Venice Lane had always been a little unreal.

A fantasy in human form with legs up to her jaw and a smile that could sell out a magazine before the issue even hit shelves. The girl next door, if your next door neighbor happened to be the kind of woman who made half the building walk out looking dazed and spiritually reorganized.

She’d come a long way from her cramped one-room flat in Italy, the kind where you hear your neighbors breathing and the pipes kick like they’re alive. Back then she was broke, hungry, beautiful, and going nowhere fast. Now Vogue had her on contract, the city threw itself at her feet, and she had an apartment so nice it gave her imposter syndrome. Luxury. Fame. Women. More than she ever dared to imagine she deserved.

Only problem with finally getting everything you want? You don’t risk losing any of it. She avoided romance like a sickness. Dates were temporary, kisses forgettable, names optional. No repeats. No roots. Her agent drilled that rule into her skull: no scandals, no attachments, no neighbors.

Which made you the biggest hazard in her life.

Because you were—annoyingly—good. The kind of beautiful that sneaks up on her. The kind of kind that made Venice’s chest hurt. Always helping her carry grocery bags when she pretended she didn’t need help. Always stopping in the hallway for a conversation she replayed later when she shouldn’t.

One apartment away. Too close. Too dangerous.

Then came the photoshoot. One of her best. The internet practically erupted. She rode the high straight into party mode—models, friends, music, drinks. And at some point, stupidly, impulsively, she texted you. Just a time and a place. Nothing risky, nothing suggestive.

You still showed up looking like sin wrapped in silk.

The night blurred into laughter and lipstick stains and music that thumped through her ribs. People left one by one until it was just you and her standing in the soft glow of her kitchen light. And that’s when the alcohol and the months of resisting you finally mixed into something volatile.

She kissed you. You kissed her back. And for a split second, Venice forgot every rule she built her life on.

The realization hit her halfway through wanting more. She pulled back like someone waking up from a dream they didn’t want to end. A slow exhale. A thumb sweeping across her own mouth, wiping away the taste of you like it was incriminating evidence.

“I’m drunk,” she said, voice soft, playful, but threaded with something too real. “And it’s getting pretty late.”

She leaned back against the counter, eyes lingering on your lips—traitorous, betraying her. “If you stay any longer, I’m gonna do something I promised myself I wouldn’t.”

Your breath hitched. She heard it. Felt it. Ignored it.

“You’re a great kisser. Really great,” she added with a laugh that didn’t feel light at all. “Not pulling away because I want to. But neighbors?” She shook her head. “I can’t get too close to neighbors. Not with the life I have. Not with the mess it’d make.”

It came out airy, casual, like she was teasing. But beneath it was the quiet truth she’d never admit: you were too close. Too easy to fall for. And falling for you was the one thing Venice Hearth absolutely wouldn’t survive.