London at dawn pretended at quiet. Nico didn't trust it, but he watched anyway from his office window, blinds half-drawn, the city spread beneath him like a restless ledger. In the glass he saw himself doubled: jacket off, sleeves rolled, hair disobedient. He allowed the disarray; no one was here to see. Alone, the mask could loosen.
The desk was bare except for a bowl of oranges. He had rolled one across his palm until its weight steadied him. Yesterday, in front of her, his hand had betrayed him, trembling over porcelain. He could engineer contracts, bend ministers, unnerve rivals—but he couldn't command a nerve that had remembered something before he was old enough to own his name. And Lila had noticed. That detail unsettled him more than the Docklands delay or the minister's office pretending morality for the press.He pressed his thumb lightly into the orange now, testing the skin without breaking it. He had broken one yesterday. The air had filled with citrus—and shame.
The humiliation carried a memory: an elevator, a boy, a mother.Eight years old, tie crooked, socks sliding down his ankles. The car stopped between floors three and four. The light overhead hummed yellow. His mother pressed her palm flat against the seam of the doors as if conviction could force them open."Count," she had said. "So the breath doesn't climb over itself."He counted. One, two, three. He swallowed water from the half-empty bottle she carried home from work. He watched her face, calm as discipline. You don't drown if you keep moving, she whispered once, then changed it: We move slowly. The air will stay.When a crowbar pried the doors open, it was her hands that lifted him through. He scraped his ribs but didn't cry until the corridor's fluorescent light gave him permission. After that, he learned to measure every room: exits, windows, places where walls would give. He learned to breathe as if air were rationed.The habit never left. Neither did the memory of her voice.
Yesterday she had walked into his office without apology, wearing a coat creased from travel. "Stop being a statue," she had told him. And he had obeyed, automatically, before remembering that he did not obey. That obedience unsettled him more than the press circling outside.And Lila had been there to see it. That unsettled him most of all.
On the credenza lay the consultancy's letter—Palgrave-Adler Literary Futures, embossed cream stock. Their invitation was polished: quarterly meetings in London, Berlin, New York. Honorarium that erased financial anxiety. Her name printed neat as if already inscribed in permanence.And the signatures.Ryan Calder, written in ink that still looked alive. A man who once swore advisory boards were for the tired. A man who had sworn to her, once, that he'd never sign. And yet he had.Nico had ensured it, of course, indirectly, the way he always did. He told himself it was strategic, that Ryan's presence would make her acceptance inevitable. But when he saw that blue stroke of signature, he had felt the sour old rivalry fill his mouth again. Ryan had been his competition since university: newsroom assignments, donors, women. Ryan charmed, Nico conquered. Neither admitted to losing. That battle had grown into its own language, and now Ryan's name stared up from the page like an unfinished sentence.The line beneath his name was blank. Waiting for hers.
Nico leaned back, eyes closed. Loneliness sat in the room with him, administrative, reliable. It waited for him after banquets and applause. It filled the silence of his apartment, the pauses between strategy calls, the minutes when he stared at walls built to hold power but not warmth. He despised the sentimentality of the word, but he could not deny its function. He was lonely, yes—but it kept him sharp, made him efficient. Hunger without mercy, air without luxury.Still, the photograph of himself alone in the Savoy mirror haunted him. Lila had seen it, flipped it over, and spared him the cruelty of looking too long. Mercy he had not requested. Mercy he didn't know where to put.
The intercom blinked."Mr. Leone?" his assistant's careful voice."Yes.""Press are gathering. I've told security not to be generous. And—your mother asked for Saturday's restaurant.""Tell her she'll hate it," he said. "And to wear shoes for early exits."The assistant laughed nervously. "And Ravenscroft's people called. She says she's 'thrilled and terrified.'""Tell Iz she's never been terrified in her life."
He ended the call, let the silence return, and almost smiled. His mother would wear good shoes from the same shop she always had. Iz would never be terrified, but she would drink boredom like wine and spill it loudly if not kept entertained. The Minister would practice contrition while texting aides. The tech boy would preach morality coded in software while answering his mother's messages.He had mapped them all. The hunting ground of Saturday was set.
But Lila.He had placed her name in Palgrave-Adler's letter not because he wanted her to belong—he didn't believe in belonging—but because he wanted her gaze inside the machinery. He wanted her sharpness legitimized, tethered, accessible. He wanted her seeing what others hid.She had refused, of course. Neat red lines through exclusivity clauses, through hidden interests. If these are unacceptable, I must decline. Clean. Final. A sentence he could admire because it was one he might have written himself.The consultancy had replied as predicted: We cannot accommodate your edits without compromising the integrity of the Board. Integrity, that brittle word. They had no idea that her refusal made her more dangerous, more valuable.He opened the orange then, tearing the peel in one long ribbon. The spray bit his fingers; the scent filled the air. He ate a section, sweet and ordinary. It tasted like defiance.
Nico stood, adjusting his cuffs, sliding the card with Ten still stands into his pocket. Saturday was the stage. He would see if she came, if she chose to watch instead of belong, if she chose to be witness instead of instrument.He opened the blinds fully. The city was awake now, restless as appetite. His reflection merged with it."If she tells me the truth, I'll hear it," he said softly to the glass. "If she doesn't come, I'll pretend I never needed her to."Then he turned toward the door. The day waited like an adversary, knives under linen, exits already counted.