded market. . . and I know I can’t be fenced in. It’s not how I’m wired. I’d suffocate. ”
He paused, his gaze flicking to me and then back to the road.
“What about you. Is this what you always dreamed of. Wrangling bridezillas like my sister and color-coordinating napkins?”
The question caught me off guard. No one ever asked that. I thought of the art history degree gathering dust in a box in my closet, of the dreams I’d had of working in a gallery in Florence.
“No,” I admitted, the word feeling strange and vulnerable on my tongue.
“I wanted… something else. But life happens. Plans change. ” I left the rest unsaid—Marcus, the way he’d belittled my dreams, the way I’d thrown myself into the controllable world of event planning as an antidote to the chaos he’d left behind.
“Plans change,” Rhys repeated, his voice thoughtful. “Or we change them because we’re scared of what we really want. ”
His insight was so sharp it felt like he’d reached across the console and touched a raw nerve. The space in the car suddenly felt smaller, hotter.
The rain on the roof was a frantic heartbeat. I could feel the warmth radiating from his arm, just inches from my own.
“Maybe,” I whispered instead.
We drove the rest of the way in a new kind of silence. It wasn’t the tense, combative quiet from before. It was something deeper, more fragile.
A quiet built on the shared weight of our unexpected confessions. Underneath the explosive chemistry, I was shocked to find a surprising, unnerving flicker of connection.
Finally, a hand-painted wooden sign appeared through the deluge:
THE GILDED SPARROW. Rhys turned onto a long gravel driveway flanked by ancient, weeping oak trees.