Lauren
Muse Magazine always felt electric.Sage snapping pictures, Rina pitching ideas to Viv, Wren engrossed in her graphic design.
Lauren’s desk sat in the middle of it all, a handcrafted holdout in a sea of sophistication.
She’d worried, when she’d started, that they’d think she was kitschy. Too bright. Too Christmas. The team was effortlessly cool—people who wore asymmetrical coats and talked about typography—but they’d folded Lauren into the mix without irony.
She clicked to the January edition of the magazine. They’d celebrated her. And the world had followed their lead.
The feature had turned her inbox into a revolving door of opportunity—event planners, gallery curators, stylists who wanted “a Barrett original.”
Her website—Wren’s professional, color drenched masterpiece—was drawing interest, bookings, high end clientele who snapped up her limited availability greedily.
Every morning brought new commission requests: holiday installations, custom wreaths, centerpiece sculptures.
She’d stopped being embarrassed about her prices; the artistic set didn’t blink. Theywantedto pay her. Wereeagerto.
Sometimes the offers were so absurd she laughed aloud before typing yes.
Some days were a frenzy of scheduling and screening for Muse. But other days, most days, the quiet stretched long between calls. Long hours that she could dedicate to this new, exciting business.
And yet, today, she couldn’t focus on a single email.
Not after last night.
The easy rhythm of the card game—how she and Tom had found that old shorthand again, anticipating each other’s moves. The small, wordless connection between them.
And then… the shock of cold air, his hand steady at her waist, the heat that rolled through her like it had been waiting all this time.
What I want is to seduce you.
She could still hear his voice, rough and certain, like it came from somewhere deep.
Lauren exhaled, staring at the blinking cursor on her screen.
The moment Tom’s mouth had found hers—the shock of it, the inevitability of it. The way she had leaned in like she’d been starving.
She swallowed hard and clicked into another email.
It was from a wedding stylist who wanted twenty-five custom table toppers for an April ceremony. She tried to concentrate on the words.
God. Last night.
It hadn’t just been the kiss. Or the heat. Or the way her whole body had gone soft and reckless in his hands.
It was the way he’d looked at her. Like she wasn’t a mistake. Or an inconvenience. Like she was a choice he wanted to make again—deliberate and certain.
Lauren pressed her fingers to her forehead.
She couldn’t do this today. She couldn’t be glitter and confidence and “sure, I can make that in three weeks” when her insides were still melted.
She opened her calendar, scanning the week ahead—site visit at The Stockist tomorrow, two deadlines for mockups, a consult.
Busy. Full. Grounded.
This was her life now. The life she’d built without him.
Her gaze drifted to the edge of her monitor.
