Chapter 1 — You Can Just Say He’s Boring
The bar was one of those many places in New York City that tried to make people feel important. Everything glowed – gold-rimmed glasses, candlelight flickering through cut crystal, the faint, polished gleam of champagne-colored marble catching light from a hundred subtle sources. Conversation drifted like perfume – low, intimate, and restrained – the sound of people who wanted to be overheard only by the right ears.
Harper Quinn sat in a velvet-backed chair that was a touch too upright for comfort, her legs crossed carefully beneath the table. Her dress – black, daringly backless, neckline swooping lower than she realized until she caught her reflection in the mirrored wall – was the kind of thing Jules had called “aggressively dateable.” She felt like she was wearing someone else’s skin.
“…I told them, look, if the net margin doesn’t reflect Q3 performance, you’re just doing vacation math,” said the man across from her. Something between a laugh and a snort puffed from his nose. He hadn’t touched his cocktail. It sat and sweated, his hand instead wrapped possessively around a sleek phone he couldn’t stop glancing at.
Harper smiled like she was listening, gently swirling the olive in her martini glass with the tiny gold pick they’d provided. Her mind had left the table ten minutes ago. The room was too glossy. Too curated. Everyone in here was trying. Except her – and, well – and maybe the woman who had just walked in.
She didn’t notice her at first. It was just a shift in the air. A subtle change in atmosphere, like when someone famous walks into a room – not necessarily because of who they are, but because of how they carry themselves.
That’s when Harper had looked up.
The woman was beyond beautiful, she was…elemental. If Harper was the blonde, blue-eyed girl next door, she was a super-model. And, she moved like she owned the evening. She stepped through the warm wash of the entrance lighting with the kind of poise that didn’t announce itself. She didn’t need to. She was elegance in motion – sun-kissed skin catching candlelight, hair woven into a thick, dark braid that slid over her shoulder like a statement in itself. She wore layered jewelry in antique gold and turquoise – pieces that looked meaningful, not trendy. And her outfit – goddess-tier executive: something earth-toned and form-fitting with sharp lines and soft embroidery, like power wrapped in velvet.
Her eyes were sharp. Scanning. She took in the room like she was making mental notes on every person inside. Not with judgment – just, with precision.
Harper’s breath caught — just slightly. Her date was saying something about Santorini now. She didn’t respond.
=====
The woman’s name was Mira Laurent, and her gaze swept, calculating, until it landed – unexpectedly – on the blonde in the backless dress, halfway through an olive and an existential crisis.
And their eyes locked.
Not for long. Two seconds, maybe three. But it was the kind of look that made the bar fade. The kind that asks a question neither of them could quite name. Mira didn’t smile. But something in her expression shifted – just a flicker at the corner of her mouth. A private note. She turned back toward the man beside her.
Her date was talking too loudly. Tall, handsome, and entirely unaware that Mira’s mind had left the table the second he said “synergy.” He was charming, in the way some men are when they’ve been told they are – confident, performative, and oblivious to the fact that Mira had already assessed him and filed him under “just get through this drink.”
So, Mira ordered her drink – something clear, no garnish – and nodded politely as her date launched into another monologue. But her eyes drifted, unbidden, back to the woman across the room. The blonde was gorgeous – in a way that seemed almost unintentional. Mira noticed the way her hand rested lightly against her jaw, half-bored. The dress clung beautifully to her, a little too bold for someone trying to shrink into the corner. There was vulnerability there. Intelligence too. And something else – a kind of awkward defiance Mira recognized instantly.
The blonde glanced her way – a motion that told Mira she’d been tracking her. But, too quickly she turned back to her date, who had just said something that made her laugh – not because it was funny, but because it was easier than silence. Mira’s eyes lingered one breath longer. Then she turned back to her own companion and smiled – perfectly, politely – and thought: God. You can just say he’s boring.
=====
It wasn’t long before fate – or layout design – brought them closer. Somewhere between a shared candle and an artfully underlit mirror, Mira and her date drifted within arm’s reach of Harper and hers.
Harper hadn’t noticed they’d moved so close. She was busy suppressing a yawn with her cocktail. The man beside her – what was his name again? Travis? – was mid-story about networking through “intentional proximity,” something involving a yacht, a TED speaker, and a property deal in Bali. Harper’s eyes glazed over, her gaze slipping from the rim of her glass to the reflection in the wall behind the bar.
And that’s when she noticed her. Close now. Really close. Close enough to feel.
She wasn’t speaking. Just standing with an elegance that didn’t fidget. Her eyes scanned her surroundings lazily, sipping in the room like she was reading a page she’d already memorized. Her date, meanwhile, was still talking – a confident crescendo of indulgent brilliance. Harper heard him before she saw him: something about the death of nuance in digital storytelling.
And suddenly, Harper – without meaning to – tipped forward just slightly and blurted, far too loud: “God, is he reading his résumé or just listing things he’s conquered?”
The silence that followed was exquisite. A beat. Then two.
And then – unexpectedly, impossibly – the goddess laughed. Out loud.
It wasn’t a social laugh. Not polite. Not restrained. It was sudden and unguarded, low in her throat and utterly delighted. The kind of laugh that blooms in the chest of someone who rarely gets surprised. Harper’s eyes snapped to her, and for one suspended second, they were caught – tangled in that shared, reckless moment.
The woman’s date stiffened like a man struck. His drink arrived at that exact second, and he reached for it with military precision. He didn’t look at the woman when he said, clipped and razor-clean: “Clearly I’m not required here.” He left without waiting for a reply. And she didn’t offer one.
Instead, she turned her body slightly, letting her posture shift – just enough to signal that she’d accepted the change in scene. That whatever had just sparked across the low-lit bar, she wasn’t stepping away from it.
Harper turned toward the woman – like a sunflower finding the light. Her breath felt shallow in her chest, but she didn’t back away. Didn’t make a joke. Just… faced her.
They were close now – not touching, but aware of every inch. The fabric of Harper’s dress felt too thin. Mira’s perfume – something floral grounded in musk and vetiver – wove into her lungs and stayed there.
“I didn’t mean to say that out loud,” Harper said quietly.
And then she heard her voice. Deeper than she thought it would be, with a smoky edge and an accent she couldn’t place – “You absolutely did,” she said, the ghost of her earlier laugh still touching her voice.
A pause. Then Harper cracked a grin. “I mean – it seemed accurate.”
“I won’t argue.”
They didn’t speak for a few seconds. They didn’t have to. The din of the bar moved around them like water around a stone – neither woman moved. Just quiet electricity. Curiosity. Something pulling taught and steady between them.
=====
The young blonde’s hand wrapped around the stem of her drink. Mira watched the motion – casual, but fidgety. Her thumb made small nervous circles near the base, an unconscious habit – she probably wasn’t even aware she was doing it. Mira noticed it instantly. She noticed a lot of things.
“You always speak like that?” Mira asked, voice low.
“Like what?”
“Out loud. Like the inside of your brain just… skips the filter?”
She wrinkled her cute little nose. “Not always.”
Mira’s eyes glittered. “Shame.”
Then, gently – almost too gently – Mira nodded in the direction behind Harper.
“Should you check on your… companion?”
=====
Harper blinked. “Oh, right.” She turned. Her date was still at their table, lips pressed into a flat, resigned line, watching the two of them with the expression of a man who knew exactly what had just happened.
“Oh, God,” Harper whispered. “I forgot you existed.”
The man’s eyebrows rose.
Harper flushed. “I mean – I didn’t mean that. I just – you’re not boring, you’re just… soothing?”
A silence bloomed. It was mercifully brief.
The man stood. “Right.”
And then he was gone, in a blur of hurt pride and credit card leather.
Harper turned back to her mysterious woman, face bright red.
“I swear I’m not usually this… awful.”
She laughed a soft breathy laugh, “I know,” she said calmly, tilting her glass in a small toast. “That’s what makes it so charming.”
The bar didn’t notice what had happened – not really. There was no dramatic shift, no spotlight or pause in music. Just a subtle rearranging of presence. Two men now gone. Two women, still standing. The room continued on: glasses clinked, conversations rose and fell, a waiter lit another candle in a crystal votive without looking at either of them.
But for Mira and Harper, something had changed. The hum of the room softened, as though their corner had slipped into its own muted register – quieter, more intimate. A pocket of suspended awareness, just wide enough for two. They hadn’t moved. Both still leaned casually against the bar, their postures relaxed in theory – but Mira’s eyes were sharper now, and Harper’s heart was beating somewhere behind her ribs like it was trying to get out.
They exchanged a glance. It wasn’t exactly a smile. Not yet. Just a mutual recognition: Did we just ruin two evenings… or rescue ourselves? Harper’s lips parted slightly, then closed again. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or apologize. Her skin was warm, flushed – not from embarrassment exactly, but from something else she didn’t want to name. Not yet.
God, this woman was looking at her.
Not like men looked. Not with that lazy, evaluative gaze that expected something in return. She looked with interest. With intent. She was clearly used to seeing through people. Harper felt…seen. Entirely. It was disarming.
“I need to pee before I insult anyone else,” Harper blurted, voice higher than intended.
Mira raised a single brow. A faint smile tugged at one side of her mouth – elegant, controlled, amused. She didn’t reply, just tilted her head slightly, watching Harper like she was enjoying a performance that had taken a turn for the interesting.
Harper took that as permission to flee. She turned and threaded her way through the low-lit crowd, boots clicking lightly on the tile floor. Only when she was halfway across the bar did she let herself exhale. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath.
What the hell was that? She’d just driven away her date – and the guy who was with that mythic, ethereal woman – and now she was internally combusting because that woman had laughed at her joke and looked at her like she was…something. Something worth pausing for.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Harper told herself. “She’s just stylish. And elegant. And terrifyingly beautiful. And maybe a little bit into public chaos. Which is fine. I can respect that…From a distance. A safe distance. Preferably with a wall in between.” She went moved around to the other side of the bar wall into the hallway where the bathrooms were located.
=====
Back at the bar, Mira watched her go. She didn’t turn away. Just observed, quietly – the young lady’s toned back and defined shoulder blades, the loose sway of her hips, the awkward grace in her movement, the slight twist of her mouth as if she was muttering something to herself even now.
Mira didn’t usually find herself amused. People rarely surprised her anymore – most wore their desires like perfume. But this one? There was something… refreshingly unedited about her.
And underneath all that self-deprecating noise, Mira sensed something more: a sharp mind trying to hide behind charm, a vulnerability worn like a shield. She hadn’t planned to stay out long tonight. And she certainly hadn’t planned this.
Mira took another sip of her drink and let the candlelight settle around her. She didn’t smile. But she didn’t leave either.
=====
The bathroom looked like it had been designed by someone who feared shadows. Light shimmered from every polished surface – marble counters veined with gold, sconces shaped like inverted blossoms casting a clinical glow, and a full-length mirror so unforgiving it could be used as a weapon. Everything gleamed. Even the air smelled expensive – orange blossom and rose layered over something sharper, like bergamot and ambition.
Harper stood at the sink, hands damp and motionless, staring into the mirror like she was trying to recognize herself. The dress – still clinging in all the same places – looked even bolder under these lights. Her hair was doing its usual “unplanned volume” thing, and there was a soft blush creeping up her neck she couldn’t blame on makeup. She didn’t usually find herself speechless. Or… whatever this was. Electrified? Rattled?
“You’re not boring, you’re just… soothing.” O god.
She pressed her palms to her face, groaning quietly into them, and let out a sharp breath. “Okay,” she whispered, mostly to her reflection. “Get it together.”
Then she turned. And there she was. Standing in the doorway. Not urgently. Not as if she’d followed her in a rush. Just… there. Perfectly still. Framed by the doorway like the entrance to a dream Harper wasn’t supposed to be having.
Mira wasn’t smiling. But her eyes had softened. “I owe you a thank you,” she said, voice low, steady. “That was a tactical strike. We both escaped.”
Harper blinked. Her first thought was: How does she still look this good under these lights? Her second was: Why is she here? Her third – the one that came with a strange, involuntary flutter just beneath her ribs – was: Please don’t leave.
She laughed, a little too loud, then dropped her eyes to her shoes. “I wasn’t trying to – I mean, I kind of was. But not like… sabotage.”
She glanced up again and regretted it instantly. Because Mira had stepped further into the room. Not much – just one deliberate, elegant step. But it changed everything. Shrunk the space. Tilted the air. Mira moved like someone who always understood scale – how far to stand, how close to get. She wasn’t threatening, and she wasn’t flirting. Not exactly. Just… present. Entirely. It was almost worse.
“I think you’re one of those rare women who I could trust to say what I’m thinking,” Mira said softly.
Harper opened her mouth. Nothing came out. Mira was close enough now that Harper could smell her perfume again – rich and layered, subtle but persistent. Like heat and sunlight and something deeply feminine. She wore it like armor. Or maybe inheritance. And that voice – God. It was warm now. Velvet dipped in restraint. There was a softness in it Harper hadn’t heard earlier. A kind of earned calm.
She felt herself flushing again. Her pulse flickered in her wrists. She laughed, helpless. “Wow. You are… very composed,” Harper said, half under her breath, half a confession.
Mira’s head tilted a fraction. Her lips curved. “You’re very not.”
“That’s… not news.”
Almost on top of her, “It’s refreshing.”
That word landed softly, but it stayed. Harper looked at her – really looked – and for the first time, she stopped trying to figure out what Mira was thinking. She let herself just be there. Standing in a too-bright bathroom that smelled like flowers and cost too much, with a woman she couldn’t stop watching and didn’t yet have the language to desire.
Neither spoke. The silence didn’t stretch – it deepened.
=====
Harper should’ve stayed quiet. She knew it the moment her mouth opened. But Mira was looking at her again – directly, patiently – like she had time, like she was genuinely interested, and that was the kind of gaze that made Harper’s brain short-circuit.
She meant to say something safe. Neutral. She meant to say nothing at all. Instead she said, “You smell like… logic and power and expensive decisions.”
The words hung there. Like steam. Like regret. Harper winced, then squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh my God. Sorry. That wasn’t – I mean, I meant it, but not like – my brain exits through my mouth. Sometimes it leaps.”
Mira tilted her head slowly, considering this odd declaration as if Harper had just offered her a riddle in the shape of a compliment. Then she smiled – not a smirk, not a laugh – just something gentle and real.
“It’s oddly accurate,” she said.
That was the worst part. The way she said it like it mattered. Harper’s heart skittered sideways. There was a moment – a breath, a shift – where something could have happened. It felt like a fault line cracking open. A lean. A laugh too close to the mouth. Something almost moved between them.
And then—
The door creaked open. A woman entered – dressed to the nines, laughing into her phone, heels too loud on the marble. She didn’t even notice them. But the bubble broke on impact. The air recalibrated. Reality came rushing back.
Mira straightened, eyes flicking once to the intruder, then back to Harper. She didn’t sigh, didn’t frown. Just… let the interruption settle like weather. Then, softly,
“Another time?”
Harper blinked. Her throat felt dry. Her pulse was audible in her ears. “I… yeah,” she said. “Or in another lifetime. I mean, yes. Just – yes.”
It was Mira’s turn to look amused – but she didn’t press. She simply inclined her head with that same graceful composure and turned to leave, walking out as if the encounter had left no mark – not like it did for Harper. She felt it. Like static. Like sparks buzzing under skin.
She didn’t know who she was. No name. No clue. Just the scent of her lingering in the air – and the ghost of a near miss humming against Harper’s lips.
=====
Nearly a week later Mira was in another room, in another part of the city. The room smelled like butter and power. Old wood paneled the walls in a shade too dark to be fashionable but just classic enough to feel expensive. Candlelight reflected off the silverware with curated charm, and the hum of quiet jazz murmured beneath the sound of overlapping English and French – clipped, confident, theatrical.
Mira sat near the center of the long white-linened table. She wore ivory silk – soft, tailored, with a slight drape at the collar and sleeves that skimmed the edge of her wrist every time she moved. Which was rare. But revealed a couple of pieces of delicate gold jewellery. Her posture was effortless. Not the posture of someone trying to impress – the posture of someone who didn’t need to.
Her red pen – slim, minimalist, absurdly expensive – lay uncapped beside her plate. She wasn’t taking notes. She didn’t bring paper. Instead, she traced lines beneath the printed prix fixe menu, annotating as she sipped white wine she hadn’t finished. She had already scratched out “an aromatic medley of garden herbs” and written beside it, in small, sharp letters: “Overwritten floral nonsense.”
Around her, the men talked too much. They had names like Philippe, and Gerard, but they dressed like New York bankers and laughed like they owned half the room and wanted to buy the other half before dessert. Their voices rose and overlapped – everyone performing confidence for everyone else. They were discussing synergy now. Mira let them.
In the corner, Camille watched. Silent, invisible to most. She leaned against the mirrored side wall with her arms crossed loosely, a coupe glass in one hand, untouched. Her dark hair was pulled back into a low knot, her blazer unbuttoned, the top button of her shirt left undone as a quiet rejection of the room’s pretense.
Camille didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. She was there to watch Mira. Not in any official capacity – no one at the table would think of her as a handler or assistant. Most didn’t even know her name. But Mira did. And Camille knew exactly how much this kind of evening cost her. She’d seen it before – the polite tilt of Mira’s head, the measured sips, the quiet redirection of conversation when it got too comfortable. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t even boredom. It was containment.
Camille kept a subtle eye on the man to Mira’s left. She didn’t like the way he kept turning toward her. Too close. Too familiar.
=====
He leaned in during the second course, a buttery fish in a citrus glaze Mira had already mentally edited down to “sweetened trout.”
He was attractive, in a curated way: greying temples, a fitted suit, confidence shaped by years of moderate success and expensive failure. His accent was Parisian, softened by too much time in London.
“You seem far too elegant,” he said smoothly, “to be wasting time in rooms like this.”
Mira smiled. Precisely. “Yet here we are.”
He took it for banter. He turned more fully toward her, elbow brushing the back of her chair. She didn’t flinch, didn’t lean away. Just stilled. Her expression remained placid, pleasant.
Her mind left the table as he began to talk to her. She started counting the rings on his fingers. Three. One gold band – not a wedding ring. The other two were ornamental, meant to signal success. He wore his watch on the inside of his wrist. Performative. Everything about him was a story he’d crafted for himself. She nodded politely as he continued, her eyes glancing toward the doorway behind him.
Would it be rude to excuse herself to the bathroom? The question began her thinking of another bathroom. The scent of orange blossom. The blonde in the black dress. The way she had laughed too loud and spoken without restraint. How it had felt to be seen – not for her résumé, not for her surname – but for something else entirely.
Something Mira didn’t yet have words for.
=====
Harper’s date was going fine. Which, for Harper, was the clearest red flag of all.
She sat in a deep leather chair that swallowed her posture and sipped something cinnamon-adjacent in a ceramic mug with no handle. The lighting was warm, the place smelled like oat milk and ambition, and the man across from her was – objectively – a catch.
He was an architect. A real one. Not an Instagram bio with blueprints. He had excellent teeth, a silver ring on his thumb, and a tousled kind of hotness that had definitely been workshopped in mirrors. He spoke with his hands, and he wore leather bracelets that whispered I build, but I feel things, too.
At the moment, he was monologuing about urban brutalism. Harper nodded too much. She made an occasional humming sound that might have meant “go on” or “please stop,” depending on the minute.
Then, without meaning to, she blurted: “Isn’t brutalism like… the Tinder of architecture? All angles and no soul?”
A beat of silence.
He blinked. “Huh?”
“Just,” she gestured vaguely, “cold. Unapologetic. Looks like it wants to be impressive but actually just makes people uncomfortable?”
The smile he gave her was polite. The kind you offer a student who’s just tried to be clever in front of a chalkboard. She sank slightly in her chair and looked down at her drink. It had a leaf on top. She didn’t remember ordering that.
He kept going. Something about Le Corbusier and misunderstood design theory. Harper drifted. She nodded. Her thoughts wandered. The architect smiled at her again – that same curated, intelligent smile – and said, “I like your earrings.”
Harper blinked. “Oh. Thanks.”
She reached up to touch one – a mismatched pair, little gold hoops she’d picked out that morning without thinking. She was about to add something dumb and self-effacing when he said: “I was worried you’d be intimidating – you’ve got that whole, I run things vibe. But you’re actually really approachable.”
Harper stared. Something sharp flickered in her chest. It wasn’t quite pain, but it was close. It felt like someone had taken a clean white word, approachable, and underlined it in red.
She laughed once, quiet and dry. “Thanks,” she said. “That’s… reassuring.”
He didn’t notice the tone. He kept going.
She heard herself saying things. Small things. Nice things. She leaned in and laughed when she was supposed to. But none of it stuck. All she could feel was that odd little twitch behind her ribs – like a reminder that something else had happened some short time ago. Something with weight. Something she couldn’t name, because naming it would make it real. And Harper wasn’t ready for real.
Not yet.
=====
The voice beside Mira hadn’t stopped in fifteen minutes. Something about cross-market leverage. Something about pipeline scalability. Something about himself, again. Mira’s knife traced a line through the syrup drizzle beside her untouched dessert. The sugar smelled like burnt orange and overcompensation. Her posture was still perfect. Her expression remained interested – or at least neutral enough to pass for it.
But her mind had long since wandered.
A Flash of Memory
It wasn’t a conscious thought. Just a flicker, a laugh, quick and too loud. A slant of light across a bar. The nervous blur of fingers tracing the rim of a glass. A woman in a black dress that didn’t know it was stunning, who said strange things with total sincerity and made Mira laugh before she had the chance to decide if she wanted to. Blue eyes. Fast words.
“You smell like logic and power and expensive decisions.”
Mira closed her eyes for half a second, just long enough to reset her gaze. When she opened them, the man was still talking. Of course he was. She reached for her wine and let the memory linger under her tongue like something far more intoxicating.
They stood after dessert. The chairs scraped softly against the floor as the men congratulated themselves on the quality of the Burgundy and the speed of the projected merger.
Camille was at her side before anyone could catch her alone: a silent orbit, her energy cool and anchoring. They were halfway to the door when the man, the one with the rings and the curated smile, caught up to Mira, adjusting his cufflink like it mattered.
He leaned in with what he thought was charm. “Perhaps,” he said, lowering his voice, “you’d like to get a drink elsewhere. Somewhere quieter. For real conversation.”
Mira paused. She turned to him with that signature stillness, the kind that made people wonder if they’d just made a mistake. Then she replied, evenly:
“Thank you. But I’ve heard enough real conversation for one night.”
She offered a soft smile, just shy of polite. Then turned. And left. Outside, the air was cooler. A breeze stirred her braid against the back of her neck as Camille opened the car door. Mira didn’t get in right away. She stood at the curb, lit faintly by the restaurant’s golden facade.
Across the street, a couple walked by—young, tangled together, laughing into each other’s necks like the world wasn’t watching. It was too loud. Too physical. Too free. Mira watched them pass. Then, softly, to no one, she murmured, “She said I smelled like… logic?”
Her lips curved. Barely. A flicker. Then it was gone. She stepped into the car. And let the door close behind her.
=====
Harper stirred the last of her drink, letting the spoon clink softly against the ceramic. The architect across from her was saying something about adaptive reuse. She nodded automatically. She hadn’t heard a word of the last paragraph.
Why had Jules ever thought she would connect with this guy? Her thoughts had wandered. Again. Not toward anything clear or reasonable, just a kind of shape. A scent. A woman standing framed in a doorway. A voice, deeper than you expected it to be. Smoky and exotic. One that didn’t rise but somehow still resonated deep in her ribs.
And then, without planning it, her voice slipped out: “You ever meet someone who makes you forget what you’re saying?”
The architect perked up. He smiled like she’d handed him a compliment gift-wrapped in subtext. “Oh?” he said, leaning forward. “Is that what I’m doing to you?”
Harper blinked. Shit.
“No, I mean -” she shook her head quickly, cheeks flushing, “- not like that. Sorry. That was weird. Long week.” She laughed once, hoping it would pass for charming. It didn’t. She reached for her drink and found it empty.
They wrapped the date politely. He said he’d love to see her again. Harper smiled and said “me too” in a tone that could have meant anything. It was the kind of ending designed for plausible deniability: kind, soft, forgettable.
Outside, the wind had picked up. She pulled her coat tighter around herself, boots tapping against the sidewalk as the neon glow of the café dissolved into the street behind her. A few steps into the walk, a woman brushed past her, rushing somewhere, face obscured by a scarf.
Harper caught a trace of her perfume. Cinnamon and something darker. She stopped walking. Her breath caught. Not because it was her. But because for one aching second, her body believed it could be.
She looked around the street, scanning doorways, faces, shadows. But of course she wasn’t there. Of course not. Harper exhaled slowly and muttered to herself: “Okay. Not a crush. Definitely not.”
Then, after a beat,
“But maybe someone should build a brutalist shrine to her.”
She snorted aloud, embarrassed by her own brain. The wind carried her laughter forward as she kept walking – hands jammed in her coat pockets, heart too awake, and a stranger’s perfume still clinging to her memory like static.
=====
Chapter 2: “It’s You Again”
The gallery was hushed in that particular, studied way – as though the walls themselves disapproved of volume. Every step on the polished concrete floor echoed faintly. Spotlights tracked brushstrokes. The air smelled faintly of cedarwood, linen, and the slightly metallic tang of white wine.
Mira Laurent had been there for ten minutes. She stood in front of an abstract canvas – pale blue bleeding into rust and ivory – her expression one of composed interest. A thin, expressive line arched across the painting’s center like a wound someone hadn’t tried to heal. The placard below it read:
“The Impossibility of Silence — oil on linen — 2021”
Mira’s eyes narrowed. A typo. Silence was misspelled. The ‘e’ and ‘n’ transposed. Her jaw tensed – slightly. Not enough to be seen, only enough to be felt. She reached, without thinking, into her small structured clutch for her red pen. Then remembered where she was. She let her fingers rest on the smooth leather instead.
Her date was beside her – young, clever, sharply dressed. He wore a blazer with a Mandarin collar and used the word “liminal” unironically. He was explaining the artist’s early work with quiet confidence, unaware Mira had stopped listening somewhere around “spatial tension.”
She nodded once. Sipped her wine. Her mind was elsewhere. Again.
She wasn’t tired, exactly. Just… depleted. The way she got after too many hours in rooms where people tried too hard. She could do this – wear the silk, say the right things, tilt her head at the right angles – but none of it touched her.
=====
Harper arrived four minutes late and full of apology. Her hair was windblown from the walk from the uber she just farewelled. She had on a floral blouse half-tucked into black jeans, a worn denim jacket over the top like armor. And glasses – big, round, functional – the ones she usually wore at home when no one could see her. She’d forgotten they were on until her date looked at her like she’d brought a backpack to the opera.
“You’re wearing glasses,” he said, not unkindly – just puzzled.
Harper flushed. “Yeah. It’s kind of a face thing I do sometimes.”
He blinked. She tucked her hair behind one ear, the blush traveling to her neck. “Sorry I’m late. The uber stopped for a guy playing violin and I’m the only one who clapped, so I had to sit there longer than you’d think.”
He stared at her for a moment. Then nodded once, like processing a foreign dialect. They walked in together – not touching.
The gallery was beautiful, she had to admit. Quiet. Golden lighting spilling over everything. But the walls felt a little too white, the patrons a little too still, like maybe they weren’t here to enjoy art so much as prove they could interpret it.
Harper leaned in and whispered to her date, hoping to break the ice, “This place smells like cedar and social anxiety.”
He didn’t laugh. He offered a small, polite sound of acknowledgment. Great. She thought to herself. Another one who’s full of himself and his own importance. Just once I’d like to meet someone who flinches at the word ‘intimacy’ and laughs at their own sneeze.
Harper blinked at a painting shaped like a bruise and sighed internally. She adjusted her glasses and stared harder at the painting. Maybe it would start to make sense if she blinked long enough.
=====
Mira moved through the exhibit with deliberate grace, one hand lightly clasping the stem of her second glass of wine. She had left her date behind a few rooms ago – he had taken a sudden interest in a sculpture described as “an interplay of absence and form” and began quoting Rilke with such satisfaction Mira didn’t have the heart to stop him.
She stepped into the next gallery space, and for a moment, stood still in front of a sprawling canvas – black on white, minimal, aggressive. Someone behind her said it reminded them of a scream being choked in a museum.
Then she heard it. A voice. Not loud. Just clear. Lightly exasperated. A familiar rhythm of sincerity colliding with sarcasm – spoken more to herself than anyone else.
“…I mean, is this one supposed to be sad? Or is it just allergic to color?”
It wasn’t the words that made Mira’s lips twitch – it was the delivery. The same dry, breathless cadence that had stuck in her mind like the aftermath of a strange and wonderful dream.
She turned her head slightly. Didn’t smile. Not yet.
=====
Harper didn’t notice her until the next turn.
She’d been dragging her date toward what she hoped was a gift shop or at least a water station when she rounded a corner too quickly and nearly collided with someone standing far too still.
It was a woman. Tall. Maybe an inch taller than herself, and Harper thought her height was one of the things she had going for her at 5”9. But additionally, the woman was wearing heals and she wasn’t. It added to their difference in height.
The woman was composed. Draped in soft charcoal linen and gold earrings that caught the light like punctuation. She was facing the painting – but looking at Harper.
Harper froze. Her brain shorted out for half a second. “Oh,” she said. Then, with a crooked grin: “Hey. It’s you again.”
Mira raised a brow. The corner of her mouth tilted – not quite a smile, but the idea of one. “Apparently we share taste in overpriced wine and questionable men.”
Harper’s laugh was too loud for the room. She winced, then tucked her hair behind her ear in that same habitual flick Mira remembered.
There was a beat of silence.
And in that moment, without realizing it, they both looked at each other – really looked. Not in the way strangers do. Not in the way women scan each other to assess threat or style or status. This was slower. More curious.
Mira took in the denim jacket, the floral blouse beneath it, the glasses – thick-rimmed, slightly fogged near the edges – and felt something gentle press against her chest. She’s cute. The thought startled her, and then settled like it belonged there.
Harper stared at her, shameless for a heartbeat. God, she’s stunning. She still couldn’t place the accent. Some type of European? Her eyes, beneath lush manicured eyebrows were green, but too vivid to be just green – were watching her now with a quiet intensity that made Harper’s stomach flutter like a caught note.
And just like that, the world tilted again – the gallery, the dates, the art – all blurred at the edges.
They parted – slightly awkwardly, and with little desire to do so – like people who weren’t sure if they’d just bumped into the past or the future.
Harper found her date again. He was still standing where she’d left him, reading the exhibit guide like it was a contract.
“There you are,” he said. “Let me finish my thought about postmodern irony. It’s really kind of important to understand the context.”
Harper tried to smile. Nodded. Glanced toward the next room – where Mira had just stepped out of view.
Across the gallery, Mira stood beside her date, who was mid-sentence about the “ecstatic loneliness of minimalist sculpture.” He ran a hand through his hair and checked his reflection in the darkened glass of a display case between phrases.
Mira hummed in response. Then let her eyes drift toward a flash of denim and motion at the edge of the room. Standing too close to a painting she clearly didn’t like. Whispering something to herself again. Laughing softly when no one else did.
Neither woman heard the man beside her.
=====
The gallery had softened. Evening light filtered in through high windows, brushing the white walls with a faint gold that made everything – art, wine glasses, people – look momentarily tender.
Harper wandered aimlessly, unsure whether she was avoiding her date or searching for someone she’d already found. She paused at the edge of a new installation – a triptych of pale, textured canvases that looked like wind had swept through them and never quite left. Her eyes scanned the title card:
“Reclamation of Emotional Space.”
She snorted under her breath.
Then she was beside her.
It wasn’t sudden. It wasn’t even surprising. Just inevitable – like gravity drawing two things on similar orbits gently toward one another. Mira stood with the same relaxed poise she always seemed to carry, as though she belonged in still, beautiful places.
“This artist,” Mira murmured, nodding toward the placard, “thinks metaphor is a battering ram.”
Harper laughed. Too loud. Again. A couple near them turned. She covered her mouth.
“Sorry. I swear I’m not normally -”
“You are,” Mira said gently, watching her. “But I don’t mind.”
Harper had to look up just a little bit – and their eyes caught again. That same stillness returned. Like the bar, but warmer now. Familiar. And confusing. Harper’s breath fluttered. Mira’s eyes didn’t flinch. She just… looked.
How old is she? Harper wondered. Not in a bad way. It’s just that she had a way of making Harper feel embarrassingly aware of her own awkwardness. It was in the way she held silence, how she waited for people to finish speaking without ever filling the space. And still, somehow, it didn’t make her feel small. It made her feel… seen.
Mira, for her part, was watching the way Harper’s lips tugged unconsciously into a half-smile. How her hands moved when she was nervous – fluttering, brushing the edge of her jacket sleeve like she needed somewhere to place her energy. She was younger. But not uncertain. Not really. There was something unfiltered about her that Mira hadn’t realized she’d been craving. A kind of honesty she no longer found in people her age. Or, perhaps, in herself.
And so they stood – neither speaking, both quietly drinking the other in, the space between them charged with something neither had yet named.
Of course it couldn’t last.
Mira’s date approached from the side – his steps slow, precise, as if he were measuring the weight of his entrance. He had the kind of posture that suggested ballet training and an ego to match. His eyes moved from Mira to Harper and back again with subtle calculation.
He didn’t smile when he said it. “You’re very absorbed in this stranger. Should I be concerned?”
Mira turned to him with polite, distant ease. The kind of look that disarmed without softening. “Only if you’re threatened by silence,” she replied coolly.
Then, without waiting for a retort, she turned back to Harper. “Walk with me?”
It wasn’t flirtation. Not overtly. But it was something – open, unhurried, quietly expectant.
Harper hesitated just long enough to glance back. Her date – kind, dull, tragically literal. Harper mouthed a tiny, apologetic “Sorry,” then stepped toward Mira.
They fell into pace together – steps slow, bodies just shy of touching. Two women moving through curated stillness, not speaking yet, not rushing – just walking. Just letting the gallery dissolve quietly behind them.
And neither of them turned back.
They walked slowly. This wing of the gallery was nearly empty – tucked behind a curtain of velvet rope and an arched doorway labeled “Works on Paper.” The lighting was dimmer here. More honest. The white walls were cooler, the silence more generous.
Mira moved with her usual quiet grace, hands folded loosely behind her back, as if she were here to study the art but could just as easily have curated it herself. Harper walked beside her, not quite matching her pace – a half-step behind, then beside, then behind again, like she hadn’t decided if she was following or keeping company.
They didn’t speak at first. Not out of awkwardness – but something more rare. Permission.
Mira finally broke the silence. “You always appear when my dates are unraveling.”
Harper smiled. “Maybe I’m the patron saint of romantic implosions.”
Mira glanced sideways. There it was again – the self-deprecation, offered like a flower in a closed fist. Mira had the strangest urge to reach inside it.
“I don’t think it’s implosion,” she said softly. “More like… correction.”
Harper flushed. Her eyes dropped to a small drawing in front of them – a charcoal sketch of a woman standing in the rain, head tilted back like she wanted the sky to ruin her.
She pointed. “I relate to this one.”
Mira looked. “You want to be ruined?”
“I just… forget to bring umbrellas,” Harper muttered, then sighed. “Figuratively and literally.”
Mira studied her. Not just glanced – studied. The soft curve of her jaw. The fine gold of her earrings. The way her hair curled slightly from the weather. Her glasses, slightly askew. Her mouth – expressive, too quick to hide things.
There was something about her that defied performance. No posture. No calculation. Mira couldn’t name it. But she didn’t want to stop looking. Harper felt the gaze and looked away quickly – toward the wall, toward anything.
“Don’t do that,” Mira said quietly.
Harper blinked. “Do what?”
“Disappear.”
Harper laughed once – quiet, surprised. She didn’t know what to say. So she just stood there, red-faced and grinning like an idiot.
And Mira… didn’t mind.
=====
By the time they returned to the main gallery, the crowd had thinned – only a few slow-moving patrons remained, murmuring in front of large canvases. The air felt cooler, the energy unwound.
Both their dates were gone. No parting words. No polite excuses. Just the faint suggestion of disinterest and too much self-importance.
Harper gave a little shrug. “Guess we’re not the muses they were hoping for.”
Mira lifted a brow. “A shame.”
They stood there a moment – not awkward, but uncertain. Something had bloomed between them back there, quiet and unspoken. And now it was dispersing, not fading, just slipping sideways.
Harper pushed her glasses up her nose. Mira’s gaze followed the motion – and held. Harper started to say something, then shook her head. Smiled instead.
“It was good to see you,” she said. “Again.”
Mira’s answer was simple.
“Likewise.”
That was it. They turned and stepped in opposite directions, swallowed back into the gallery’s soft light. Neither looked back. But both of them would remember the part where they almost did.
=====
The Calridge Group’s Manhattan boardroom was a corridor of glass and air and silence.
Everything about it was engineered to look expensive without shouting. Pale concrete floors stretched from wall to wall like poured stone; the chairs – sinuous, modern, Italian – cost more than most New Yorkers paid in rent, and they were arranged with unsettling precision, each one aligned to its neighbor with surgical geometry. A narrow arrangement of calla lilies ran the length of the table. No scent. No distraction.
The Calridge Group is a high-level international firm that doesn’t sell products but rather solves problems. Usually messy, global, and expensive ones. Calridge doesn’t advertise. Its clients find them.
At the head of the table, sat Mira Laurent. Mira wasn’t only a senior partner at Calridge. She’s the person they send in when stakes are high, egos are higher, and no one wants blood on the floor.
Harper will later try to describe what it is Mira does to her friends – through slightly tipsy laughter and gesturing with a breadstick:
“Okay, imagine if Jessica Pearson from Suits, Lady Danbury from Bridgerton, and that terrifying woman from Killing Eve all teamed up to run corporate black ops – but like, legally.”
A beat.
“Now give that combo an exotic accent, perfect hair, and the ability to get billionaires to apologize with her eyes.”
Another beat.
“That’s what my girlfriend does. I think. Honestly, I just nod when she says strategic recalibration and hope I’m not part of it.”
That day, though, Mira’s sleeves were rolled with careful nonchalance – a black silk blouse, open at the collar, exposing a fine gold chain and just enough skin to disarm, not invite. One hand rested lightly on the table, an expensive red pen held like a conductor’s baton.
Her gaze – steady, alert, utterly unreadable – scanned the screen at the far end of the room where a junior analyst was nervously walking through a slide deck. He was young. Good suit. Skinny tie. Mira frowned.
“…as you can see, the growth rate year over year -”
“Skip the enthusiasm,” Mira said, her voice calm and polished like glassware.
She didn’t look up. “Show me the risk.”
The room shifted. The analyst’s thumb trembled over the remote. A few awkward clicks, and the slide changed – charts dissolving into a column of bulleted concerns, most of them half-buried in vague corporate phrasing.
Camille, seated several chairs down with her tablet and one elegantly crossed leg, didn’t lift her head. But the corner of her mouth twitched.
Mira turned a page in her notes. Tapped her pen once.
“Cost exposure on data partnerships?”
The analyst cleared his throat. “Moderate, but escalating with scale.”
“Legal entanglement?”
“Unlikely, but -”
“Stop hedging. Say it plainly.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She finally looked up. Her eyes – deep green with flecks of amber – were utterly impassive.
“Next time, lead with the risks. Beauty is easy. I want to know what breaks.”
The analyst nodded quickly. Grateful. Shaken. Camille made a small note in the margin of her tablet, then leaned back in her chair – poised, sphinxlike, always watching.
=====
Mira’s personal office was a study in warm austerity – nothing cluttered, nothing wasted. Clean lines. Textured neutrals. A floor-to-ceiling window opened onto a sliver of skyline, but inside, the light was soft, filtered through linen sheers. A single sculpture stood near the corner – abstract, raw-edged – something Turkish. The scent in the room was cedar and cardamom.
Mira sat behind a sleek desk of dark wood and brushed brass. Her shoes were off. One foot curled beneath her. Camille entered without knocking – as always – and placed a plain manila folder on the desk. No label. No summary sheet. The kind of folder that meant: look at this before someone else does.
Mira arched one brow. Opened it.
Inside: patent filings, early investor decks, a messy API roadmap marked in two colors, a hiring slide featuring awkward stick-figure graphics, and half a dozen screenshots from a deeply chaotic company blog. Mira flipped to the header on one page.
Nudge Engine.
She stared at the logo. Bright yellow. Slightly off-center. Designed, it seemed, by someone who had either too much fun or not enough sleep.
“Innahu ʿabathun mutaʿammid,” she murmured in Arabic. That’s… intentionally absurd.
Camille nodded, still standing, and replied in French, “Mais mémorable.” But memorable.
Mira turned another page. Back in English this time. “Is that handwriting in the margins?”
“Founder notes. They leave things lying around online like breadcrumbs. The CTO codes like a poet and annotates like a seventh-grade English teacher. Possibly the same person.”
Mira made a low sound. She did respect mess if it was self-aware.
Across the room, the door eased open with a soft click. A man leaned casually against the frame – mid-fifties, expensive suit, silver at the temples. One of the London partners. Brian something. Polished, predictable, never quite as sharp as he thought he was.
“You’re not really into startups, are you?” he said lightly. “I thought you only handled real scale.”
Mira didn’t turn.
“If I were interested in your assessment, I’d have asked for it.”
Elegant, cutting, and unmistakably final. Camille approved.
A beat. Then another.
He chuckled, and tried again. “Must be a fun one, though, if it made it to your desk.”
Camille didn’t speak. But something in her stillness sharpened. The man lingered for another second – trying to read Mira’s silence – before retreating. When the door clicked shut, Mira exhaled slowly. She flipped to the final page.
A team photo. Informal. Sunset light. Three people in the foreground – one of them laughing with her whole body, head thrown back, hair wild, thick framed glasses sliding low on her nose. Her hands were midair, mid-joke, like punctuation marks. Something about the moment was so vivid it looked animated.
Mira froze.
The flutter was immediate and confusing. Recognition, yes. But also a kind of emotional static she didn’t yet know how to name.
Of course it was her. Of course it was her.
Mira stared for a moment too long. Then flipped the page. Then, without meaning to, flipped it back. She didn’t speak. But in her mind, she smiled: “Tu n’as pas disparu, finalement. Et ton nom va parfaitement avec ta personnalité… Harper Quinn.” You haven’t disappeared after all. And your name suits your personality perfectly… Harper Quinn.
Camille didn’t comment. But she noticed Mira’s double take. She always noticed. The slight shift in Mira’s breathing. The way her fingers hesitated on the edge of the paper.
=====
Much later – long after the last meeting ended and the city outside had slipped into a blur of night – Mira sat alone in her office. The folder was closed. Her laptop open. She typed slowly: Nudge Engine founder. Harper Quinn.
The results came back quickly. A handful of interviews. A short TEDx clip. And one podcast: The Human Element: Behavior, Ethics, and UX Design.
She clicked.
The audio started. Low-grade recording. A few background hums. Harper’s voice – breathy at first, then bolder – filled the room.
“Okay, hi. I’m Harper Quinn, and today we’re talking about why people click the wrong thing on purpose. No, really…”
Mira blinked.
She had intended to listen for a minute. Tone check. Founder psychology. Informal strategic patterning. But five minutes later, she was still there – elbows on her desk, wine untouched, the lights dimmed, and Harper’s voice pouring through the speakers with an ease Mira found both maddening and magnetic. She’s still listening. Still listening to her.
=====
“Okay, so -” Harper leaned over the junior developer’s screen, one hand gesturing wildly, the other holding a pencil she wasn’t using. Her glasses had slipped halfway down her nose again. “You’ve got a feedback loop cannibalizing its own intent.”
The developer blinked.
She grinned. “So… existential recursion.”
A pause. Then the dev let out a slow “Ohhhhh,” like he’d just seen color for the first time. Harper reached across and tapped three lines of code. The error vanished. She gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder like he’d just survived a minor religious crisis.
He looked up at her, awestruck. “You’re kind of – uh. That was amazing. Would you maybe want to -”
“Save it, Romeo,” came a dry voice from behind him.
Jules. Harper had always said Jules was the human equivalent of a weighted blanket and a perfect cup of tea – comforting, grounding, a little warm in the chest. She wasn’t flashy, didn’t try to be. Jules had this way of existing that made everyone else exhale a little.
Chestnut hair that never looked styled but always looked right. Big hazel eyes, kind but laser-sharp – the kind that could read a pitch deck and a person in under ten seconds. Jules was Harper’s best friend, and Nudge Engine’s co-found. She had seen every season of Nudge – and always had something useful in her tote bag: lip balm, hand cream, dark chocolate, a phone charger, tissues for Harper’s semi-regular “oh-god-I-have-to-do-a-press-thing” panic attacks. She wasn’t the loudest in the room, but people listened when she spoke. And Harper, who never fully trusted her own brilliance, trusted Jules completely. If Harper was the firework – Jules was the string that held it steady. Without her, none of it would fly.
…She dropped into the chair next to Harper and slid one of the two coffees across the desk.
“You’re on fire today.”
“I’m always on fire. Sometimes in a good way.”
Jules gave her a look. “Sometimes in a ‘we have to call your landlord’ kind of way.”
Harper saluted her with the coffee cup.
Jules nudged Harper’s laptop open and tapped something in. “Heads-up – meeting next week. Strategic advisory thing. Big international firm wants to feel us out.”
Harper blinked. “Us? Why?”
“Because we’re brilliant and weird and scaling fast enough to freak out serious people.”
Harper sipped. “Should I be nervous?”
“The consultant is French or Egyptian or both…or something.”
Harper winced. “So yes.”
=====
Later, after Jules wandered off to scold someone about API documentation, Harper opened the calendar invite. The meeting was flagged for Wednesday. The name on it: “Calridge Group – Initial Strategy Conversation.” She squinted. Clicked the invite open.
Laurent.
“Laurent… Laurent…” She tapped her temple with her glasses. “Nope. Doesn’t ring any bells.”
She typed a quick thumbs-up emoji response to Jules, confirming the meeting. Then shut the laptop again and leaned back into the chair.
“I bet she wears a business suit and asks a lot of questions about our margins. She’ll say “leverage” too much and pretended to understand product-market fit,” Harper muttered, eyes drifting toward the ceiling.
She reached for a sticky note, scrawled a reminder to wash her blazer, then went back to reorganizing the whiteboard.
“It’ll be fine.”
====
