Grace's mind flickered out for a second—just long enough for the wind to lift a strand of hair across her cheek—then snapped back into place. She met Oakley's gaze head-on, lashes shading eyes gone suddenly, inconveniently deep. "Alright, then tell me," she said, voice even. "If I'm with you right now, where exactly am I supposed to 'break the fast'?"
A tiny beat, and then she added, almost lazily, "With you?"
Skylark's night carried a steady wind; it thinned her words, unspooled them into the dark, but they still threaded themselves into Oakley's ear.
Of all the outcomes, Oakley hadn't expected that—her own provocation slung back with a calm so clean it stung. For one bare instant, pictures—dreams or delusions, she couldn't tell—slipped into her head again, stealthy as cats. They knocked her off balance.
She'd once been told by a fortune-teller she had a strong appetite—certain appetites, anyway. Maybe not entirely wrong. One look from Grace and she already felt undone. Worse, the straighter Grace stood, the more Oakley wanted to tug her off that straight line.
She smiled, biting her lower lip as if the thought physically itched. She took the ball and returned it without flinching, with a who's-afraid-of-who tilt to her voice. "When you put it that way, it checks out. If you ever wanted a first bite, it'd have to be with me. And if I wanted one, it'd have to be with you. Otherwise—we're cheating, aren't we?"
She wanted to see whose mouth would win.
Jokes aside, though, Grace's words had tugged a thread loose in her thoughts. She'd overlooked something. On paper their marriage wasn't traditional, but it was still a marriage. Legal lines were lines.
The other night, bored and nosy, she had pulled out their agreement and read it again, meticulously. It didn't just say "don't interfere in each other's private life." It also said: check your behavior; no sleeping around. Not because anyone expected romance, but because reckless flings compromise a marriage—reputation, stability, all of it. For the sake of the structure, both parties keep the basic code.
Which means, if anyone's going to have a taste, the only ethical menu is… each other. You don't wear a ring here and shop for dessert elsewhere.
Oakley stared at that logic and felt, absurdly, adrift—her future intimate life, a question mark yawning open. So now what?
Sabrina had been listening, chin tucked into her scarf, and finally shivered like someone had poured cold water down her back. Oakley was fearless—no filter, no brakes. Tiger words, wolf words, right out on a city sidewalk.
Grace gave Oakley a side-long look. "No wonder you muscled your way to the top as a solo act," she said. "Big-name creator, nimble thinker—you land on angles other people never see."
"Is that a compliment?" Oakley's smile turned syrupy. She reached up and tapped Grace's slim shoulder with one finger. "Thank you for the praise, wife."
Was she playing dumb or teasing on purpose? That one word—wife—was sweet enough to melt into bone. Grace couldn't tell if she was being toyed with or adored.
Sabrina's molars ached. She cleared her throat twice and pointed toward the doors. "So. Restaurant. Shall we?"
She felt like a floodlight—too bright, too present—glittering alone in the windy dark.
Grace pulled her eyes off Oakley's small, witchy face and looked at the entrance. "Yes. Let's. I'm starving."
Night air tossed Oakley's hair; she tucked it behind her ear and smiled, light as a step on a stair, and followed them in.
The Henley Hotel had been here for years—one of Skylark's set pieces. Time had kissed the exterior without aging it; it still held its chic, its gilt, its hushed promise. Rumor said half the city's power and beauty had crossed these carpets.
A server led them to a private room. Menus passed hand to hand, choices made with quick taps. Then Sabrina glanced up. "I heard there's a male model at your dad's firm in trouble?"
Grace lowered her eyes, warming tea cups with a slow pour. "Mm. Snuck out in the middle of the night and slept with a married woman."
Her father ran a modeling agency—close enough to fashion that the lines blurred. These days, whether star or model, the management was the same headache. Easy money, endless temper. As if the world owed them more air. A bad day, and they spiraled. Or maybe the spiral was just the excuse they needed to do what they wanted anyway.
"Half of them only behave if an agent is glued to their hip," Grace added mildly. "Not many you can trust to keep both feet down."
"What's the plan?" Sabrina asked. "Pinch your nose and PR it away?"
Grace shook her head. "That was the first instinct. But I don't think so."
"How come?"
Grace set the kettle down, warmed a bowl with absent care. "On paper he's hot. In reality, he's at the bottom of his curve. Twenty-five, twenty-six—this runway's short. No secondary skill set, shallow ceiling. Our contract runs out soon. Why pour time and money into a sinking stone? Better to put him on ice and give the resources to someone with altitude."
Sabrina's mouth tilted. She remembered: that model had been Grace's first phenomenon after she joined her father's company. Grace liked to pretend she was a figurehead, but that was just fog on the mirror. She had an eye like a scalpel and a decision-maker's calm. Since stepping in, she'd lifted everything by degrees you could measure.
The guy had been a walk-in, practically. Grace had spotted the spark and brought him under their roof. It was a lean season then; no one wanted to risk anything. Grace had convinced Devin to push the last chips in on this one face.
It worked. He'd fed the whole company, turned a small shop into something with teeth.
And now he was a mess.
Sabrina sighed. "Fair. But how do you feel? Isn't he your find?"
He was. So what? Grace tipped her head. "Why should I be sad? He chose his fall. And if we built one, we can build another."
Oakley listened and realized how little she still knew. At first she had assumed Grace was a charming kind of reckless. Then living alongside her had softened that picture—Grace, careful and warm. Now this: a cool seam running through the core, a professional distance as clean as glass. Complicated. It pulled at Oakley's curiosity like a string tied to a ring.
Strange thing—she didn't find it frightening. If anything, impressive. Maybe she was born to admire strength; maybe she'd always been a hunter of rare things.
She studied Grace openly for a moment, then asked the question that had been circling. "The model—you mean Zach Leighton? He's yours?"
"Mm-hm," Grace said. "Why?"
Oakley made a face. "Nothing. Just… a moment of silence for my taste."
Grace's ear for tone caught the snag. "You liked him?"
A small nod. "A while back. Thought he was gorgeous. Now I think I was blind."
It hadn't been deep—just one among a crop of pretty faces, the one her gaze happened to rest on.
Grace didn't agree. "Don't say that. Your taste is fine."
Oakley blinked. "How do you figure? Look at him now."
Grace looked down at her bowl and chopsticks. "He's not much to speak of. But if something I packaged and launched ends up adored by women everywhere… is that really so surprising?"
Oakley didn't get it at first. Then it clicked, and she huffed a laugh. "Ah. So we've come full circle back to you complimenting yourself. Again. Right?"
"Why not?" Grace said, unbothered. "If the shoe fits."
Oakley met her eyes and decided this woman was, without question, interesting.
Somewhere along the way, the boys she used to find charming lost their sheen. None of them were as compelling as Grace Barron.
Sabrina Myers tipped one brow, turned her cup between her fingers, and let out a helpless laugh. "Alright, alright—I finally get why my parents love comparing me to you and calling me a lost cause. I can't touch your decisiveness or your cold-blooded streak. If they handed me their company, I'd run it into the ground in a month. Respect. Truly. Looks like I'm destined to be a useless freeloader who helps my cousin keep her little real-estate office afloat."
She said it as if she were genuine dead weight, mud that couldn't be shaped.
Anyone who didn't know better might even have believed her.
Grace Barron cut her a side-eye. "Give me a break. I know you. Save the act for someone else. Your royalty checks alone could feed you for two lifetimes. You tap a keyboard and watch the numbers climb—drop the ingénue routine."
Sabrina wrote novels— not the ordinary kind. The kind that bend markets. Six books total. Not many, but each one heavy with returns. In the last few years alone, three had exploded on screen, and two more had sold their rights; the options alone stacked eight figures. If she decided to do nothing from this hour on, she could live the rest of her life in silk and excess.