Page 79 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

She studies the rendering. Then she nods. “I like it.”

Malcolm makes a wounded sound.

“The limestone needs to change too,” I say.

“I already approved that stone.”

“Under showroom light.”

I carry the selected sample toward the north windows. The cream undertone deepens almost immediately, turning dull and yellow against the gray daylight. I place it against the plaster mock-up.

Amelia gasps. “I hate it.”

Malcolm looks personally betrayed by the stone. Maya hands me the color sample without being asked. I place it beside the first. Cleaner. Softer. Cool enough to work with the light without making the apartment feel cold.

“This one,” Amelia says.

“That adds six weeks,” Malcolm argues.

“Four,” I say.

“Six.”

“Maya?”

“Four.”

Malcolm turns toward Mikhail, perhaps hoping for male solidarity. “You understand that material changes at this stage affect the entire schedule.”

Mikhail turns to me. “Tamara makes the design decisions,” he says. “I make sure everyone else can execute them.”

Nothing threatening in the words. Nothing that can be challenged either.

Malcolm looks back at the samples. “Four weeks.”

“Excellent.”

After that, the rest moves quickly. Lighting revisions. Furniture placement. A correction to the library millwork. Amelia argues, I push back, and somewhere along the way she stops watching me for signs that marriage has made me unreliable, and starts listening instead.

By the time we return to the dining table, she signs the revised scope without hesitation.

“I’ll admit,” she says, capping her pen. “I was concerned.”

“About the schedule?”

“About you.” I meet her eyes. “There was a wedding nobody knew was happening. Then you became unavailable. I assumed your priorities had changed.”

“They have,” I say. “Not in this room.”

Amelia studies me for a moment. Then she slides the signed scope across the table.

“Good. The Whitmores are buying the apartment below theirs, and their current designer believes beige is a point of view.”

Maya’s pen stills. “Are you referring them?”

“I’m considering saving them.”

“I’ll accept either interpretation.”