Page 3 of The Plus One Contract

Here’s the thing. I’m not heartbroken over Daniel. I don’t want him back, and I don’t lie awake at night thinkingwhat if.

We were together for six years, since he was eighteen and I was seventeen. After all that time, he didn’t even listen long enough to understand me. I wanted a future with him and eventually wanted to settle down. I just wasn’t ready for kids yet. Did I want them someday? Yes. But not now. My career mattered more, and that was okay.

Instead of trying to understand, Daniel walked away, and six months later, he proposed to someone else. He took the ring I found buried in his coat pocket one day after we discussed getting married, and when everything went to shit, he gave it to someone else.

His words from the day we broke up still hit a raw nerve when I think about them.

“We want different things. Maybe you’re not meant for me, Sienna. Everyone expects we’ll end up together. Maybe you’re the safe option.”

I used to think safety in a relationship was everything I wanted, a comforting promise that he’d be there no matter what, but the moment Daniel called me his “safe option,” I realized how hollow that label felt. Safe shouldn’t mean forgettable or easy to discard. Safe should still spark desire, fascination, something worth holding onto.

Instead, I was just… convenient.

Nothing stood out enough to fight for, nothing he felt passionate enough to keep.

That knowledge cut deeper than any betrayal because more than anything, I never wanted to be somebody’s fallback plan. I wanted to be the best thing that ever happened to him. I wanted him to look at me and see a future he couldn’t live without. Instead, all he saw was a girl he could leave behind.

So, no, I don’t love him anymore, but it still stings.

I let out a slow breath, staring at my open suitcase.

Somehow, I need to convince everyone, and maybe myself, that I’ve moved on, that New York changed me. That I’m not still the girl Daniel left behind.

And if that means faking it?

So be it.

Three

“Absolutely not,” Harper says, standing in my doorway with the same energy as someone staging an intervention.

I don’t look up from the couch, where I've spent the last hour doom-scrolling. “Absolutely not what?”

“You, wallowing.” She crosses her arms, looking at the half-eaten tub ofBen & Jerry’sbalanced precariously on my lap. “Girl, you’re one rainstorm away from standing outside his house with a boombox.”

I whine, dropping my phone onto the cushion. “For the record, I’m not even sad about Daniel.”

“I know. That’s great,” she chirps. “Because we’re going out.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Harper grabs the remote, shutting off the TV and ignoring my protests. “It’s Saturday night. You’re not spending it shoveling ice cream down your throat.”

I narrow my eyes. “We? Like you and me?”

“No, me and the ghost of your love life.”

I fling a throw pillow at her. She catches it effortlessly, laughing. “Eli’s meeting us at a bar with some friends.”

Instantly, my guard goes up. “Are you setting me up?”

She shrugs. “Maybe. Would it be the worst thing? You wrote to a dating podcast for advice. I’m just following Jo Quinn’s orders and saving you from yourself.”

I groan, even though she’s right. “Hot men are exhausting.”

“You can be exhausted here or exhausted there, but isn’t it better to be exhausted while biting a headboard?”

Harper watches me, her confidence unwavering. She’s always been the outgoing one, the kind of woman who turns heads no matter where she goes. Her hair is a crown of tight, springy curls—big, bold, and completely unapologetic, just like her. She’s strikingly beautiful, tall with warm brown skin and a figure that demands attention. But it’s more than that. Harper walks into a room like she owns it, and people just accept that she does.

---