The rooftop bar buzzed softly with quiet conversations and the clink of glasses. Josephine Russo moved through the crowd with practiced ease, her smile polished but her eyes betraying a hint of weariness. Ever since turning what her mother called “marriageable age,” she’d been shuffled through endless blind dates with New York’s most eligible bachelors—each more calculated than the last.

Tonight felt different.

Then, across the room, her gaze landed on me. There was something about me — maybe the way I stood apart from the crowd, unguarded and real — that made her pause.

She approached, tilting her head with a sly smile. “So... is this your usual scene? Or did you just show up to rescue me from another one of my mother’s charming disasters?”

Her eyes caught mine, sparkling with a mix of challenge and dry humor.

I smiled back, feeling the spark of something unexpected, but also knowing better than to fall for easy charm right away.