She stepped away. Wiped her eyes with the heel of her palm. Squared her shoulders. His arms dropped—reluctantly, she noticed. Reluctantly enough that the space between them hummed.
“What do you need from me?” His voice was low. She could read the tension in his shoulders. Every line of him said fix it right now. He was asking her what she needed instead. Handing her the controls.
The words came from a place she hadn’t expected to access today.
“I need you to stand beside me. Not in front of me. Beside.”
“Done.”
One word. No argument, no negotiation, no alpha posturing. Done.
Evening.The studio had emptied hours ago. The fluorescent hum of the building at night wrapped around them—the low pulse of machinery, the creak of old architecture settling into its bones.
He’d ordered pizza. She’d protested—“I’m perfectly capable of feeding myself”—and then eaten three slices before the box hit the drafting table. Pepperoni. Extra cheese. The kind of order that belonged to a Tuesday night between friends, not to a billionaire publisher and the artist whose career he’d publicly staked his name on that morning.
They sat near the drafting table, backs against the wall. Pizza box between them. The press conference, the blog post, the tears in his office—all of it felt like a different century.
“So.” She tore the crust off her fourth slice. “Tell me something about you that isn’t in a press release.”
He considered this. “I can’t cook.”
“That’s not a revelation. You order food like a man who’s never seen the inside of a grocery store.”
“I’ve seen the inside. I bought olive oil once. The wrong kind. Kael hasn’t let me forget it.”
“What kind?”
“Truffle-infused.”
She choked on her pizza. “For what?”
“Pasta.”
“You made pasta with truffle oil?”
“Kael ate two bites and threw the rest away. And I’m quoting: ‘This tastes like a forest floor had a nervous breakdown.’”
The laugh escaped before she could catch it—full, unguarded, the kind that bent her forward and made her press her hand against her sternum. He watched it happen. The way it transformed her face—the guarded edges dissolving, the sharp wit softening into pure, uncomplicated delight.
“Your turn.” The words came out lower than he’d intended.
“I haven’t been on a date in two years.” The words went to the pizza box, not to him. “After Harlan—not because of Harlan specifically. If I could be that wrong about a mentor, how could I trust myself to pick someone to—” She stopped. Shrugged. “Mika says I weaponized my independence. She’s probably right.”
“Two years.”
“Don’t make it sound tragic. I had Nightbloom. I had deadlines. I had a printer in Queens who kept getting my page order wrong. Romance was low on the priority list.”
“I haven’t drawn for myself in several years.” The admission came out before he’d authorized it. “The drawer has been locked since the elders decided art was a liability for an alpha. Kael’s the only one who’s seen what’s inside.”
“Years.” She turned the number over the way he’d turned hers. “That’s a long time to hide the best part of yourself.”
He looked at the pizza box. At the wall. At her—cross-legged on his studio floor with tomato sauce on her thumb and mascara still smudged from crying in his office. The most beautiful person he’d ever shared a meal with.
She was quiet for a moment. “My parents curated the living side of my loft. The furniture, the art on the walls—that’s their taste, their eye. When I moved in, they spent a weekendarranging it. My mom cried when she hung the last piece. They’ve never seen the studio side in full chaos. I think it would terrify them. Or maybe it wouldn’t. My mom told me once that fear makes terrible art.”
“Smart woman.”
“She’s terrifying. You’ll—” She caught herself. Flushed. Redirected with the speed of a woman who’d been rerouting conversational near-misses for years. “She makes this Dominican sancocho that could end wars. Mika says it’s the reason I survived indie publishing.”
