Page 38 of Mane Rival in Store by Milly Taiden

“Myself. I am bringing myself.”

“Harrison mentioned you’ve been working with a colleague. The neighbor. The one with the rare editions. You should bring him.”

Lark glanced at Rune. He was studying the mock-up with exaggerated focus, pretending he couldn’t hear a phone conversation happening thirty-six inches from his ear. Scandinavians were many things. Subtle eavesdroppers was not among them.

“Mom—”

“Seven o’clock. The good china. Tell him your father has questions about quarterly performance.” The line went dead.

Lark stared at her phone. Turned to Rune. “My mother has invited you to Sunday dinner.”

“I gathered.”

“You don’t have to come. It’s a family thing. Loud. Overwhelming. My mother will interrogate you. My father will analyze your business model. My brother will text a live play-by-play to everyone he’s ever met.”

“What time?”

“Seven.”

“I’ll be there.”

He’d said yes without hesitation. The lion who evaluated every decision through three layers of strategic analysis had accepted a dinner invitation from a woman’s mother in under four seconds. Lark didn’t know what to do with that information, so she did what she always did: she made it a joke.

“Bring wine. Good wine. My father judges wine with the same rigor he judges P/E ratios.”

“I’ll make the appropriate selection.”

“That sounded like a business transaction.”

“Wine selection IS a transaction. There are variables. Region, vintage, the host’s palate preferences⁠—”

“Your Majesty.” She held up a hand. “Red. That’s the variable. Bring red.”

SIXTEEN

RUNE

The Coleman brownstone smelled like roasting pork, garlic, and the deep caramel sweetness of slow-cooked onions, and Rune’s lion had decided it was home before they cleared the front door.

This was a problem. His lion did not get to decide things. His lion had opinions about Lark Coleman’s laugh, her scent, her hair, and the Catwoman he’d placed on her counter that she had not mentioned once—which either meant she hadn’t received it, she was offended by it, or she understood exactly what it meant and was giving him the space to pretend he didn’t. His lion had opinions about all of these things. His lion was not in charge.

The brownstone’s front hallway was narrow and lined with photographs—generations of them, black-and-white to color to digital, faces and celebrations and milestones climbing the walls in no apparent order. Art between the photographs: a vibrant abstract in oranges and blues, a small oil portrait of a woman who shared Vivienne’s bone structure, a framed broadside from a 1960s civil rights march. The hallway told the family’s history in fragments, and Rune found himself slowing to read it the way he read origin stories—each piece a verification of origin.

Lark walked ahead of him, her natural curls loose tonight instead of blown straight, bouncing against her shoulders as she moved through the hallway with the ease of someone navigating her own bloodstream. She’d changed into a silk wrap dress in deep emerald that did things to her curves that he was not going to examine, and heeled sandals that clicked against the hardwood floors in a rhythm his lion tracked with the attention of a predator following a heartbeat.

Dinner. Her family. Behave.

“Lark, baby!” The voice came from the kitchen. Vivienne Coleman appeared in the doorway at the end of the hall, and Rune straightened by instinct.

She was taller than he’d expected. Striking in a way that had nothing to do with conventional beauty and everything to do with presence—the kind of woman who entered a room and the room paid attention, not because she demanded it but because ignoring her was a tactical error. Silver-streaked hair in loose waves tonight, dark eyes that swept from her daughter to Rune and performed a complete inventory in the time it took her to dry her hands on a dish towel.

“Mr. Sterling.” She extended her hand. The grip was firm, brief, and communicated more than most people managed in a paragraph. “Welcome. Lark tells me you appreciate curation. I hope you appreciate seasoning. The pernil has been marinating since Thursday.”

“Thank you for the invitation, Mrs. Coleman.”

“Professor Coleman.” The correction arrived with a smile that was gracious and non-negotiable. “But you may call me Vivienne. Once you’ve survived dinner.”

She is terrifying. His lion, inexplicably, approved.