LOGINOlivia POVThe pencil snaps in my fist, and I toss both halves across the worktable and grab another before Renata can say a word."That's the fourth one this morning," she says from the doorway, her tablet tucked against her hip. "Should I be worried, or should I just order pencils in bulk?""Bulk." I keep my eyes on the page. "I'm not stopping."She crosses the atelier, pulls out the stool across from me, and sets down two coffees like a woman bracing for bad news. Nadia sits on the windowsill with her laptop open, pretending to answer emails while she watches us over the screen."First planning meeting for the Winslow solo collection," Nadia announces. "Let the record show Olivia hasn't slept.""Let the record show Nadia hasn't stopped talking," I say, and she grins and goes back to typing.I turn the sketchbook toward Renata. On the page is a wide gold cuff, hammered rough and uneven, with a raw garnet set off-center as if it had landed there by accident."Where's the symmetry?" R
Olivia POVIngrid's name lights up my phone at eight in the morning, and I answer on the first ring, already telling myself she's calling to say the board reconsidered."Ingrid. Please tell me you have good news.""I wish I did." She lets out a slow breath, and I hear a door close on her end, like she wants privacy for this. "I asked them for a date this morning. Any date at all. Even the end of the year.""And?""They wouldn't give me one." She says it as though something pushed the words out of her against her own judgment. "The pause has no end, Olivia. It's permanent. They just don't want to be the ones to say it out loud."I sit down on the edge of the worktable, my sketchbook sliding to the floor. "Permanent," I repeat, because it sounds strange even in my own mouth."I'm sorry. I fought for you, and I lost.""I know you did." I press my fingers hard against my forehead. "Thank you for telling me straight."I hang up and stare at the sketches pinned along the wall, three months
Olivia POVOne week later.Nadia lets herself in without knocking, the way she's done since the first year we met, and drops a bottle of wine on the kitchen island hard enough that it wobbles."Okay," she says, pulling two glasses down from the cabinet like she owns the place. "You've had a week. I've watched you have it from a distance. Now you're going to sit down and actually talk to me about it, because texting me 'I'm fine' four times a day is not a personality.""I am fine.""You're a woman who's been to a lawyer's office twice, watched your ex-husband's ex almost fake an engagement in the tabloids, and sat through a week of visits so stiff Leo still won't unwrap a gift." She pours without asking, sliding a glass toward me. "Sit. Talk."I sit, because arguing with Nadia once she's opened the wine is a fight I never win."The visits are still hard," I say, turning the glass slowly by its stem. "Nora gives him three words, tops. Leo wouldn't even look at him. But Damian keeps comi
Olivia POV…He works my pants down my legs and drops them to the floor. My underwear follows. He settles between my thighs, mouth still on my skin, one hand sliding down to cup me.I reach over to the bedside drawer, pull it open, and take out a condom. He watches me tear the packet, then takes it from my fingers and rolls it on himself without a word. The latex is thin and smooth.His fingers find me already wet. He strokes through the slick heat, then pushes one finger inside, then a second, curling just right. I rock against his hand, breathing harder.He lines himself up. The head of his cock presses against me. He pushes in slow, filling me in one long slide that makes my head tip back against the pillows. I wrap my legs around his hips. He starts to move—steady, deep strokes that hit every place I need.It lasts maybe two minutes.His rhythm stutters. His breath catches hard against my neck. He tries to slow down, tries to hold back, but his body doesn’t listen. He comes with a
Olivia POVJulian doesn’t ask about the call. He just stands there against the door frame in his dark cashmere overcoat, watching me with that quiet look that says he heard enough through the wood to know it cost me something.The upstairs door opens before either of us can speak. Carla comes down the stairs with her leather tote already on her shoulder, keys in one hand.“The children are playing with their tabs for now, ma’am. Have a good night.”“Thank you, Carla. See you tomorrow.”She nods at Julian on her way past and the heavy front door closes a moment later with the soft click of the electronic lock on the transparent glass door. The house settles into thick quiet.Julian pushes off the door frame and walks into the kitchen. He opens the Sub-Zero, pulls out the shallow container of lobster ravioli the private chef left earlier, and sets it in the microwave. The machine starts with a low hum. I sit on the Calacatta marble island and watch him move, the only steady thing in a w
Olivia POVI sit there on the side street a moment longer, the engine still running, my hands finally steady enough to trust on the wheel again. Then I pull back onto the road, the rest of the drive home passing in a blur I barely register, my mind so full of that photo and that headline that I couldn't say afterward which turns I took or how many lights I sat through.I let myself in through the side entrance, the house quiet except for the faint sound of splashing and Carla's low, patient voice drifting down from the upstairs bathroom, bath time already underway, Nora's laugh cutting through it once, bright and unbothered, blessedly unaware of anything I read tonight. I stand in the hallway for a second just listening, grounding myself in the ordinary sound of it before I let myself do what I've been holding off doing the entire drive.I call him before I've even decided to, the phone already ringing before my brain catches up with my hand, my whole body running on nothing but the h







