“Black and gray are timeless,” Arden said with a shrug. “They speak without shouting.”
“They whisper ‘I’m plotting your demise,’ which is on-brand, I’ll give you that. But a little color could throw them off their game. Add some mystery.”
Arden chuckled, genuine and rare. “I’ll consider it.”
“You’d better,” Penny said, flicking her pencil. “Because when you show up with that look, that attitude? They’ll hand you the keys just to keep you from burning it all down.”
Arden tilted her head, catching something softer beneath Penny’s smile. Joking aside, she meant every word.
“I’ll figure it out,” Arden murmured, her voice low but steady.
“I know,” Penny replied, settling back like the scene was unfolding in her mind. “And I can’t wait to see it happen.”
Arden let the weight of those words sink in. Penny’s confidence was a kind of pressure: a lit match handed to someone made of dry tinder.
She reached for her wallet, knowing exactly what lay inside.
The black card lay inside, sleek and quiet, but dense with implication.
The Blackwell Room.
Even the name felt like a dare.
And Gideon?
His namewastemptation, waiting to be answered.
Her gaze flicked to the window. A sliver of her reflection stared back. Sharper. Steadier. Harder to ignore.
The kind of woman who didn’t just survive. She planned. She struck.
Music filtered through the walls again, low and pulsating; the tempo threaded possibility into the silence.
Outside, streetlights shimmered across the leather curve of her new coat.
Maybe caution had overstayed its welcome.
Maybe it was time to walk into fire and see who flinched first.
CHAPTER 6
First Impressions
City life murmured through the cracked window, a low rhythm beneath the hush of her room. Arden faced the mirror, outwardly calm, though a quiet tension stirred beneath her skin. Her black cigarette pants fit perfectly to her curves. The clean angles of her boots grounded her. She’d chosen the blouse carefully. Tailored enough to say she belonged, without trying too hard to prove it. A delicate silver watch rested on her wrist, quietly elegant, the kind meant to be worn, subtle rather than showy.
She reached for the silver hoops, twisting them gently until they caught the light. One last detail. Subtle. Intentional.
Earlier that week, Penny had dragged her on a marathon shopping spree, determined to inject color into Arden’s wardrobe. To Penny’s horror, Arden had bought black in every texture known to mankind. Silk? Naturally. Leather? Without question. Soft knits, tailored blazers, a whisper of lace? Yes, yes, and obviously.
You can never have too much black.
Penny had groaned, throwing her hands skyward. “Why do I even try?”
Arden had shrugged. “As if you expected anything different.”
Now, she flicked a stray piece of lint from her sleeve and turned to the business card perched on the dresser. The Blackwell Room. The silver embossing caught the light: clean, deliberate, like it had something to hide. It felt unreal, like stepping into a story made of shadows and velvet, where everything important happened just out of sight.
The woman in the mirror looked too composed, or that she belonged. Arden wasn’t sure she did. She wasn’t reckless. Not usually. She wasn’t the kind ofwoman who walked into Manhattan’s most exclusive club just because a stranger handed her a card.
