Page 2 of Mane Rival in Store

“I sound hungry.” Gerri bit into her cookie. “There’s a difference.”

Ozara laughed — the easy laugh of a mother whose son was mated, settled, and no longer her problem in the romantic department — and drifted toward Colette Keiser, who was holding court near the bar with a story about Dojin and Nari’s latest domestic catastrophe involving a broken dishwasher and a bear who refused to call a repairman because he could “fix it himself.”

He could not fix it himself. He’d flooded the kitchen. Nari had recorded the whole thing.

Gerri smiled and turned her attention to the blonde.

Astrid Sterling approached how a glacier approaches a coastline: with unhurried, inevitable certainty.

She was tall — five-ten, at least — with silver-blonde hair cut in a precise bob that framed a face of extraordinary cheekbones and pale blue-gray eyes. She wore coral cashmere over black trousers, a single statement earring of hammered gold, and the look of someone who had never in her life needed to repeat herself. The air around her dropped two degrees. This was not metaphorical. Gerri had attended enough shifter social functions to recognize the ambient effect of a high-ranking lion in a confined space.

“Mrs. Wilder.” The accent was Scandinavian — clipped, musical, precise.

“Astrid.” Gerri extended her hand and watched the flicker of surprise cross those pale eyes — there and gone, suppressed with the efficiency of a woman who considered visible surprise a personal failing. “I was wondering when you’d make your approach. The cheese table was a nice staging ground, but you’ve been here twenty minutes and you haven’t eaten a single cube. Strategic positioning without commitment. Very lion.”

Astrid’s handshake was firm, cool, and measured exactly three seconds. “You know who I am.”

“Darling, I knew who you were before you walked in.” Gerri selected a cookie from the tray. “Vivienne Coleman mentioned you’d be coming. And even if she hadn’t — I make it my business to know the mothers. Especially the ones who arrive without an RSVP and spend twenty minutes pretending they’re here for the Gruyère.”

Astrid Sterling was not a woman who filled silences with nervous chatter. She occupied them how her species occupied territory: completely, calmly, daring anyone to challenge the claim.

“I have a son,” she said.

“Rune Aleksander Sterling. Thirty-four. CEO of Sterling & Mane International. Alpha of the Sterling Pride since his father retired twelve years ago.” Gerri bit into her cookie. “He’s accomplished, disciplined, responsible, and — if the social pages are any indication — hasn’t been photographed with a date in over three years. How am I doing?”

Astrid studied her with the expression of someone recalibrating a significant assumption. “Vivienne said you were thorough.”

“Vivienne is generous. I’m nosy and I just know. There’s a difference, but the results are the same.”

A shift passed through Astrid’s composure — not a crack, exactly, but a deliberate loosening. The decision to stop performing and start talking. “He has been leading since he was twenty-two, and he has done it brilliantly. The pride respects him. The business thrives under him. He is disciplined, serious, and controlled.” Each word arrived like a tile being placed in a mosaic. “He is also incapable of having a normal conversation with a woman he finds attractive. He becomes...” Astrid’s lips thinned. “Architectural.”

Gerri’s cookie paused halfway to her mouth. “Architectural.”

“Rigid. Formal. He compliments their revenue models. He discusses market trends. He once told a woman her earrings demonstrated ‘excellent material sourcing.’” She sighed. “She didn’t call back.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

“He doesn’t know how to be warm.” Astrid’s voice softened — the first real crack in the glacial exterior, and Gerri leaned into it how a safecracker leans into a tumbler click. “He used to be. As a boy, he was warm and curious and gentle. Then his father retired and handed him the pride, and two senior members challenged his authority immediately.

“He had to prove himself, and the proving cost him every soft impulse he had.” Her fingers tightened around her champagne flute. “He won. He earned their respect. But the boy who collected comics in his bedroom and organized them by publication date at age nine — that boy went underground. And I would very much like him to come back.”

Gerri set down her cookie. This was the moment — the fulcrum on which every match turned. Not the credentials, not the wealth, not the accomplishments. The wound. Every parent who came to her carried a version of the same story: my child is extraordinary, and they are alone, and I can see the part of them that’s hiding, and I cannot reach it.

“Tell me about the neighbor,” Gerri said.

Astrid blinked. The first genuinely unguarded expression Gerri had seen on that immaculate face. “I haven’t mentioned a neighbor.”

“You haven’t. But you arrived with the energy of someone who has a specific situation, not a general concern. There’s someone already in the picture — someone who’s disrupted his routine.” Gerri dusted cookie crumbs from her fingers. “I’ve matched lions before, Astrid. When their territory is disturbed, they don’t shut down. They obsess. And you have the look of a mother whose son has been obsessing.”

The silence stretched. Astrid Sterling studied Gerri how one might study a rival chess player who’d opened with an unexpected gambit.

“A woman has leased the storefront next to his flagship location in SoHo,” Astrid said. “She’s opening a boutique. Villain-themed merchandise, cosmetics, cosplay supplies. Loud music. Purple neon. Everything my son considers an aesthetic assault on his very existence.”

“And he’s upset.”

“He’s been ranting for three days.”

“Three days.” Gerri let the words settle. “That’s a considerable amount of energy directed at a storefront he claims to dislike.”