Late.
Jonathan POV
By seven o'clock, I've closed a deal that puts our towers in three new cities, and my phone hasn't stopped buzzing since.
Congratulations from the board. A call from a reporter who wants to know what's next for the fastest-growing firm in the country. My assistant, apologizing for the third time that my driver is waiting downstairs.
I'm thirty-eight years old, I run a luxury real estate company that employs eleven thousand people, and the city sees me as a man who gets everything he wants. Floor-to-ceiling glass, a view of the whole skyline, and a pen that signs away more money in a morning than most families see in a lifetime.
On the kitchen island at home, there's a note waiting that I haven't read yet. I know what it says. Soup's on the stove. Don't work too hard, with a small, lopsided heart beside it, drawn the same way for six years.
I take the private elevator down instead of going home.
The driver doesn't ask where. He never does.
Manhattan thins into bridge cables and black water, and by the time I climb Amara's stoop in Brooklyn, my pulse is doing something no merger has ever managed.
She opens the door before I can knock. Barefoot, a pencil stabbed through her bun, a streak of ochre paint across one cheekbone.
"Nine-forty," she says. "You told me eight."
"The city had other plans."
"The city isn't married to anyone."
I step past her, and the smell of turpentine and sandalwood hits like relief. Fabric swatches cover the far wall, a hundred shades of every color I've been too cautious to wear.
The door clicks shut. That's all it takes. I turn, cup her face in both hands, and the day finally lets go of me.
Her mouth is warm and furious. She meets me like she's spent hours collecting arguments and would rather spend them this way. Her fingers find my tie, loosen it, then toss it somewhere behind us.
"You're late, you're tense, and you're still wearing it," she murmurs, glancing at my left hand.
The ring. I've never taken it off in front of her.
Some stubborn corner of me refuses, as if removing it would be a confession.
"Then tell me to leave."
"Tell me where you'd go."
Nowhere. We both hear the answer.
I lift her onto the narrow hallway table, and a jar of brushes clatters across the floorboards.
Neither of us flinches. Her knees bracket my hips, and my hands span her waist. I trace her throat with my lips, then her collarbone, slower now, because the hurry has drained away and left something heavier behind.
"Who did you see today?" The question escapes before I can catch it.
She goes still. Then, softly: "A client. A woman with a hideous sofa."
"And?"
"And nothing, Jonathan." Her laugh is breathless, incredulous. "You go home to a wife and a house, and I'm not allowed one afternoon?"
"No." It comes out rougher than I intend. "I'd have that sofa burned."
She studies me, and what she finds makes her soften instead of pull away. Her thumb drags along my jaw. "That isn't funny."
"I wasn't joking."
My phone hums against my hip. I should ignore it, but I look anyway.
Soup's still warm. No rush. xx
Maria's tenderness lands like a palm pressed flat against my chest.
I turn the screen face down and pull Amara close, hard, before my conscience can finish its sentence.
