Raf
The courtyard glows soft and still, lit like a set too perfect to be real. But she steps into it anyway, heels barely whispering against the Spanish tile.
Her fingers tighten around the handles of her Goyard tote. A tick, but a practiced one. She knows how to look composed. Expensive. That’s half the work.
She passes a window and catches her reflection, red hair gleaming, jaw set too hard. The mask holds. For now.
Somewhere in this building, a man with a PhD and a crisp, tailored wardrobe is waiting to ask how she feels. She doesn’t know what she’s here to say to him. Only that she’s tired of pretending she has nothing to say at all.
The apartment doesn’t look like a therapist’s office at first. No nameplate. No waiting area. Just a heavy walnut door that opened too easily, and now this room: cold, but not clinical. Precise. Like nothing happens here by accident.
She steps farther in, the weight of the space pressing closer, and without meaning to, her mind flickers back.
Dr. Alexander Beacham.
Whispered into her life by Corinne Collins, the kind of astrologer who charged five figures for a birth chart and read the stars for the very rich and very restless.
“You need someone who can hold space for your ambition without trying to shrink it,” Corinne had said, bangles flashing in the soft light of her 1920s Spanish Revival home.
“Dr. Beacham doesn’t fix you. He invites you to become more of yourself.”
At the time, Raf had smiled, noncommittal. Now, standing here, she wonders if that was just a glamorous way of saying: Careful, he’ll see too much.
He’s dressed in a dark suit. Handsome, but in the way of men who don’t weaponize their looks. Or maybe that’s exactly what he wants her to think. He doesn’t smile, exactly. Just watches her with a stillness that feels vaguely unnerving.
“Thank you for making an exception, Dr. Beacham,” she says politely. “Corinne mentioned you’re not taking new referrals.”
His face is blank, but it feels intentional. Like he’s holding something back.
“Please, call me Alexander. We’re equals here. Lovely to meet you, too, Rafaella.”
“Raf,” she corrects. “Only my ex-husband calls me Rafaella. Usually when lawyers are involved.”
She doesn’t need to elaborate. Because the name Ethan John Davies hangs in the air whether she says it or not. Once the golden couple splashed across magazine covers and gossip sites, now reduced to clickbait: leaked court filings, bitter countersuits, icy red carpet sightings. Their separation, and now divorce, had been disassembled in real time for anyone with a screen. And Raf, whether she liked it or not, had become public property.
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“Divorce isn’t just about losing a partner,” Alexander says once she’s settled into the leather chair. “It’s about losing the version of yourself that existed in that relationship.”
She draws a breath, as if some invisible weight had lifted. Never been more ready for anything in my life, she tells herself.
By the time she steps back outside, the light has changed. She still feels the weight of the session—part relief, part ache. Saying it all out loud, knowing it can’t be used against her for once, that was its own kind of release.
Dr. Beacham is… intense. Almost too concerned. Too invested. Impeccable bedside manner, just as Corinne promised—exactly what you’d expect from someone with a roster of high-profile and discreet public-facing clients.
Exactly what I need, she thinks, adjusting her tote as she crosses the courtyard—just as a sheaf of design drafts slips loose, scattering across the tile toward the pool.
“Shit,” she mutters, lunging, just as another hand reaches down to help.
She looks up. An easy grin. Deep blue eyes.
Who—?
Two pages catch the breeze and lift straight into the water. “Oh no,” Raf gasps, reaching after them instinctively. She watches helplessly as ink bleeds, the pages rippling and sinking.
Without hesitation, the man shrugs off his shirt and dives. Raf’s breath hitches—half a laugh, cut short by surprise.
He resurfaces, soaked and grinning, and holds out two dripping pages.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she says, stepping warily to the pool’s edge. “They’re just copies.”
He slicks the water back from his hair, giving her a look. “You could’ve led with that. Might’ve saved me the Baywatch moment in my gym shorts.”
She laughs under her breath, watching him climb out of the pool. “I’m Raf,” she says, taking the wet pages from his hand. Her eyes catch on his torso—broad shoulders, tan skin, water glinting off his abs.
“Shane Brodsky,” he says, gaze sweeping down, then back up, clearly interested. “New to the building? Haven’t seen you around.”
She offers a short nod. “Just left my therapist’s office. Is that embarrassing to admit? I can’t tell anymore.”
He gestures toward the balcony, toward Alexander’s unit. “That guy creeps me out.”
“You know him?”
“Everyone here knows everyone. But him? Something’s… off.”
Her gaze sharpens, guarded now. “My astrologer referred me.”
“That’s supposed to be reassuring?”
“She’s the top astrologer in Beverly Hills. I trust her referrals more than most doctors.”
He squints, skeptical. “Still not sure I trust a therapist who comes with a star chart endorsement.”
“He works with a lot of movie stars. Sandra Bullock, Drew Barrymore, Charlize. Rumor has it he ghostwrote Matthew McConaughey’s memoir.”
He groans. “That just lowered his credibility.”
“What do you have against McConaughey?”
“I’ll explain over a drink,” he says, just as the light catches his eyes. “I own Icons. Bar on Santa Monica. Stop by after therapy next time. I’ll show you my kind of therapy. First bottle’s on me.”
“Is that your line?” she asks, hiding her smile.
“Only on women who look like they need a drink.”
“Well,” she says, laughing through the cringe. “Considering you just dove into a pool for me, I guess I owe you.”
Shane slings his damp shirt over his shoulder. “I’ll hold you to that,” he says as he backs away.
Raf watches him go, sunlight glinting off his back muscles, every step too graceful, a little too sure of himself.
Men like this one always are. And yet, something about him feels like the start of trouble. The kind she already knows she won’t resist.