My mother joins me at the window, following my gaze downward. “It’s a hell of a view,” she remarks.
“Yes…” I agree, “but it still doesn’t feel right.”
She nods. “Then we’ll keep looking.”
Afterward, we walk the short distance to Le Pavillon, all glass and greenery, serene amid the city’s noise. Light spills across the tables, softening even the sharp lines of the suits nearby. The hostess greets my mother by name,naturally, and we’re shown to a table by the window, a vase of tulips dividing the space between us.
We talk about nothing of consequence.
She tells me about a pianist she’s trying to secure for her next fundraiser, and I tease her about her knack for collecting prodigies. She pretends not to be flattered.
It’s pleasant. Unremarkable in the best way.
At one point she asks, “Are you sleeping any better?”
“When Olivia’s beside me.”
She doesn’t inquire further. She simply says, “Good.”
Lunch settles into an ease we haven’t had in years—the kind that used to live in some distant past before everything came apart and was put back together with visible seams.
By midafternoon, we arrive at the Hayden Planetarium. The private dome is still and perfectly tempered, the air artificially cool, the floor swallowing sound. When the lights dim, the ceiling comes alive—stars multiplying across the darkness, their glow almost mathematical.
I think of yesterday’s talk of providence and bent universes and how sometimes the only thing that makes order of the world is the person who stands inside it with you, and for a second, I let myself believe this could work. The wonder of it all. The idea of asking her beneath this manufactured sky.
But then the sterile perfection of it gives me pause. It’s beautiful, but it lacks a pulse.
My mother must sense it. She slips her arm through mine and says softly, “Another maybe?”
I nod. “Another no.”
She gives a small, indulgent smile. “There will be others.”
I drop her off at Westchester afterward. When we reach the estate, she touches my wrist briefly before stepping out. “You’re closer than you think, darling.”
On the ride back to Manhattan, the city glides past in streaks of glass and light. Every grand, orchestrated vision I had feels wrong now. Too polished, too far from the undeniable gravity that exists between Olivia and me.
Still, the day has left me restless. Hours spent imagining how I might ask her have wound something tight inside me. The only thing I crave is the simple truth of her in my arms—the worldnarrowing to that small, perfect center where everything else falls away.
By the time the car pulls into the private drive beneath Caldwell Tower, that need has condensed into urgency—an energy that feels almost electric under my skin. The doorman greets me, but I barely hear him. I move through the lobby and into the elevator with the single-minded focus of someone closing in on something vital. The ascent is painful, each floor ticking by slower than thought, until I’m half-tempted to pry the doors open.
When I step out onto the floor of Caldwell Ventures, I’m greeted by a manufactured stillness that is particular to power—the low hum of computers, the measured voices from distant rooms. I pass rows of desks, eyes scanning without seeing, guided more by instinct than direction.
Then, through the glass wall of a conference room, I see her.
She’s standing by the window, phone pressed to her ear. Her posture is composed, but there’s an undercurrent of excitement to her that pulls at me. I can’t hear the words, only fragments of her tone—soft, steady, edged with a kind of wonder.
“That would be wonderful. Thank you.”
Then, she ends the call but doesn’t move, her gaze distant, caught on whatever she’s just heard. She seems almost awestruck as a small, private smile blooms on her face like she’s holding onto a secret she hasn’t yet spoken aloud.
That smile undoes me. Because I don’t know what—orwho—put it there.
The tenderness turns in on itself, jealousy tightening around it like a fist. I want to know the source of that light—and I want it to be me, every time.
Before I can think better of it, I cross the room, the sound of my steps swallowed by the carpet. “Baby?”
She turns, startled. The smile vanishes. What replaces it is too quick to hide—a flicker of anxiety, almost resembling guilt, breaking through before she schools her face.
