Sophie ran out of the bridal salon before the fitting was over, leaving a confused seamstress holding the veil. She couldn’t go back to the penthouse; the walls there were covered in William’s manic wedding plans.
She found herself at the only place that felt real: the clinic.
She burst into the breakroom, gasping for air, tears streaming down her face. Dr. Lucas Hale was there, eating a sandwich. He looked up, startled, then immediately concerned.
“Sophie?” Lucas stood up, abandoning his lunch.
“I can’t breathe,” Sophie sobbed, leaning against the doorframe. “It’s too much. The dress, the grandmother, the lies…”
Lucas didn’t ask what lies. He didn’t ask about the billionaire or the gala. He simply pulled out a plastic chair and sat her down. He poured her a glass of water from the cooler.
“Just sit,” Lucas said softly. “No one is watching you here.”
He sat across from her in silence, offering a calm, steady presence that was the antithesis of William’s chaotic energy. As Sophie’s breathing slowed, she looked at Lucas’s kind eyes and realized a terrifying truth: she felt safer in a fluorescent-lit breakroom with a pediatrician than she did in the arms of the man she was about to marry.