11. Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
Nicole
The first suite had no windows. The second had a wall of glass facing a busy sidewalk and no good way to keep a client from feeling watched. The third was so large that Nicole stopped listening as soon as the broker began talking about hiring staff.
She didn’t want another empire. She wanted a practice.
“You don’t like it,” the broker said as they stepped back onto the Beverly Grove sidewalk.
“I like parts of it,” Nicole said.
“That’s a kind way to say no.”
“I’ve spent a lot of my life learning how to say no kindly.”
The broker smiled. “One more?”
Nicole checked her phone. Her mother had sent a picture of Prim and Rose sitting on either side of her father at the kitchen table.
All three of them had blue paper napkins tucked into their collars.
Rose held up a spoon. Prim had a dot of yogurt on the end of her nose.
Under the picture, her mother had written, “Nobody is suffering. Take your time.”
Nicole’s chest eased. “One more.”
The final building was quiet, but Nicole still heard people moving through the halls.
The suite had dated finishes. The walls were a dull beige, the carpet was dark gray, and one cabinet door hung slightly lower than the other.
None of that bothered Nicole. Paint, flooring, and cabinets could be changed. The layout mattered more.
She walked into the first treatment room and stood where a table would go. There was enough space to move around a client without squeezing past equipment. A sink was already set into the counter.
“The other treatment room is almost the same size,” the broker said. “A little narrower near the door.”
Nicole crossed the hall and checked it for herself. “But wider at the back. It works.”
“You’d need approval for any plumbing changes.”
“I don’t think I’d change it. I’d have an electrician look at the outlets before I put equipment in here.”
“Of course.”
The broker led her to the office at the rear.
The door closed fully, and the walls didn’t share an open gap near the ceiling.
A consultation here could remain private.
Nicole could sit across from a client, ask questions, study their skin, and explain what she could offer without being overheard from a treatment room.
She opened the door again and returned to the front corner.
Soft light came through a wide window that faced the leafy courtyard instead of the street.
It wasn’t enough for every filming day, but it would work beautifully with her lights.
Nicole held up her phone and framed an imaginary shot. The beige wall filled the screen.
“That wall can look better,” the broker said.
“I was trying to be polite about it.”
“I’m the broker. I only have to be polite until you sign something.”
Nicole laughed and lowered her phone. She could see the finished space without forcing herself to see too much.
Two calm treatment rooms, a private place for consultations, and a bright corner for the educational videos that had kept her connected to her profession even when she no longer worked with clients face-to-face.
It was small enough that she could know every part of it. Manageable. Hers.
Her life had expanded around Alexander’s. His company demanded more attention, more dinners, more events, more patience. Her family depended on her. She’d fitted her own work into whatever space remained.
Nicole didn’t need to make this suite the most important thing in her life for it to matter. She could see clients on a limited schedule, keep making content, and still be the mother she wanted to be. She didn’t have to trade one consuming world for another.
“What do you think?” the broker asked.
Nicole looked through the open doors of both treatment rooms. She felt nervous.
That surprised her. She’d negotiated large brand contracts without losing sleep.
Her platform reached more people than this little suite could ever hold.
But this wasn’t a post or a campaign. It was her hands, her license, and a part of herself she’d left unused for too long.
“I want it,” she said.
“Do you want more time to think?”
“I’ve been thinking about this much longer than I’ve been looking at rooms.”
The broker studied her face, then nodded. “I’ll prepare the letter of intent with the terms we discussed. The owner may come back with changes.”
“Then we’ll discuss the changes.”
“And if someone else makes an offer?”
“Send mine first.”
In the following days, the calls and emails that followed weren’t exciting.
The owner changed a few terms. Nicole questioned two of them, accepted one, and refused the other.
After the last issue was settled, the broker sent the lease.
Nicole read it carefully at the desk in her father’s office, with his files still stacked at one end, and her filming light pushed to the other.
Her hand shook when she reached the signature line.
Nicole sat back and looked at her name on the screen.
Nicole Cohan. The name belonged to a marriage she hadn’t yet decided to end.
It also belonged to her. She’d built a career under it.
She’d earned trust under it. Whatever happened with Alexander, she wouldn’t let uncertainty turn her into a person who could only wait.
She took hold of the mouse and signed electronically.
She paid the security deposit from her independent business account.
Alexander’s money didn’t touch the lease, the deposit, or the future she was building.
The choice mattered even though she knew she had legal access to more money than she could ever spend.
This money had come from her work, her knowledge, her audience, and all the times she’d refused to lie because a brand offered an impressive fee.
Pride came with a hard little edge of fear. Good. Fear meant the choice was real.
A few days later, after a final meeting with the broker at the suite, Nicole stepped outside with copies of the completed papers in her bag.
She should’ve gone back to Hancock Park.
Instead, she wanted a quiet moment to sit with what she’d done before Prim and Rose climbed into her lap and demanded every detail in the language of three-year-olds.
The Green Door Café was a short walk away. Green tile framed the counter, and the rear courtyard looked calm enough to hide in. Nicole ordered coffee and was reaching for her card when a familiar male voice interrupted her.
“Nicole?”
She turned.
Dr. Brian Weaver stood a few feet away, tall and lean in a dark jacket. His brown hair had a little gray at the temples now. His dark eyes were the same: kind, steady, and focused on the person in front of him.
“Brian.” Surprise broke into a real smile. “Oh my God.”
“I was hoping that was you. Then I thought I’d look like an idiot if I called another beautiful woman Nicole.”
“You’d look like a plastic surgeon trying to get sued,” she laughed.
He laughed too. “There she is.”
They hugged briefly. Brian stepped back first, but his attention stayed on her.
“Do you have time to sit?” he asked. “I don’t have a patient waiting.”
Nicole became cautious before she could stop herself. Coffee with a former colleague shouldn’t feel like a decision about her marriage. It wasn’t.
“I have time,” she said.
They carried their drinks to a table in the courtyard. Leaves shifted overhead, cutting the sunlight into soft pieces across the marble. Brian waited until she sat before taking the chair opposite her.
“You look good,” he said.
“That’s a dangerous compliment to give an esthetician. I’ll make you explain exactly what you mean.”
“You look beautiful. Also tired. Also like you’re deciding whether to question my lighting.”
“The lighting is flattering. Your judgment may be sound.”
“Thank God. I was worried my training had gone to waste.”
Nicole smiled into her coffee. She’d forgotten how easy he was to talk to.
“How have you been?” she asked. “How’s your wife?”
Brian’s expression changed. “We’re divorced.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was painful, but it was the right thing for both of us.” He ran one thumb along the edge of his cup. “We’d become very good at being polite and very bad at being married.”
“That sounds lonely.”
“It was.” He met her eyes. “And you?”
Nicole could’ve pretended not to understand. Brian had always asked direct questions, and she had always respected him for it.
“Alexander and I are separated.”
Brian didn’t react with shock or false concern. “Are you divorcing him?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s honest.”
“It’s also the only answer I have.” She wrapped both hands around her cup. “The girls and I are staying with my parents. I haven’t decided what happens next. Right now, I’m trying to figure out what I want my life to look like instead of making every choice from fear or anger.”
“That sounds hard.”
“It is.”
“And smart.”
Nicole gave him a shy look. “Don’t reward me yet. You don’t know what I’ve chosen.”
“I was admiring the process, not grading the result.”
She liked that answer more than she should have.
Brian leaned back. “What brought you over here? Your old practice was farther west.”
“I just signed a lease.”
“For what?”
“A skincare studio. Appointment only. Two treatment rooms, a consultation office, and enough space to film without putting a light in my father’s way every time he wants to use his home office.”
Brian’s whole face brightened. “You’re going back to clients.”
“On a limited schedule. I don’t want a packed calendar and a staff of twenty. I want enough time to do the work well.”
“That’s exactly what you should do.”
The speed of his answer made her laugh. “You haven’t seen the business plan.”
“I saw you work. You were the only person in a room full of doctors who’d tell a patient that an expensive product wouldn’t fix a medical problem.”
“Because it wouldn’t.”
“You also knew when a concern belonged with a physician and when it didn’t. That shouldn’t have been rare, but it was.”
Years earlier, Brian had sent medically cleared patients to Nicole when they needed guidance on gentle skincare after a procedure. She’d never crossed the line between his work and hers, and he’d never asked her to. Their collaboration had been simple because both of them respected the boundary.
“I liked working with your patients,” she said. “Most of them came in expecting a miracle in a jar.”
“You disappointed them with unusual charm.”
“I educated them.”
“You told one woman that her face wasn’t a dirty pan and she didn’t need to scrub it.”
“She was using three exfoliants twice a day. I stand by my language.”
Brian laughed again. “I follow your account, you know.”
Nicole blinked. “You do?”
“Of course I do. Your moisturizer video should be required viewing. You make complicated information simple without making it false.”
The praise reached a place that had felt sore for too long.
Brian wasn’t impressed because she had millions of followers or because she was married to Alexander Cohan.
He knew what the work required. He’d seen her use that knowledge before the camera, before the twins, before her name became useful material for strangers arguing about another woman’s movie.
“Thank you,” she said, and heard the softness in her own voice.
“I mean it. When the studio is ready, I’d like to talk about working together again. I still have patients who need honest guidance after they’re medically cleared, and I’d trust you with them.”
Excitement rose fast. So did caution.
“I’d like to talk,” Nicole said. “But that’s all I can promise. I need to get the rooms ready, deal with licensing and insurance for the space, and decide how much work I can actually take on. I won’t accept referrals until I know I can serve them properly.”
“Fair.”
“And I don’t want to build the entire plan around one referral source.”
“Also fair.”
“You’re taking this suspiciously well.” She smiled.
“I remember negotiating with you. I came prepared to lose.”
“Now I know you’re lying.”
“Only about coming prepared.”
Their conversation moved to treatment trends, terrible marketing claims, and the strange confidence people gained after watching half a video online.
Brian asked questions and listened to the answers.
He didn’t check his phone. He didn’t turn her studio into a cute project or a brave little return. He treated it as serious work.
Nicole knew he felt something beyond professional interest. She saw it in the quiet moments after she spoke and in the way his gaze returned to her face. The knowledge didn’t frighten her.
They finally left the courtyard together. On the sidewalk, Brian stopped beside her.
“Do you still have my number?” he asked.
“Unless you’ve changed it.”
“I haven’t. I still have yours too.” He paused. “May I text you sometime?”
He wasn’t asking only about referrals. Nicole could’ve made the answer professional. She could’ve protected herself from the small spark of possibility by hiding behind the new studio. But the future didn’t belong to Alexander by default. It didn’t belong to Brian either. It belonged to her.
“I’d like that,” she said.