Chapter Three · I'd Rather Be Alone Than Drained Again. (1)

I didn't sleep. I did the thing I always did when the world tried to take something from me: I fought. At 7 a.m. I was on the phone with Reyes's office, armed with charm and professional courtesy and the quiet desperation of a woman whose entire life was balanced on one signature. I got nowhere. "Standard diligence." "Nothing personal." "We'll be in touch."

By nine, I'd run the numbers three times, like a ritual. Studio overhead: \$11,400 a month. Savings: enough for two months, if I stopped eating out, which I already had. The Reyes contract was 70% of my year.

At 9:47, my phone rang. Reyes's office, returning my call. I braced for the knife.

"Hi, Maren! So sorry for the mix-up this morning — total clerical error on our end. Mr. Reyes has signed everything; it's fully executed, you're all set. And congratulations!"

I gripped the counter. "Congratulations?"

"Oh, didn't you hear? Ashford Capital's hospitality division just shortlisted your studio for their flagship project — the new Pacific Heights property. A representative will be reaching out today. Mr. Reyes says he put in a good word. Well, not a word. More like an entire speech."

The line went dead. I stood in my kitchen, phone in hand, heart pounding.

I hadn't applied to Ashford Capital. I hadn't even known they had a hospitality division.

That afternoon, a man knocked on my studio door. It was the gray-eyed one from the gala — Silas — holding a paper bag and a card, with the expression of someone who'd been sentenced to delivery duty.

"Ms. Cole," he said. "From Mr. Ashford. Consider it a professional courtesy."

Inside the bag: a cup of coffee — the exact order I'd made at the gala bar, oat milk, extra shot, one raw sugar — and a hardback monograph on Scandinavian light theory that I'd posted about online exactly once, eleven months ago, to an audience of forty people. The card said, in handwriting I'd never seen but already knew:

You don't have to pay for love, Maren. It's the one thing that was never for sale. — K.

"Silas," I said carefully, "how does he know what I order in coffee shops?"

Silas looked at me with the weary patience of a man who'd been asked this question about his employer many times. "Ms. Cole, with respect: he knows what you ordered at the gala bar because he asked. He knows about the monograph because he reads. He's not a miracle. He's just very, very interested."

"That's insane."

"Yes," Silas agreed, without irony. "He's been like this since the gala. I apologize in advance."

"Like what?"

"Insufferable." He said it flatly, and for one second his mouth twitched in what might have been a smile. "Also, he asked me to tell you that the Reyes contract was never in danger. He's had eyes on it since Tuesday. Mara Quinn's 'little birds' work for a man who owes him a favor, and he's called it in. The contract is signed. The threat is gone. He didn't tell you because — " Silas paused, consulting something in his memory like a butler checking a list. " — because he said, and I quote, 'she doesn't trust gifts. She trusts results. Give her results.'"

I stood in my own doorway, holding a coffee I hadn't paid for, and felt something in my chest crack along a fault line I'd spent years sealing.

"Tell him," I said, and my voice came out strange, "that I don't owe him anything."

"He said you'd say that. He said to tell you: 'No. You don't. That's the point.'"

Silas left. I closed the door and stood in the dark studio, and I did not cry. I had a strict policy about crying in rooms I'd built to make other people feel safe.

My mother called. I ignored it. My mother called again. I ignored it. The third time, I picked up, because I was an idiot who still checked for the knife in the birthday cake.

"Sweetheart!" — new voice. Warm. Bright. The voice she used with people she wanted something from. "We heard all about your big night! The Ashford gala! My baby, moving in those circles! I always knew you'd make us proud!"

"Mom. What do you want?"

"Want? Nothing! Just — your father and I were thinking, since you're so connected now, Jax could use a door in. That Ashford man — what a catch! — maybe he needs a young, hungry intern. Your brother is so talented, Maren. You just never believed in him."

"I believe in him exactly as much as the evidence allows."

"Don't be snippy. And Saturday — the engagement dinner. We need you there, obviously. And don't worry about the down payment, we already told the Realtor you're handling it. We're so proud, baby. We'll see you Saturday. Bring your new friend!"

The line went dead. I stared at the phone like it had bitten me.

Then the door burst open and Zoe came through it like a hurricane in platform boots, holding a bottle of cheap rosé and an expression of unholy glee.

"Guess who's parked outside," she announced, "in a rented Escalade, wearing a suit that fits him like a hostage situation? Your entire family. They've been out there for ten minutes. Your dad just took a selfie with the Escalade."

"No."

"Oh, yes. And —" Zoe held up her phone, showing me a live story from my father's account: a video of the three of them against the Escalade, captioned PROUD OF OUR DAUGHTER THE BILLIONAIRE'S NEW FRIEND!!! with approximately forty crying-laughing emojis.

"Richard, is that a comb-over or a cry for help?" Zoe read aloud, delighted. "That's my comment, already posted."

I walked to the window. There they were: my father, my mother, and Jax — Jax in a suit two sizes too tight, checking his reflection in the Escalade's window like a man who'd never been told the truth in his life.

"Maren." Zoe's voice went soft. "You okay?"

"No," I said. "I'm not." And I said it to the window, to the family in the rented Escalade, to the twenty-four years of being the ATM with a pulse: "Family is not love. It's a transaction. And I'm done being the one who pays."

Zoe went very still. "Say that again when they're in the room."

I did. I opened the door, and I let them in, and I watched them fan out across my studio like locusts with good intentions. My mother oohed over my samples. My father asked how much "a place like this" costs to rent, and whether the landlord would cut him a deal if I vouched for him. Jax made a beeline for my liquor cabinet and came out with a bottle I'd been saving for a client gift.