Perfectly Incompatible

PRETTY, EXPENSIVE, AND USELESS

“What?” Serena asked.

Sebastian did not look away.

“Five days.”

The number was offensively small. It fit on one hand. It fit inside a workweek. It did not fit inside all the years Serena had spent imagining what might happen if Sebastian Beaumont ever stopped seeing her as Oliver’s little sister.

“How long will you be gone?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Weeks?”

Sebastian said nothing.

“Months?”

“Probably.”

“And when were you planning to tell me?”

“Tonight.”

“After asking if you could see me. Very efficient.”

“Serena—”

His phone started vibrating on the table. One glance at the screen changed the set of his jaw.

Philippe.

She did not need to ask.

“Answer it.”

“I can call him back.”

“No. You can answer. Just don’t confuse an interruption with the end of this conversation.”

Sebastian studied her for a long second.

“I won’t.”

He got up and took the call near the door. His first sentence was in French and too quiet for her to catch. The second included the word attorney.

Serena knew he would not be back at the table in five minutes.

She left money beside her untouched cup and picked up her bag.

Sebastian turned when he saw her rise. She pointed toward the phone between them.

“Do what you need to do. Then you finish this conversation with me.”

He nodded.

Serena left before he could say anything that sounded like goodbye.

The next morning, after barely sleeping, she arrived at Sterling ten minutes before eight.

The notification on her phone was brutally simple.

BLUE TEAM VS. COPPER TEAM.

Kingsley.

For the first time since the night before, Serena was grateful to have a problem she could solve by winning.

Sterling’s first official session began with a rule she approved of immediately.

“Last names do not exist in this room,” Meredith Sterling said from the center of the studio. “If anyone expects family influence to improve their evaluation, leave now. You’ll save us all time.”

No one moved.

From the opposing table, Liam raised a hand.

“Can we keep our first names, or are those an unfair advantage too?”

Several people laughed.

Serena did not.

Meredith looked over the rim of her glasses.

“Kingsley, interrupt me again and you can spend the afternoon inventing yourself a new one.”

“Understood.”

Mason was grinning beside him.

Camille was not part of Sterling, but she had sent Liam coffee that morning. Her note still sat beside the cup.

Serena dragged her attention back to Meredith.

The challenge was to redesign a luxury retail space barely a hundred square meters in size. Every team received the same floor plan and had two hours to create an experience that was functional, memorable, and financially realistic.

For forty minutes, Serena forgot about Liam entirely.

That was the best thing about working.

When she drew, the noise of the world reorganized itself. People stopped being problems and became proportion, circulation, materials, light. Her team chose a modular structure that could shift according to season and product. Serena designed suspended display cases that freed the floor and guided visitors without trapping them inside one fixed route.

Then came the cross-critique.

Meredith announced that rival teams would evaluate each other’s proposals.

Serena saw Liam smile before the pairing was even read out.

“Blue critiques Copper. Copper critiques Blue.”

“Of course,” Nora muttered from the invited audience.

Liam went first.

He walked up to Serena’s boards with his hands in his pockets. For the first few minutes, he was serious. He asked two intelligent questions about materiality and one about cost.

Serena answered all three easily.

Then he pointed at the central circulation path.

“Still too controlled.”

She inhaled slowly through her nose.

“It isn’t.”

“You’re using light and product placement to move people where you want them.”

“That’s called experience design.”

“It could also be called manipulation with flattering lighting.”

A few people laughed.

Serena folded her arms.

“Done?”

“No.”

He indicated another panel.

“The concept is good. But you’re treating every object like it matters more than the person walking in.”

The remark annoyed her because it was not completely stupid.

“Interesting coming from someone who designs buildings like the users are dots on a circulation diagram.”

“At least my dots can find the exit.”

“Congratulations on meeting fire code.”

Mason covered his mouth.

Meredith did not intervene.

Serena realized she wanted to see how far they would go.

“Want to know the problem with your work, Kingsley?”

“I was starting to worry you’d keep it to yourself.”

Serena crossed to Copper’s panel.

“You removed these two walls to improve circulation.”

“They aren’t protected.”

“I didn’t say they were. I said you removed them because you couldn’t figure out how to use them.”

Liam tipped his head.

“Are you calling me lazy?”

“I’m calling you unimaginative.”

A murmur moved through the room.

For one second, Liam stopped smiling.

Serena felt an embarrassingly childish rush of satisfaction.

“Your solution works,” she continued. “Perfectly. People walk in, buy something, leave. There’s no reason to remember the place afterward.”

“A retail space exists to sell.”

“A luxury brand exists to make you want to come back before you need to buy anything else.”

Liam looked at her.

This time, he stayed silent for a beat.

Meredith broke the silence.

“Good. Someone is finally discussing the work instead of their ego.”

“I was discussing both,” Serena said.

Meredith smiled.

“I know.”

When the session ended, everyone scattered around the models. Serena was putting away her pencils when Liam approached.

“The wall argument was good.”

She looked up.

“Are you sick?”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“I won’t.”

He braced one hand on the edge of her table.

“I still think your pavilion was too pretty to function.”

Serena snapped her pencil case shut.

“And I still think you confuse ‘functional’ with ‘never taking a risk.’”

Liam laughed under his breath.

“We’re going to have fun.”

“I didn’t come here to have fun.”

“Yeah. I noticed.”

Before she could answer, Meredith called everyone back.

A photograph appeared on the main screen: an old Manhattan hotel with a stone facade, tall windows, and a marquee from another era.

Liam stopped smiling.

Serena noticed.

Historical photographs of the Kingsley Crown showed something she did not expect: the same surname signed across several original drawings.

Kingsley.

She could not tell which generation it belonged to, but it was not Graham’s.

Liam turned a page in the project dossier and stared at one of the plans. There was too much familiarity in the gesture for Serena to dismiss the building as another family asset.

There was memory there.

She did not ask.

They were not people who asked each other personal questions.

Not yet.

After the session, Meredith asked each team for a short reflection. When it was Serena’s turn, she expected to discuss her proposal.

Instead Meredith said, “Which part of Kingsley’s critique bothered you because it was false, and which part bothered you because it might be true?”

Serena opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“That is a manipulative question.”

“It’s also useful.”

“The part about my design being useless was false.”

“And the rest?”

Serena looked at her boards.

“Maybe I over-direct the route.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to make sure the person sees what I need them to see.”

Meredith’s smile was slight.

“And what if the person wants something else?”

The question reminded Serena of Dominic in a way she did not enjoy.

“Then I need to leave them a choice.”

“Exactly. Design is not obedience.”

Serena held on to that sentence.

Across the room, Liam was speaking with one of the coordinators about the Kingsley Crown. Instead of using his family connection, he was asking that any internal Kingsley documents he could access be excluded from the project.

“I don’t want anyone saying I played with a stacked deck,” he said.

Serena overheard him by accident.

It did not make him less irritating.

It did make him harder to reduce to one word.

Meredith returned to the center of the room.

“Sterling’s final project,” she announced, “will be a full restoration proposal for the Kingsley Crown Hotel.”