Chapter 2 - THE MAKEOVER THAT WASN'TThe following Thursday, Adeline sent her private car to pick Nathan up from his office and drive him to a discreet, high-end tailor in downtown Columbus.
She had expected him to be uncomfortable. She had expected him to ask for a flashy Italian suit with velvet lapels—the kind of uniform men like Julian Whitmore wore to signal their wealth from across a room.
Instead, when Nathan emerged from the fitting room twenty minutes later, Adeline caught her breath.
The tailor had chosen a classic, midnight-blue bespoke tuxedo. It wasn't loud. It didn't scream designer labels or ostentatious luxury. But the cut was immaculate, wrapping broad shoulders and a lean frame with quiet, devastating precision. It made Nathan look less like an overworked logistics manager and more like a foreign diplomat traveling under an assumed name.
“Well?” Nathan asked, looking at his reflection with mild skepticism. “It feels a bit stiff. Can I still carry a juice box in the pocket?”
Adeline stepped closer, her heels clicking softly against the hardwood floor. She reached out and adjusted his lapel by a fraction of an inch.
“Keep your hands out of your pockets, Mr. Cole,” she murmured, her gaze locking onto his. “Tonight, you aren't an operations manager. You're a mystery.”
“A mystery with a six-year-old waiting for a bedtime story via FaceTime,” Nathan replied, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
Adeline felt a strange, unfamiliar flutter in her chest—something she hadn't felt since before Julian built his life around a different definition of success. She pushed it down instantly. Tonight wasn't about romance. It was about erasure. It was about walking into a temple built by her past and proving that she had outgrown every ghost inside it.
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“Are you ready?” Adeline asked, slipping her arm through his.
Nathan looked down at her hand resting against his sleeve. “As ready as a man can be to walk into a room full of people who probably think napkins are folded incorrectly.”
