At 9:58 a.m., Lila stood across from the glass of a coffee shop that had opinions about foam and sincerity. The rain had stopped, but the street still wore it, gleaming darkly as if the city had been given a new skin overnight. She saw herself doubled in the window: navy coat, hair pinned, the faintest ghost of sleeplessness under her eyes. Behind that reflection, a barista tamped grounds with the concentration of a surgeon, and a trio of men spread laptops like territory on a map only they could read.
Nico arrived without an entourage, which was his version of a red flag. He wore a slate coat unbuttoned, no tie, precision loosened to daylight. Water had streaked one dark line into his hair—a small, human detail he had not smoothed away.
"You're early," he said, as much confession as compliment.
"You said ten."
"I did." He held the door. "And I meant it."
Inside, the place smelled of citrus and heat. Nico ordered an espresso, black; Lila chose an Americano she could stretch. He took the table that allowed a view of door, counter, and street. Habit, she thought. Or doctrine.
"No champagne," he said. "As promised."
"We'll see how it goes."
His mouth edged toward amusement, then didn't arrive. Up close, the tension in his face felt like a bowstring pulled just to the edge of release.
"They'll keep eating," he said without preamble. "The photograph may change shape, but appetite doesn't."
"Let them choke," Lila answered, surprising herself.
His eyes warmed as if he could see that stubbornness inside her. "Noor's caption was clean. It moved the story into a different room."
"She knows which room," Lila said. "And who's waiting there."
For a flicker, his gaze unhooked from the game, went unguarded. She thought of the Savoy girl: different face, same teeth.
"Who is your alibi?" he asked softly.
"A girl who works harder than the guests look," Lila said. "And a timestamp."
"The right people will accept it. The wrong ones will admire you for trying." He lifted the cup, paused. A tremor whispered in his right hand—so slight it might have been the cup's own rebellion. He set it down, considered, then picked it up with his left.
"You should eat," he said too brightly. "Sugar. It helps with—"
"Shaking," Lila finished.
A beat. The corner of his mouth acknowledged the hit. "With the appearance of shaking," he corrected. "I don't shake."
"So the cup does."
"Exactly."
She let the remark sit between them, small and terrible.
A pair of men in athletic jackets took the next table, speaking loudly about leverage they'd read on Twitter. One insisted he preferred people to numbers—as if that were nobler—and then failed to make eye contact with a single barista.
"Why am I here?" Lila asked. "You could have texted me your definition of leverage and saved me the commute."
"Because text is a terrible medium for nuance," he said. "And for apology."
The word settled between them like a blade laid flat.
"For what?" she asked.
"For inviting you into a room that always comes with a camera behind the curtain," he said. "I didn't arrange it. I didn't need to. Rooms like that create their own surveillance. But I knew it could happen. That was my arrangement."
She was silent long enough for a bus outside to sigh and shoulder forward like a decision.
"I'm not a martyr," Lila said. "If I were, I'd insist this was good for me."
"I don't believe in good," he replied. "Only cost."
"Then count yours."
His jaw tightened. "I'm used to paying the bill. I prefer to choose the currency."
There it was—the old fluency, truth turned into chess. Instead of irritation, she felt a brief ache for the boy he'd been before he learned this language.
"You didn't sleep," she said.
"Because of you?"
"Because of the part of you that knows what you've become."
"Ah." He smiled without warmth. "And what's that?"
"A man safest when everyone else is performing. You can't stand stillness, because in stillness there are no edges to grip."
He looked at her the way you look at a painting that suddenly reveals a figure hidden in the storm.
"My father once told me you can't drown if you keep moving."
"Was he right?"
"He died on dry land."
The room continued—milk hissed, plates chimed, someone laughed too loudly. He studied his hands as if deciding which could be trusted. When he lifted the cup again, the tremor was gone.
"Come to the office," he said abruptly.
"To show me the machinery?"
"To ask you something I don't ask people. Not here, where financiers dissect pastries."
He stood. She followed, because better judgment had become a fence she kept climbing.
Nico's office hid in a building that pretended to be modest when it was not. Silence rented the lobby. Upstairs, his floor smelled of paper and cold. The woman at the desk didn't ask her name—trust, or choreography.
The office itself was not large. A single wall of glass let the city kneel at its edge. A table held only a leather portfolio and a bowl of oranges.
"Sit," he said, and for once took the opposite chair.
He opened the portfolio, placed two photographs side by side.
The first she knew: the cropped intimacy of the Savoy's bar, his hand on her wrist, her tilt toward the light like a sin in oil.
The second she had not seen: glass elevator doors reflecting him, alone between bar and corridor, mouth unguarded, lines around his eyes dragged downward by something deeper than expression.
"You asked who arranged it," he said.
"I didn't. But ask me again and I will."
"It doesn't matter. What matters is this one. No one ran with it. A man being human doesn't sell as well as a woman being story."
"How did you get it?"
"I pay attention to people who clean mirrors."
"Do you always buy back your reflection when it misbehaves?"
"I try. One day I'll fail. Then I'll learn if the world is what I think it is."
"And what do you think it is?"
"A ledger," he said. "Written in hands you'll never meet."
She flipped the photograph face-down. He let her.
"Why show me this?" she asked. "Is this where you pretend to be a man I can rescue?"
"No. I don't believe in rescue either. I'm showing you because I'm about to ask you something, and I don't want you saying yes to a mask."
The door opened. An aide in an impeccable tie stepped in, folder clutched. "The Minister's office called. They're concerned about optics. They want confirmation Ms. Prescott is not part of any… acquisition."
"Acquisition," Lila repeated.
"Tell them nothing," Nico said.
The aide hesitated. "Also—Ravenscroft. She wants to know if Saturday is still on. She says she's nervous about wolves with cameras."
"Tell Iz the wolves are her favorite dinner guests."
Still the aide lingered. His knuckles whitened on the folder.
"What?" Nico asked softly.
"The Docklands board wants to postpone the vote. A photograph makes appetite look like corruption. They want to look clean for a week before they get dirty again."
Nico reached for an orange, weighed it, pressed his thumb until the skin split and a mist of oil rose.
"Get out," he said without looking.
The man fled, grateful for permission.
Nico brought his thumb to his tongue, tasted the sting, exhaled like an animal unclenching its jaw—contained, not furious.
"Now you," he said. "Ask me what you came here to ask."
"I didn't come with a question."
"Everyone comes with a question." He gestured: go on, then.
"Fine. What do you do when you're not pretending to be the man you are?"
Something fractured around his eyes. "I count exits. Make sure no one's locked the door from the outside."
"That sounds like childhood."
"An elevator stuck between floors," he said flatly. "A boy learning not to breathe too loudly. A man who fires architects if they install windows that don't open."
The office seemed to shape itself around the detail.
"You asked me here for what?" she pressed.
He slid a paper from the portfolio. "Saturday. Not to be seen. To watch."
"Watch whom?"
"Ravenscroft. The Minister. The tech boy. The bored men. Tell me what they want more than the thing they say they want."
"Because that's leverage."
"Because that's mercy," he said before catching himself.
The word startled them both.
"Mercy isn't your instrument."
"No. But I like to know where it is, even if I never use it."
She hesitated. She could hear Noor's voice: Don't let him hire your gaze. Yet her own pulse betrayed her.
"What's on the paper?"
A list of names, each with a pressure point. Iz – boredom. Minister – legacy vs. ledger. Tech – mother. Philanthropist – daughter's school. Hedge-fund wife – leaving. Three question marks beside Ryan.
"You don't know what he wants."
"I know what he wants from me. Not from you."
His envy showed through before he could stop it. The mask slipped—not shattered, just enough.
Lila glanced at his hand. The citrus oil had reddened his nail-bed.
"Saturday," he said, recovering. "You watch. You tell me what I'm not seeing. You owe me nothing else."
"What do I owe myself?"
"The pleasure of being right. And the danger of being seen."
A thud outside. Careful voices. The aide reappeared, face pale.
"What?" Nico asked.
"Your mother is here."
He stilled. "She's not due until next week."
"She said she doesn't believe in due."
Lila saw twenty years return to him, tried into armor, and fail. The mask slid enough to show the boy counting exits.
"Send her up," he said, sounding like surrender.
She arrived small, silver-haired, coat creased from travel. Her shoes were good in the way of shoes chosen by people who had walked for safety. She assessed the room, then Lila, and nodded as if noting her place on a map.
"Nicholas," she said, vowels softened.
"Mamá."
She kissed the air beside his cheek, then touched his face to confirm the bone beneath. "You look tired. Stop being a statue."
"This is Lila," he said. "A friend."
The eyebrow rise suggested volumes. "I am pleased to meet the friend."
"I'll go," Lila said lightly. "Saturday, ten?"
"Saturday," Nico confirmed. His eyes asked something else. She didn't answer.
In the corridor, the aide avoided her gaze. The elevator mirrored her reflection back, doubled. Behind her, Nico turned his mother's chair toward the open window. For the first time, Lila saw him place both hands flat on the table, palms open.
Downstairs, a few reporters hovered. One raised a camera. Lila adjusted her hair and forced him to lower it. Sometimes shame worked better than a caption.
Outside, the air carried the trace of the open window six floors up. She messaged Noor:Saturday is a hunting ground. Bring truths and a net.Then: Also: he bleeds. Not publicly. But he does.
Noor replied with a flame and a drop of water.
At the corner, a taxi slowed. "Need a lift?" the driver asked.
"No," she said. "I could use a walk."
She chose a narrow street of worn inlays, old shopfronts. The city rehearsed Saturday above her: tables laid like battlefields, diamonds polished for protection, a man rehearsing the face he'd wear for an old lover.
She stopped in a second-hand bookshop. Bought a novel about the sea's refusal to be owned. Tucked it into her bag like a talisman.
At a newsstand, the cropped photograph filled the papers. Appetite, scandal, story. She looked, looked away, and laughed softly at her own futility.
Her phone buzzed: an unknown number, sending the second photograph—the one of Nico alone in the mirror. No caption. Just: I see you seeing him.
She saved it under Evidence. Not leverage. Not mercy. Evidence.
The mask had slipped. Not off, not shattered. Just enough to show skin where surface had been promised. It would be enough.
She tightened her coat, counted nothing, and kept walking. Saturday waited ahead, bright as a knife beneath linen.