Sophia’s P.O.V

I stood slowly, the chair creaking slightly beneath me, my heart pounding against my ribs like it knew something my brain hadn't caught up to yet. That voice… it had slid through the air like silk—calm, sure, familiar.

Seven hundred million. For my painting. I turned, my breath hitching even before I saw him fully. And there he was.

Nathaniel.

He looked like he’d walked out of the pages of some impossibly regal fairytale, dark blue tux hugging ...