Page 28

“You’ve said ‘tension ratio’ six times in four minutes about a man you refuse to discuss the tension with.” Lila set her glass down with the precision of someone laying a winning hand. “That’s not subtext. That’s a headline.”

Marco planted both elbows on the table, chin in his hands, a man settling into the second act of the best play he’d seen all season. He’d angled his whole body toward her, fully committed, the posture of someone who had cleared his calendar for exactly this. “Keep going. This is the good part.”

“There is no good part. There’s a commission. There’s a very controlling man who owns the building it’s in. That’s the whole story.”

“That’s not the whole story.” Marco pointed a fork at her like a gavel, jabbing it twice for emphasis. “That’s act one. I know the difference. I’ve seen every romantic comedy made since 1987, several twice, one under duress, at gunpoint practically, don’t ask.” He set the fork down, picked up his water glass, and gestured with it like a man conducting an orchestra only he could hear. “The controlling-billionaire-with-a-secret-heart arc has three acts, minimum. You are currently living act one, scene three. I would know. I’ve built entire sculptures around lesser plots than this.”

“You’re spiraling,” Lila said, pleasant, over the rim of her glass. “I’m documenting it. Mentally. I don’t have a notebook on me, but I have an excellent memory and very little mercy.”

“I’m discussing my job.”

“Your job doesn’t make you talk with your hands like that.” Jessa mimicked the gesture — a rapid chop that looked far less dignified without a wine glass forgotten in the moving hand. She nearly clipped Marco’s ear doing it. He didn’t even flinch, long since immune. “That’s a different kind of talking with your hands.”

“There’s one kind.”

“There are several, and you’re doing the one that means you’re avoiding something.” Jessa reached across and flipped Romily’s phone facedown, gentle, the way you’d disarm a toddler. “No looking at that either.”

“Nothing’s on it, I promise.”

“Then you definitely won’t miss it.”

It came out mid-drink, mid-sentence, almost an afterthought — the kind of thing you say once you’ve stopped guarding a door you assumed nobody was still trying to get through.

“He looks at me like I already belong to him.”

The table went dead silent. Somewhere behind the bar a glass clinked against another glass, and for one second, it was the loudest sound in the city. Nobody reached for their drink. Nobody breathed in any way that made noise.

“Oh.” Lila set her glass down. “You are in so much danger.”

“We love this for you.” Jessa already had her phone back up, thumbs flying, recording the moment for posterity before Romily could take it back and pretend it hadn’t happened.

Marco slammed both palms flat on the table, rattling the silverware, half-rising out of his seat, visibly overcome — a man watching his favorite plot twist confirmed in real time. “This is not a problem. This is a plot.” He sat back down, fanned himself with a napkin, serious about needing the air. “I need a minute. I wasn’t prepared for this level of confirmation tonight.”

“It’s not a plot. It’s a scheduling conflict with feelings attached.”

“Say the sentence again, please.” Marco leaned in so far, his chair creaked, elbows nearly in the breadbasket. “Slower. I want to frame it. I want it embroidered on something.”

“Absolutely not.”

“He looks at me like I already belong to him,” Jessa recited from memory, having committed it to permanent record on first hearing, word for word, no notes required. “That’s not a man overseeing a commission. That’s a man doing long division on what he’s going to do about you.”

“Romily.” Lila’s dry edge dropped into a register that was almost gentle, which read as more alarming than the sarcasm. “A man assigned you security without asking, and you found out by counting city blocks. You’re describing the kind of possessive attention most people wait a decade for, and you’re calling it a scheduling conflict.”

“I didn’t ask for the security.”

“Nobody said you asked.” Jessa stole a fry off Marco’s plate without looking, an old reflex nobody commented on, not even Marco, who had long since stopped defending that territory and had, in fact, started ordering extra fries specifically to absorb the loss. “We’re saying you kept it. You’re still in that building every day. You could’ve walked. You didn’t.”

“I have a contract.”

“You have several exits from that contract you haven’t used.” Lila reached for the wine bottle and refilled her own glass without asking, the move of someone who considered herself owed it. “I’m choosing not to list them individually, out of respect for what’s left of your dignity, though I could. I have the list. It’s a good list.”

“It’s a good commission. Best work I’ve done in years.”

“Nobody’s arguing the work isn’t good.” Jessa’s voice lost its edge for as long as the moment required, the true-crime cadence dropping into a quieter register. “We’re saying the work isn’t the only reason you’re still there. You don’t need a tidy explanation. You’re allowed to just be in it.”

Romily didn’t have a clean answer for that, and the table let the silence make its point before Marco, mercifully, pivoted to his upcoming show and let her breathe again. He talked about welding torches with the enthusiasm of a man narrating his own wedding, gesturing so widely he nearly knocked over the bread basket twice, and she had never in her life been more grateful for a change of subject.

She left a little after midnight, hugged twice, subjected to one more of Marco’s aggressive well-wishes, and started the six-minute walk to her car two drinks deep and far more honest than planned.