15. Lark
FIFTEEN
LARK
The window display mock-up sat on the stockroom table between them like a treaty negotiation.
Breezy had drawn it up—a scaled floor plan of the joint window concept, the shared glass frontage between Sterling “Absolutely yes” from her; compromise: a scaled-down photo moment integrated into the display’s exit flow).
Font choices for the signage. The color temperature of the display lighting, which devolved into a fifteen-minute debate about Kelvin ratings that would have been boring from anyone else but became charged with the specific electricity of two people who both cared deeply about visual presentation and enjoyed dismantling each other’s arguments.
This is foreplay, watching him reject her third font suggestion with a one-sentence verdict that managed to be both lethal and correct. We are having foreplay about typefaces. I need to leave this room.
She did not leave the room.
By five o’clock, the layout was done. A compromise that looked better than either of their individual visions—his editorial eye tempering her maximalism, her instinct for accessibility softening his reverence into invitation.
The center pedestal would hold a 1940 Catwoman first edition—not the one he’d left on her counter, a display copy from his inventory—surrounded by Villainette’s villain-themed beauty line in a gradient from black to gold, with tiered risers and an integrated photo moment at the exit.
They stood side by side, studying the finished mock-up.
Close. Closer than the work required. His shoulder hovered near hers, and the late-afternoon sun through the stockroom window caught the gold in his hair and turned it incandescent, and she made the mistake of looking up at the same moment he looked down.
Three inches. His eyes. The light.
Her phone rang.
She stepped back. Answered. Her mother’s voice filled the gap between them with particular authority—her timing was either cosmic or weaponized.
“Baby, I’m confirming Sunday dinner. Your father is making pernil. Oliver is bringing Sybil. You are bringing—”
“Myself. I am bringing myself.”
“Harrison mentioned you’ve been working with a colleague. The neighbor. The one with the rare editions. You should bring him.”
Lark glanced at Rune. He was studying the mock-up with exaggerated focus, pretending he couldn’t hear a phone conversation happening thirty-six inches from his ear. Scandinavians were many things. Subtle eavesdroppers was not among them.
“Mom—”
“Seven o’clock. The good china. Tell him your father has questions about quarterly performance.” The line went dead.
Lark stared at her phone. Turned to Rune. “My mother has invited you to Sunday dinner.”
“I gathered.”
“You don’t have to come. It’s a family thing. Loud. Overwhelming. My mother will interrogate you. My father will analyze your business model. My brother will text a live play-by-play to everyone he’s ever met.”
“What time?”
“Seven.”
“I’ll be there.”
He’d said yes without hesitation. The lion who evaluated every decision through three layers of strategic analysis had accepted a dinner invitation from a woman’s mother in under four seconds. Lark didn’t know what to do with that information, so she did what she always did: she made it a joke.
“Bring wine. Good wine. My father judges wine with the same rigor he judges P/E ratios.”
“I’ll make the appropriate selection.”
“That sounded like a business transaction.”
“Wine selection IS a transaction. There are variables. Region, vintage, the host’s palate preferences—”
“Your Majesty.” She held up a hand. “Red. That’s the variable. Bring red.”