My mother said I should stay in the kitchen during the wedding photos—only until the “important guests” were gone. I didn’t mention that for the past year I had been

She nodded, the message landing with the weight it deserved.

The next morning, headlines popped up anyway.

Not about the reception itself—this part had been kept quiet—but about Daniel and me. A grainy photo had surfaced from the wedding, taken from across the lawn. The angle caught Daniel’s hand at my back, my face turned up toward him, a moment that looked intimate even through pixels.

Speculation exploded like wildfire. Who is she? What does she do? Is this serious?

My phone buzzed nonstop. Coworkers texted. Old classmates messaged. People I barely remembered from college suddenly wanted coffee.

At my office, the receptionist looked at me like I’d walked in wearing a different skin.“Hey,” my supervisor said when I reached his door. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said, though my stomach felt like it was full of sparrows.

He nodded toward his computer screen. “This is going to be… distracting,” he said carefully.

“I can handle it,” I replied.

He studied me for a moment. “You’re good at your job, Sophia,” he said. “I don’t care who you’re dating as long as your work stays solid. But we’re going to need to talk about boundaries. Press inquiries. Security. All of it.”

“I know,” I said, grateful he spoke like my competence was assumed, not debated.

Daniel met me that evening at my apartment, arriving through the back entrance the building had agreed to keep private. He looked tired in the way people look tired when their life becomes public property.

“I’m sorry,” he said the moment the door closed.

“You didn’t leak it,” I replied.

“No,” he said, rubbing a hand over his face. “But I brought this into your life.”

I stepped closer and rested my hands on his arms. “You also brought yourself,” I said. “And I want you. Not the bubble around you, but you.”

He exhaled, tension easing slightly. “We can make it smaller,” he said. “More private. More protected.”

“And my family?” I asked.

His mouth tightened. “They’re already getting calls,” he said. “People asking for introductions. Invitations. Access.”

I laughed once, sharp and humorless. “Of course they are.”

Daniel’s eyes softened. “Soph,” he said, “you don’t owe them your life just because they’re suddenly interested.”

I looked down, feeling the old reflex to excuse, to soften. Then I remembered the kitchen corridor at the Wellington estate. My name card by the catering door.

“I know,” I said quietly. “I’m just… learning how to act like it.”