She comes around the counter and reaches for it like it is sacred. “I could kiss you.”
“Do not get powdered sugar on my face,” I say, even though it makes her laugh.
Delphine pulls out a beignet and takes a bite withouthesitation. Sugar dusts her lips. She wipes it away with the back of her hand, then points at me with it.
“You met with Laurent this morning, right?”
I set my coffee on the counter and lean against it, careful to keep my blouse from touching anything sticky. “I did.”
Delphine studies me in a way she only does when she is trying to see past what I am saying. “So…? How was it?”
“Fine,” I say. “It gets a little better each time.”
Delphine’s brows lift. “Three's a charm, right?”
I let out a quiet breath and tilt my head, conceding. “Yeah. Today makes the third time I've seen him since I've been back. We're getting there.”
Delphine hums. “Look at you. Miss Boundaries.”
“Don't call me that,” I say, but I secretly like it.
She wipes sugar from her fingers with a napkin, then rests her hip against the counter beside me. “So what does this mean? Are you back in his orbit?”
I meet her eyes. Delphine never asks out of gossip. She asks because she has been there for every version of me. The obedient daughter. The restless one. The one who finally chose herself and went across the country to learn a craft that had nothing to do with power and everything to do with taste and patience.
“It means we can sit at a table,” I say. “In public without fighting.”
Delphine nods slowly. “That's… something.”
“It's not him pulling me back,” I add, because I need her to understand the shape of it. “It's him learning that I am not coming back in that way.”
She takes another beignet and holds it out to me. I take it, and the warmth sinks into my palm. I tear off a piece and savor the sugar as it melts on my tongue. For a second,I am eight years old and my mother is laughing, and my father is watching from the edge of the room like he is keeping the world at bay.
I swallow and let the moment pass.
Delphine watches me. “Okay,” she says. “Tell me about your real day.”
I lift my eyes. “Tonight.”
Her expression shifts immediately. Interest. Pride. A little excitement she is not trying to hide. “Wine night.”
“It's the big private tasting I've spent the last four weeks buying for,” I say, and the words still thrill me when I say them out loud. “Full buyout. Twenty-four guests, four courses and eight bottles that cost more than my first car.”
Delphine whistles softly. “And you curated it.”
“I curated it,” I repeat, and this time I let myself feel it. The months in California where my feet ached and my hands smelled like cork and my mind stayed sharp from dawn until late night. The tests. The tastings. The way I learned to trust my own palate without someone else telling me what is valuable.
Delphine leans closer. “Who’s coming?”
“Names you have heard,” I say. “People who pretend they do not run the city and then run it anyway. Lawyers. Investors. Old families. New money trying to look old.”
Delphine’s smile turns sly. “So basically your father’s friends.”
“Some of them,” I admit. “Not all. This is not his event. It is mine.”
“And you're excited,” she says, like she is pleased to catch it.
“I am,” I tell her, and I do not soften it. “I worked for this.”
