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“I don’t—” Romily’s voice caught somewhere between amusement and an emotion she wasn’t remotely prepared to name in a crowded reception. “Mrs. Petrov, I’m not⁠—”

“I know you’re not. Not yet, dear.” She patted Romily’s hand, unfazed by the distinction. “I’ve been knitting it for a while. A woman my age develops instincts about these things, and mine have never been wrong about a guest in this hotel. You’ll need it eventually, and I’d rather have it ready than caught unprepared when the time comes.”

“I don’t know whether to be offended or touched. I’m leaning touched, against my own better judgment, though I might change my mind again once I’ve had more champagne.”

“Both, dear. It’s usually both.” She patted Romily’s arm once, too satisfied with herself, and moved off toward the next unsuspecting guest, mission apparently accomplished.

Romily looked down at the sweater in her hands for a long moment, then up at Norden across the room, and decided that conversation could wait for much later in the evening.

Norden

He watched her work the room for the better part of an hour before he let himself claim any of her attention for his own.

It was, he’d decided somewhere around the third glass of champagne he hadn’t touched, the correct way to spend an evening — standing at a comfortable distance, watching a woman he’d been certain about since a single photograph on his desk hold court in a room she’d built out of nothing but conviction and real stubbornness.

Elena had revised a position she’d held since the beginning. Darius had extracted a toast out of her without breaking a sweat. Jessa had asked whether they were rich, which he privately considered the single most honest question anyone had put to him all evening. Mrs. Petrov had produced, from an enormous bag, evidence that she’d known how this was going to end before either of them had.

He found he minded none of it. He found, watching her, that he’d stopped minding a good many things in the last six weeks, and had no interest whatsoever in reversing the trend.

Victor found him near the bar at one point, wearing an expression Norden rarely saw from him — a slight loosening around the eyes, gone as quickly as it arrived.

“Jen took the deal. Cooperation in exchange for the company not pressing charges, on the condition she never sets foot in a building with my name on it again.” He said this without heat, a closed file rather than an open wound. “Legal wanted her prosecuted. I wanted to know how twelve years of being overlooked turns into a woman letting armed men into a corridor before anyone thought to ask her a real question. We’re doing something about the second part — a formal grievance channel, reviewed outside the building’s own chain of command, so the next person who’s been quietly furious for a decade has somewhere to put it besides a keycard.”

“Good,” Norden said, and meant it.

“Tarek’s holding company dissolved days ago. Officially, a competitor bought out the remaining two properties in a quiet transaction nobody’s asking questions about, because nobody left standing on his side particularly wants to explain what happened in that building. Unofficially—” Victor’s mouth flattened, the closest he came to acknowledging any of it. “Unofficially, he’s not coming back, and I’ve stopped waiting for him to.”

“The atrium’s holding up structurally. Elena’s already drafting a press release.”

“Good.”

“You’re staring.”

“I’m aware.” He didn’t stop. “I intend to keep doing it for the remainder of the evening, and likely a good deal longer than that.”

“The bees send their regards. Agitated, both nights this week, far more than usual. I’ve come to trust their judgment on matters like this more than my own, at this point in my career.”

“And their verdict.”

“Approval. Cautious, but genuine, which from six beehives is about as strong an endorsement as any of us are likely to get in this lifetime.” Victor’s mouth twitched, the barest suggestion of amusement, and he moved off without further comment, leaving Norden exactly where he wanted to be.

Norden crossed the room once the crowd thinned, found her hand without announcing the decision, and led her toward the elevator with the same easy certainty he’d been carrying since the scaffolding.

The rooftop terrace held its usual warmth, fire pits glowing steady around the perimeter, the city sprawling out below in every direction, indifferent to the fact that two floors down, a decade-long argument had finally, permanently settled itself.

She went to the railing and looked down at the atrium, visible through the terrace’s glass edge, her light still moving through the installation two floors beneath them, alive in a way marble alone had never managed. He stood beside her in the same steady way he’d been standing beside her since the day she’d first climbed the scaffolding without asking permission.

“We disappeared without telling anyone.”

“I told you. I don’t intend to make that a habit going forward, but tonight I claimed executive privilege.”

“That’s not, strictly, a real thing.”

“It is now. I invented it two minutes ago, for tonight alone, and I intend to use it liberally.” He draped his jacket over her shoulders against the cold, in no rush, certain, the same possessive care he’d been applying to her comfort since the night of the alley. “What’s next?”

“That’s an alarmingly broad question for a man who usually arrives with a full itinerary and a stack of supporting documentation.”

He weighed the question with the care he gave anything worth considering.