10. Nolan
TEN
NOLAN
My system badge sat on the desk beside a cup of coffee I hadn't touched.
The badge had my name on it and opened doors.
Three weeks of showing up early, reading everything placed in front of me, attending meetings where I said just enough and never too much.
Gerald Ashworth had invited me to lunch twice.
A board member named Winters shook my hand in the elevator last Tuesday and said Hugh spoke highly of me.
I angled the monitor away from the glass wall, pulled out the phone Declan and Julian didn't know about, and photographed the payment records. Six images. Each one joined the Lattimore file.
A tap on the glass. I locked the screen.
Hugh stood in my doorway, jacket off, coffee in hand. He leaned against the frame — relaxed, unhurried, like a man stopping by to chat. His silver hair caught the overhead light. His eyes scanned my desk, from the organized files to the clean surface and untouched coffee.
"Settling in?" He sipped.
"Getting there."
He walked in and sat across from me, crossing one ankle over his knee. "I've been thinking about the Albright portfolio. Retail assets, mostly. Three underperforming. Divest or restructure?"
I gave him a good answer. Not my best. A clean, slightly conservative recommendation that a smart advisor would make. His head tilted as he listened, his thumb turning the coffee cup in slow rotations. When I finished, he nodded once.
"Sharp." He stood, tapped the doorframe twice, and walked out.
I watched him move down the corridor. He stopped at his assistant's desk, said something that made her laugh, touched her shoulder once, and continued toward the elevator. The warm father. The generous patriarch.
I unlocked my screen. Helios Partners stared back at me.
Soleil called at 5:30 p.m. "Where are you? We're going to be late."
"Leaving now." I closed the files, pocketed both phones, and grabbed my jacket. The badge went into my desk drawer. I locked it.
The drive to Brooklyn took forty minutes.
Soleil sat in the passenger seat with her hand on my thigh, her thumb tracing absent circles while she talked about a ceramicist whose portfolio she'd been reviewing all week.
Her hair was down, loose curls past her shoulders.
She wore a green dress that kept drawing my gaze from the road whenever she moved in her seat.
I parked outside Declan's brownstone. Before I could open my door, the front door swung wide. Declan stood in the frame with Lena on his hip. The baby was in a yellow onesie, her blue eyes enormous, a string of drool connecting her chin to her fist.
"She's been giving speeches all day," Declan said, stepping back to let us in. "No idea about what, but she's very committed."
Soleil was past me before I crossed the threshold. She crouched in the hallway, her fingers reaching for Lena's feet. "Look at these shoes." She cupped one tiny sneaker in her palm. "Declan. These have bows."
"Thea's doing."
"They're absurd. I love them." She looked up at Lena. The baby reached forward and grabbed a fistful of Soleil's curls. Soleil laughed and worked her hair free from the tiny grip.
The house was behind them. I stood in the doorway and let it hit me.
A stuffed elephant on the living room rug, its trunk bent sideways.
Wooden blocks were scattered beside the couch.
A board book splayed open on the coffee table, the page with the cow visible.
The kitchen smelled like garlic and thyme, something slow-cooked, with a smell that built over hours.
Photographs covered every surface. From the star-magneted ones on the refrigerator to Lena's blue handprint framed over the fireplace and Declan with Thea on a bench, her head on his shoulder.
A house where someone chose love over control. I'd been here before. Tonight, the walls pressed closer.
Thea appeared from the kitchen. A dish towel over her shoulder, flour on her apron, a smear of something red near the pocket. Her dark curls were pulled back. She wiped her hands and extended one toward Soleil.
"Soleil. So good to see you again. The Vanguard dinner feels like ages ago."
Soleil took her hand with both of hers. "Your home is beautiful. And something smells incredible in there."
"My grandmother's stew." Thea glanced toward the kitchen, her nose wrinkling. "I only burned the garlic once, which is a personal record."
"I burn garlic every single time." Soleil pressed her free hand against her chest. "Every. Time."
"Garlic Burners Anonymous." Thea grinned, releasing her hand. "First meeting's in my kitchen. Bring wine."
They moved to the living room together. Soleil crouched beside Lena's toys, picking up the board book, reading the title aloud in a voice that made the baby kick her feet against Declan's hip.
Thea settled on the rug beside her, pulled the book open to the cow page, and pressed it.
The moo sound filled the room. Lena shrieked.
Soleil asked about the nonprofit. Thea told her about the housing placements, funding gaps, and the women she served. Soleil leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, asking questions that went deeper than polite. Thea's shoulders dropped. Her arms uncrossed. She sat closer.
I stood in the hallway with a beer Declan had pressed into my hand and watched the woman I was using make friends with the woman my partner loved.
Declan appeared at my elbow. "Kitchen," he said. Low. "Bring the beer."
I followed him down the hall. The stew bubbled on the stove. He leaned against the counter and crossed his ankles. I stood across from him.
"I found something at Lattimore." I kept my voice beneath the sound of the stove. "The Hargrove Arts Foundation. Their endowment is leveraged against Lattimore subsidiary debt. The subsidiary is underperforming, overleveraged, no strategic value. One acquisition and the foundation collapses."
Declan set his beer on the counter. "Show me."
I pulled up the notes on my phone — revenue figures, debt ratios, the subsidiary structure I'd mapped during a meeting I was supposed to be paying attention to. He took the phone and scrolled, his eyes moving fast.
"This is clean," he said.
"Legal. Devastating. But the window is narrow. They're restructuring next quarter."
He looked up from the phone. "Why are you bringing me Lattimore targets at a dinner party?"
"Because the window closes in eight weeks."
He studied me. The easy grin was gone. The blue eyes were doing the thing they did when Declan stopped being charming and started being sharp. He handed the phone back.
"Monday. Full file."
"Done."
The Hargrove Foundation had funded Soleil's gallery. Two years of grants. Enough to cover operating costs during the first year. The foundation's collapse would pull funding from a dozen arts programs.
I picked up my beer and drank.
The front door opened. Julian's voice arrived before his body. "I bring wine and apologies, in that order, and the wine is better than the apologies."
He appeared in the living room doorway carrying two bottles of red, his sandy hair pushed back, sleeves rolled, tie gone. He kissed Thea's cheek. "Declan doesn't deserve you. Leave him."
"You say that every time."
"Because it's true every time." He turned, and his eyes found Soleil on the rug. He stopped. Tilted his head. The grin widened into something brighter.
"You must be Soleil." He crossed the room, took her hand, and held it. "Nolan described you, but he left out the part where you make a room forget how to function."
Soleil's cheeks flushed. She laughed, tucking a curl behind her ear with her free hand. "He said that?"
"Nolan doesn't say anything." Julian released her hand and dropped onto the couch, one arm along the back. "That's how you know it's serious. Tell me about the gallery. I collect, but only pieces that make me feel something, which narrows the field considerably."
She told him. Her hands moved as she talked, describing the scale of Rafael's streetscapes and the texture of his brushwork.
Julian leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, asking questions about composition and layering that were too specific to be casual.
His hand found her arm as he made a point about color theory, his fingers resting on her sleeve.
My grip tightened on the beer bottle. I looked at the label.
Across the room, Declan watched me over the rim of his wine glass. His eyebrows lifted. The corner of his mouth pulled. He looked back at the wine without a word.
Dinner was at the kitchen table. Lena was in her high chair, mashing sweet potato with both hands, orange streaks across her cheeks.
Soleil was beside me, her knee warm against mine.
Julian sat across from us, midway through a story about a client meeting with a fire alarm and a very expensive bottle of Scotch.
Thea set her fork down, laughing so hard her eyes were wet.
Declan's arm was draped behind her chair, his fingers playing with the curl at her shoulder.
Soleil was leaning into me, her hand on my thigh, her body shaking with laughter.
Julian delivered the punchline with both hands raised, his face the picture of wounded innocence.
I laughed. The sound surprised me.
After dinner, Soleil wanted to see my apartment. I unlocked the door and stepped aside.
She walked in — slowly, her eyes moving across surfaces, reading.
The dark furniture. The bare walls. The kitchen counter, spotless, the dish rack with its single plate, single fork, single glass.
She opened the refrigerator, closed it, and walked along the hallway.
She stopped at the living room window and looked out at the city.
She was quiet for a long time. I stood in the kitchen doorway and waited.
She turned. Her brows were pulled together, her lips parted.
"You need a painting," she said. "At least one."
"I have one." My empty hands reminded me of the piece I bought from Soleil's gallery which was propped against the bedroom wall, still unhung.
She crossed the room toward me. "That painting is about absence." She stopped in front of me. Her palms pressed flat against my chest, fingers spread over my ribs. "You need one about presence."
She was in my apartment. The room was different — smaller, warmer. As if the cold I'd built into the walls had met something it couldn't hold.
She leaned against the counter. She was telling me about a frame Margaux had ordered, her hands shaping the dimensions in the air, her hip pressed against the granite edge.
Her lips were moving. I wasn't hearing words.
She was in my space. My real space. The distance between strategy and want had collapsed to nothing.
I crossed the kitchen. My hand found her jaw. She stopped mid-sentence, her eyes widening, her lips parting. I kissed her. Her back pressed against the counter. Her fingers gripped my shirt and pulled.
Kitchen to hallway. Her shoulder blades against the wall, my mouth on her neck, her fingers working at my collar. Hallway to doorframe. Her hands under my shirt, palms flat on my stomach, the muscles tightening under her touch. My hand in her hair, tilting her head, my lips finding her pulse.
The bedroom. I pushed the door open. She scanned the room — the bed and dark sheets, the single nightstand, and the painting propped on the wall.
"Nobody's been in here," she said quietly.
"No."
She looked at me. Her eyes were steady, holding mine without flinching. She reached for the hem of her dress and pulled it over her head.
The green fabric fell to the floor. The black lace from the boutique — the bralette, the matching briefs. Her golden-brown skin in the dim light. Her collarbones. The rise and fall of her breathing. The curl that had fallen across her shoulder.
I pulled my shirt over my head. She stepped forward. Her palms found my chest, her fingers spreading, tracing the lines of muscle with a slowness that made my jaw clench. She wasn't rushing. With her full attention, she was reading me.
The system went quiet. The noise I carried — the architecture, the file, Hugh's face, the plan — drained out through the spots where her fingers pressed.
I pulled her to me. My mouth on her collarbone.
Her breath caught, sharp, and her fingers climbed to my shoulders, gripping.
I found the clasp at the back of her neck.
Unhooked it. Slid the lace from her skin.
My mouth followed her shoulder, the curve beneath her collarbone, and the soft skin below her ribs.
I walked her backward to the bed. She sat on the edge. Looked up at me. Her eyes were wide, unguarded. She reached for my waistband. I caught her hands, brought them to my mouth, kissed each knuckle, and set them on the mattress.
I took my time. Her neck. The hollow of her throat. The dip of her waist. Lower. She arched off the sheets. Her fingers found my hair, gripping, pulling. Her breathing sharpened into sounds that turned into my name.
She pulled me up to her. Her mouth found mine. Her legs wrapped around me. I pressed into her slowly, watching her face. She held my face in both hands and looked at me while I moved.
Every barrier I'd built went silent. The calculation and the control I'd maintained since twenty-two — none of it survived her hands on my face and her eyes on mine. There was only this. Her warmth. Her trust.
After.
She was asleep. Curled toward me, one hand on my chest, her breathing slow. The curl had fallen across her forehead. A paint stain — cerulean blue — marked the inside of her wrist.
The apartment was dark. The air smelled like rosemary and vanilla. The sheets held two people for the first time.
The Helios file was in the next room. The second phone was in my jacket on the kitchen chair. Hugh's handshake sat behind my eyes.
I looked at her. The curl. The paint stain. The hand on my chest, rising and falling with my breathing.
I don't want to lose this.
Then the cold voice. The one I built at twenty-two.
You were never supposed to have this.