พันธนาการรักมาเฟียร้าย

“Mom.”

Liana kept her eyes on the coffee she was making. She recognized that tone. When her name was said like that, it usually meant something was broken. Or missing. Or unexpectedly alive.

“Mom.”

“I heard you.” She poured the coffee. “What is it?”

Ethan showed up in the kitchen doorway wearing his dinosaur pajamas—the ones with the fraying hem she kept meaning to fix. He had his left shoe in one hand. A juice box in the other. His look suggested these two things were somehow connected. Clearly, she was to blame for both.

“I can’t find the other shoe,” he said.

“Where did you put it last night?”

He considered this with great seriousness. “I don’t remember last night.”

“You were there.”

“I was asleep.” His tone suggested she was unreasonable. He was good at that, though she had no idea where he learned it.

She took a sip of her coffee, set down the mug, and walked to the hallway closet. The shoe was on the second shelf, next to a stuffed triceratops. And the spare set of keys she’d been looking for since February.

“Here.”

Ethan accepted it without surprise, as though the universe reliably provided. “Thanks.” He dropped onto the kitchen floor and started wrestling with the laces.

Liana watched him for a moment. His dark curls fell forward, and his small hands worked at the laces with more determination than skill. As she observed, the familiar rush of emotion surfaced—the feeling she always got, too big to name and too steady to ignore. It settled in her chest: love twined with grief, edged with a fierceness that unsettled her. The shift snuck up on her, transforming amusement at his persistence into the heavier weight of this feeling—a transition that always caught her by surprise.

She turned back to her coffee before she could follow it anywhere.

HART Studio took up the second and third floors of a converted warehouse at Mercer and 9th. On a Tuesday morning in late September, the place smelled like fresh espresso and possibility. Maybe that was thanks to Liana’s design instincts, or maybe it was just because Simone had arrived first and started the good coffee machine.

“Seven minutes late,” Simone said without looking up from her laptop.

“I’m exactly on time.” Liana set her bag on her desk, which was really just a door on sawhorses that she had lacquered until it shone. When she started HART Studio four years ago, she only had enough money for a real desk or a real chair, and she picked the chair. She still had that chair. The desk came later.

“The Caldwell presentation starts at nine.”

“It’s eight fifty-two.”

“Seven minutes late.” Simone finally looked up, her face an open book. “Also, paint on your collar.”

Liana looked down. Sure enough, there was a dusty blue smear on her shirt collar, left over from Ethan’s school project about ocean habitats.

“I’ll call it intentional.”

“It doesn’t.”

“I have a scarf.”

“You have seventeen. Separate issue.” Simone closed her laptop. “Caldwell wants to expand—private floors, lobby. Full building package.”

Liana stopped. “That’s a seven-figure project.”

“That is a seven-figure project, yes.”

A quiet sense of satisfaction moved through her. She didn’t let it show. Early on, she made a rule: never let anyone see how much you want something, because wanting made you vulnerable, and vulnerability made you negotiable. Still, she felt it. Pride and longing always surged when HART Studio was chosen, hiding under her calm surface. She felt it every time, even after four years, the awards, the press features, and the growing list of clients. Each time someone said yes to her work, she felt a wave of vulnerability and triumph. Every success still surprised her, a mix of anticipation and the weight of accomplishment.

“Full scope proposal, please. On paper before they leave today.”

“Already started.” Simone smiled, smug. “Also, Daniel called.”

“About the Henderson commission?”

“About dinner.”

Liana pulled a folder from her bag. “What about the Henderson commission?”

“Liana.”

“The Henderson commission, Simone.”

Simone made a sound that conveyed entire novels of unspoken opinion in a single exhale. “He confirmed the final tile delivery for Thursday. He also said he had two tickets to the gallery opening on Friday.”

“Thank him for the tile update. I’ll be here Friday—final east wing walkthrough.”

“That’s not what he meant, and you know it.”

“I know. But the east wing still needs the lighting solved.”

“You can’t avoid this forever.”

“Deal with what?”

“The fact that a perfectly wonderful man is interested in you.”

“I’m too busy for wonderful men. I’m barely keeping up with mediocre ones.”

“You’re not interested in any men.”

“Correct.”

“That’s not healthy.”

“It’s efficient.” Liana glanced at the clock. “Is Caldwell here?”

“Being offered coffee as we speak.”

In two hours, it ended with a handshake and a deposit.

By one o’clock, Liana was at her drawing table—the real kind, tilted just right, which she had saved up for and still enjoyed using. She was working on a residential project, a brownstone in Hartwell Heights with old bones and bad lighting. She liked these kinds of problems because, if you looked long enough, you could find a real solution hidden inside. She looked long enough. That had always been the work.

Her phone buzzed.

She ignored it.

It buzzed again.

Check your email.

She opened her laptop and waited for the studio email to load. There were twelve unread messages: three from contractors, two from suppliers, one from a design publication, one from Ethan’s school about a parent volunteer day, and one she nearly scrolled past—

Until the sender’s name hit her like a stone.

COLE INDUSTRIES — Corporate Acquisitions Division

She stared at it for a moment.

She didn’t open it.

Then she did.

Dear Ms. Hart,

Cole Industries is reaching out regarding our interest in the Blackwell Centre development portfolio…

She stopped reading.

She scrolled to the bottom.

Adrian Cole

The studio didn’t get any quieter. The hum of the espresso machine continued. Simone kept typing. The light through the warehouse glass stayed the same dusty gold.

She sat in the middle of it all and felt five years shrink into something too big and hard to name.

Then she closed the laptop.

She stood up.

She walked to the window.

Hartwell City carried on below her—cars, people, and the slow rhythm of a Tuesday afternoon.

Alright, she thought.

Calm and steady, the way you talk to yourself when panic is a luxury you can’t afford anymore.

She turned around and walked back to her drawing table.

She picked up her pencil.

She did not look at the laptop.

Not yet.