Page 36 of The Silver Fox Brother

Ashford Design Collective: too traditional.

Studio Maren: too difficult.

Bennett & Associates: too safe.

The others: competent, qualified, acceptable.

But I keep going back to Winter Hayes Design.

I push away from my desk, stand, walk to the floor-to-ceiling windows. The city spreads out below—Manhattan in late afternoon, traffic crawling through intersections, people moving like ants between buildings. From forty stories up, it all looks manageable, organized, contained.

My thoughts take over. The truth is, I don't reallyknowWinter. I've seen her at family functions—maybe five times total over the past two years. We've exchanged hellos, nothing more. Brief conversations in passing, the kind of polite acknowledgments that happen when you're in the same room but not the same orbit.

I don't know her allegiance. Don't know if she'd even consider taking a meeting with me, let alone a project. The act of reaching out to schedule an appointment—she might be offended by that alone. Might see it as overstepping, as crossing some invisible line between her relationship with Rowan and my world.

From what I can tell, she and Rowan are tight. I've seen them together at events—her standing beside him, his hand on her back, the performance of a couple that looks good on the surface. And my parents seem to like her. Diane especially—I've noticed my mother talking to Winter at gatherings, her face animated in a way it rarely is with Rowan's other girlfriends over the years.

Winter's done projects for Sterling Commercial. She has a relationship with my family's business. Hiring her for Sterling Tower would be... complicated.

Business and personal conflict, tangled together.

I turn away from the window, pace back toward my desk. My mind is running through scenarios, implications, the ways this could go wrong.

Is part of me considering this because it would create tension? Because it would push buttons, cause friction, prove some point about boundaries and business decisions?

Maybe.

But that's not why I keep coming back to her page.

I keep coming back because my business acumen doesn't fail me. My instinct doesn't fail me. I've built Sterling Luxury Developments by trusting my gut when it tells me something is right, even when the optics are complicated.

And something about Winter Hayes Design feels right.

The timeline is tight—six months from contract to installation. The scope is massive—three full model units, custom everything, staging that has to tell a story compelling enough to justify eight-figure price tags. I need a designer who can handle that pressure, who won't cut corners, who understands that luxury isn't about showpieces but about creating spaces where people actually want to live.

Winter's portfolio suggests she gets that.

But would she even consider this? Big job, tight deadline, working with her boyfriend's brother on a project that would inevitably create family complications.

How would I even persuade her if she's hesitant?

The project itself is the strongest argument—career-defining work, portfolio addition that elevates her firm to a different level entirely. But if she's loyal to Rowan, if she's embedded in the Sterling Commercial ecosystem through my family, she might see this as betrayal.

The optics would be terrible. I know that. Rowan would lose his mind. My father would have opinions. Diane would try to mediate. The whole family dynamic—already strained—would fracture further.

One mention, stated as fact: this would cause more strife.

But I've never played it safe. I've never made business decisions based on keeping peace or avoiding conflict. I left Sterling Commercial ten years ago precisely because I was tired of letting family politics dictate my professional choices.

So why would I start now?

I sit back down at my desk, pull out Winter's page from the folder one more time. Stare at her firm's name, the list of projects, the evidence of talent and vision.

The smart move would be to choose one of the other nine firms. Keep things simple, avoid complications, hire someone competent and move forward.

But I didn't build what I've built by making the smart, safe move. I built it by trusting instinct–and my instinct keeps pulling me back to Winter Hayes Design.

I need to think on this. Not rush into a decision, not let the pressure of the Steinberg Group's Friday deadline force my hand. I have time—not much, but enough to sit with this, to weigh the implications properly.