By the time Tiana finally pushed through her front door at 8:00 PM, she felt like a ghost of herself. But as the lock clicked shut, the harsh, fluorescent world of Lincoln Willow Legal and the cold, metallic memory of the parking lot began to dissolve.
Her apartment wasn't the glass-and-steel penthouse most of the senior partners likely inhabited. It was a second-floor walk-up in a building that still used radiators that hissed and clanked like a friendly old steam engine.
The space was a patchwork of "affordable-chic." The floors were scuffed hardwood covered by a plush, deep-green rug she'd found at a vintage market. The walls weren't sterile white; they were a soft, buttery cream, lined with bookshelves she'd assembled herself (most of which leaned slightly to the left). It smelled of vanilla candles and the faint, lingering scent of laundry detergent. It was a place where things were allowed to be lived-in.
"I'm home," she breathed, dropping her bag on the entryway bench.
A frantic pitter-patter of paws erupted from the kitchen. Maya, her snow-white Maltese, came skidding around the corner. Maya didn't care about botched briefs, stained blouses, or dismissive billionaires. To Maya, Tiana was the sun.
"Hey, girl," Tiana whispered, scooping the tiny dog into her arms. Maya licked the tip of Tiana's nose, her tail wagging so hard her entire back half vibrated. The dog's fur was soft against Tiana's cheek, a soothing balm to the jagged edges of her day.
Tiana walked into the small kitchen. It wasn't "modern" by architectural standards, the cabinets were painted a cheerful robin's-egg blue, and the linoleum had a tiny crack near the fridge, but it was her favorite place in the world.
On the counter sat a brown paper bag from the Italian deli downstairs. She had been too tired to cook, but she'd treated herself to a warm container of Penne alla Vecchia Bettola.
She sat at her small wooden bistro table, Maya settled at her feet on a dedicated sheepskin rug. The pasta was rich, the spicy vodka sauce warming her from the inside out. As the steam rose from the bowl, the events of the day began to feel smaller, more manageable.
She took a long sip of chilled water and leaned back. For the first time in twelve hours, her shoulders dropped away from her ears. She looked at the moon through her window, framed by the lace curtains she'd found at a thrift shop.
The sophisticatedly wealthy arrogant man at the parking lot might have dismissed her, and Henderson might have scolded her, but in this small, slightly lopsided sanctuary, she was the one in charge. She was safe.
CHAPTER 3. AMIR LAHMAN
The Lincoln Willow parking garage was a cathedral of concrete and high-end engineering, a place where the air usually smelled of nothing but expensive tires and climate control. I pulled the Rolls Royce into my reserved spot, the engine's growl echoing off the pillars before I cut the ignition.
Silence followed—the kind of expensive silence I had worked my entire life to maintain.
I stepped out, adjusting the lapels of my obsidian suit. I was the image of the Lahman legacy: polished, immovable, and entirely in control. My father, Ahmed, had raised me to be a predator in the boardroom but a gentleman in the parlor. I had the pedigree of a billionaire and the sharp, lethal edge of a lawyer who never lost. Life was a series of calculated moves, and I was winning.
I was heading toward the elevator bank, my thumb scrolling through a brief on my phone, when I sensed a shift in the air.
"Good morning."
The voice was low—a soft, melodic rumble that vibrated in the space between us. It wasn't the high-pitched chirp of a starstruck intern or the clipped professional greeting of a colleague. It was grounded.
Earthy.
I didn't stop. I didn't even break my stride. I didn't look up from my screen. I simply kept walking, my polished Oxfords clicking rhythmically against the floor. It was a practiced dismissal, the kind of social erasure I performed a dozen times a day to keep the world at arm's length.
But as the elevator doors slid shut, sealing me into a box of brushed steel and mirrors, the silence felt different. It felt heavy.
By the time I reached the 40th floor, I should have forgotten her. I had a deposition at ten and a strategy meeting with my father at noon. But as I walked through the glass-walled corridors of Lincoln Willow Legal, I found myself slowing down.
My heart was doing something it wasn't programmed to do. It was gnawing. A dull, persistent ache behind my ribs, like a forgotten wound reacting to a change in the weather.
Why didn't I answer her?
It wasn't just the rudeness; I had a reputation for comportment and class. I wasn't a man who ignored a direct greeting without reason. But there was something in that "Good morning" that had tripped a wire in my brain.
It was her scent—a ghost of rain and something ancient—that had trailed behind her words. It felt familiar in a way that defied logic. It felt like a song I hadn't heard in twenty years but still knew every lyric to.