“Coffee would be great. Thank you.”
He laid the printed plans on the low table and talked them through the changes—how the extension stepped out to meet the garden, how the vaulted ceiling would catch the light, how the circulation would make the new rooms feel like part of the original house. Warmth, not show. Welcome, not showroom.
Mr. Kent nodded as Tom spoke, his interest sharpening. “This is… excellent,” he said at last, almost surprised. “It looks like a place people will actually live.”
“That’s the idea,” Tom said, and felt something steady settle inside his chest.
Mrs. Kent leaned in, pearls catching the winter sun. “I love the window wall. And this—” she tapped the little nook he’d tucked beside the French doors—“it’s charming.”
“I can bring material samples next,” Tom said. “We can talk texture.”
“That would be wonderful,” she said. “Let me just ring Lila. I’d like her to peek at this if she’s free.”
The Kents excused themselves—one to make a call, one to answer a buzzing phone—and Tom was left alone in the quiet.
He let out a slow breath and glanced around the room. On the marble-topped coffee table sat a small stack of magazines—art and architecture journals, a gardening quarterly—and on top, glossy and familiar:Muse.
Lauren’s office. Lauren’s people.
He remembered that cold afternoon after Christmas—how he’d thought a bouquet could fix what he’d broken. He’d waited outside the building like an idiot, expecting a grateful text, and instead watched a wave of women pour onto the pavementaround his wife. Shoulders squared, eyes bright, protective in a way he hadn’t known how to be.
He’d hated that it wasn’t him even as he’d been grateful it was anyone at all.
He reached for the magazine and flipped through on instinct, not sure what he was looking for until the page found him.
Lauren.
Studio light edging her in soft glow. She wore a pale sweater with a smear of paint at the cuff and a pair of jeans she’d had for years. Hair falling loose, her roots starting to show under the dye. She was… breathtaking. Luminous. It hit him low and hard, the simple fact of her. God, she looked good to him. She always did.
His eyes dropped to what she held.
A wooden plaque, coral-bright, layered and loud in a way that felt like her laughing. White letters, blunt and unapologetic:
DIVORCED AF
For a beat the words didn’t compute.
Divorced. AF.
Tom’s stomach hollowed. The caption under the photo was tidy and merciless:Reinvention through craft. Artist Lauren Barrett, photographed for Muse’s February issue.
Artist, he thought, dazed. Yes. Of course she is.
He stared until the edges of the page blurred.
She was an artist and this was her statement.
Pride and pain twisted together until he wasn’t sure which was which. She looked powerful. Free. Exactly the way he’d always been too cowardly to let her be.
He closed the magazine gently and set it back where it had been.
Footsteps returned down the hall. He straightened, rolling his shoulders once, and turned back to the plans.
“Apologies,” Mrs. Kent said, breezing in with a smile. “Lila’s tied up for the next hour, but she trusts us.”
She tapped the corner of the top sheet. “Let’s do it,” she said. “This version.”
“Great,” Tom managed, professional and even, and slid a simple next-steps sheet across the table. Measurements. Survey. Materials meeting. He kept his voice steady through the small logistics, even as the image of Lauren—steady, sure, holding that plaque—burned in the back of his mind.
