Chapter 22
Chapter twenty-two
Sam
The brass bell chimes above the door, cutting through the morning clatter of The Donut.
I look up from the napkin I've been actively shredding into tiny white pieces. Tom walks through the door, and an immediate, involuntary breathe leaves my lungs.
"Thanks for coming," I say as he reaches the table.
He pulls out the chair opposite me and sits, unzipping his jacket. "I got your text. Talk to me."
I adjust my coffee mug, sliding it around the table like a chess piece. "Why are you so calm?" I say, the words snapping out sharper than I intend.
Tom leans back in his chair, looking completely unbothered. He looks like a guy grabbing a casual Wednesday coffee, not a guy who is thirty minutes away from presenting to a multi-million dollar development board.
"Because we worked through it," he says, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "You were definitely scarier playing the skeptical investor on Wednesday than the Board will actually be today."
I stop fidgeting. I stare at him.
"Jerk," I say.
But I start laughing. I can't help it. My shoulders drop an inch.
"Samantha!"
Margit marches toward our table like a woman on a mission, wiping her hands on a flour-dusted apron. Her sharp eyes zero in on me immediately.
"What is with you?" she demands. "You vibrate like my old refrigerator before it died." She gestures toward Tom with a raised eyebrow, inspecting him. "Is it this handsome gentleman here?"
I groan and drop my forehead into my palm. "Margit. Please."
Tom chuckles, a low, easy sound. "Margit," he says, flashing her a weaponized version of his grin. "Are you hitting on me?"
Margit actually blushes, swatting his shoulder lightly with her towel. "If I was younger... but no, my heart belongs to my Istvan."
I sit up straight. "Tom and I work together. We have an important presentation, and I was just having a minor meltdown."
Margit turns to Tom. Her expression shifts from playful to assessing. "Are you worried?"
Tom shakes his head. "I was two days ago. But we worked very hard on the presentation. It's good." He looks at me. "And she's going to do great."
Margit nods once, satisfied. She fixes me with a pointed look. "You come back and put something on the wall."
She walks away before I can respond.
Tom's eyes drift past my shoulder to the massive corkboard on the back wall. It's a chaotic collage of index cards, photos, and newspaper clippings pinned over each other like archaeological strata.
"What's this wall about?" he asks.
I glance back. “Margit’s thing. If something good happens, you write it down and pin it up. ‘Good things stay.’”
Tom studies the board a moment, then looks back at me.
“So what have you put up there?”
The question catches me off guard. “What?”
“You. What have you pinned up?”
I blink. “Oh. Nothing.”
Tom’s eyebrows rise. He sets his coffee down with a small, deliberate clink.
“Wait. With everything you’ve accomplished, you haven’t put anything up there?”
My face heats. “What do you mean, ‘everything I’ve accomplished’?”
He tilts his head, studying me like I’m a puzzle he’s trying to solve.
“The ‘30 Under 30’ article,” he says. “The one about emerging architects reshaping urban development. You were featured—two years ago?”
I freeze. My chest tightens.
“How do you know about that?”
Tom shrugs, but his eyes stay on mine. “I read it. Before we started working together.”
“You—” I stop. Recalibrate. “You read an article about me?”
“I looked up the team. You were the lead.” His tone stays light. “And you didn’t put it on the wall?”
I suddenly find the rim of my coffee mug fascinating. “The Boss Babes probably put it up.”
Tom opens his mouth—he's definitely about to say something pointed—but Tristan appears at the table holding two fresh mugs.
He sets them down with a knowing smile, then leans in toward Tom with a stage whisper loud enough to wake the dead.
"You know, she just started wearing makeup."
He winks at me.
I glare at him. My face burns, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction of looking away.
I look at Tom. "Maybe calling you was a mistake."
Tom grins, his laughter rumbling low in his chest. "I don't know about that. I think calling me was a terrific idea."
The laughter fades, leaving a quiet space between us.
Tom’s gaze drops to my hands still wrapped around the mug. Slowly, deliberately, he reaches across the table and covers one with his.
His thumb brushes my knuckles.
“The color’s back in your cheeks.”
I swallow, suddenly aware of the warmth of his hand against mine.
“Thanks to Margit and Tristan butting their noses in.”
Tom’s smile softens. He gives my hand one reassuring squeeze, then lets go.
“Seriously,” he says. “Do you feel better?”
I meet his eyes. "Yes."
"Okay, then." Tom stands and extends his hand to help me up. "Why don't we go set up early? Do any last-minute rehearsing."
I look at his outstretched hand, then up at his face. I take it and let him pull me to my feet.
"Last-minute rehearsing? Why, Tom Bennett—am I rubbing off on you?"
His grin is quick and easy. "Don't let it go to your head."
***
The elevator ride up to the Developer's floor is silent. Tom leans against the back wall, hands in his pockets, watching the numbers climb. I watch my reflection in the polished metal doors, checking my blazer, checking my expression.
When the doors slide open, the hum of the office hits us.
The conference room is already set up—long table, projector humming, water glasses catching the overhead light. My nerves from The Donut have settled into a sharp, clear focus.
As we set our materials down, Tom leans in close enough that I can smell his coffee.
"We've got this," he says.
I nod, trusting him more than my voice.
The Board files in. Everyone takes their seats. Castellano crosses his arms immediately. The Developer sits at the head of the table, expectant.
Tom and I stand at the front of the room, side by side. We've done this dance before, but this time, the energy is completely different. I am hyper-aware of the space between us—barely six inches. If I shifted my weight, our shoulders would touch.
I begin.
I walk the Board through the site strategy and the way the neighborhood connects to the waterfront. My voice stays steady, but I can feel Tom beside me—a solid presence.
When I reach the pedestrian section, I gesture toward the screen.
“So the café and green space create places people actually stop instead of just walking through.”
Tom picks it up without missing a beat.
“Which means people stay longer,” he says. “The light hits this section of the plaza in the afternoon, so the sightlines draw people toward it.”
I glance at him, surprised.
He isn’t looking at the Board. He’s focused on the screen, calm, perfectly in sync with where I was going.
He transitions into the visual strategy. I watch him work—the way his hands move when he talks, the quiet authority in his voice. He isn’t reciting specs. He’s describing what it feels like to walk through the space at dusk.
The Board leans forward.
A Board member raises a hand. “How does the visual concept align with the market positioning?”
I glance at Tom. He’s already looking at me. A flicker of a smile touches the corner of his mouth.
“You want this one?”
I do.
I turn back to the Board.
“We’re showing what the site actually offers,” I say. “Tom’s images let buyers picture themselves in the space instead of telling them how they’re supposed to feel about it.”
Tom nods and adds smoothly, “When people see something real, they trust it. If it feels staged, they pull back. This feels lived-in.”
The Board member nods.
I exhale slowly. We just answered a question together without even planning it.
Then Castellano speaks.
“Ms. Morgan, you’re asking us to prioritize community features over traditional ROI metrics. That’s a significant risk. How do you justify it?”
My stomach tightens.
Before I can launch into defense mode, Tom steps forward slightly.
“That’s only a risk if you treat community and ROI as separate things,” he says calmly. “We don’t.”
He pulls up the connectivity image.
“These features, waterfront access, walkability, public space, are the reason buyers pay more to live here. They’re not extra. They’re the value.”
He walks the Board through the image.
I stand beside him, watching him defend my work with the same precision I would.
He’s using my language. My logic.
I didn’t realize he’d been listening that closely when we talked through the design at the deli.
He just defended my project better than I could have.
Castellano leans back in his chair. Still skeptical, but he doesn’t push further.
The Developer is nodding now, smiling.
“This is exactly what we needed to see,” he says, looking between us. “You built real momentum last week, and you’ve reinforced it today. This is the unified front we need going into the Capital Investment meeting.”
I barely register the praise.
I’m too aware of Tom standing beside me, close enough that I can feel the shift of his breathing.
He glances at me. There’s something in his expression—pride, maybe. Or relief.
I catch my reflection in the glass wall.
I’m smiling.
We did this.
Together.
The Board asks a few more questions—logistical, easy—and then the meeting ends. Handshakes, polite nods. The Developer pulls us aside to confirm the accelerated timeline is still on track. I answer on autopilot.
When we finally leave the conference room and step into the hallway, the heavy oak door clicks shut behind us. The noise of the building rushes back in—phones ringing, footsteps on tile.
We stand there for a second in the quiet corridor, the adrenaline still thrumming wildly under my skin.
Tom turns to me. "We did it."
I nod, catching my breath. "We did."
He's grinning now. "You were incredible in there."
"So were you."
I mean it. My hands are still shaking slightly, but it's the aftermath of something that went perfectly right.
Tom steps closer. The professional boundary we just spent an hour maintaining is suddenly paper-thin. His eyes drop to my mouth. He shifts his weight, the movement pulling him a fraction of an inch closer.
I stop breathing.
Then, the elevator down the hall pings loudly.
The spell shatters. Tom exhales, a slightly ragged sound, and steps back, running a hand quickly through his hair.
"I, uh... I have that site shoot in Brooklyn." He gestures vaguely toward the hall, his voice rougher than it was a second ago. "I should go."
"Yeah. Go." I try to sound casual, fighting to regulate my own pulse. "Thank you. For showing up today. At The Donut, and in there."
Tom's expression softens, the raw want dialing back into something gentler. "That's what partners do, right?"
A pulse jumps in my throat. "Right."
He holds my gaze for one long beat, then nods once and heads toward the elevator.
I watch him go. My heartbeat is still elevated. I replay the way he stepped forward when Castellano challenged me. The way he defended my work like it was his own.
I think about Margit's parting words at The Donut: You come back and put something on the wall.
I might.