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I look at the three of them across the table and feel my shoulders drop. My breath comes easier. Like my body finally believes what my mind is still afraid to name.
Once we’re done, Nate asks for the check and signs without even glancing at the total while Jace is helping me out of my seat, one hand at my waist, whispering about how he plans to find out what color I’m wearing under my dress.
We’re halfway to the exit when a voice cuts across the dining room. “Nathaniel Blackwell.”
Nate stops short; I nearly walk into his back. Beside me, the grin drops off Jace’s face. Behind us, Elias goes still in the way a predator does right before it strikes.
I place him immediately—the man from yesterday. The one whose name had me buried in market reports and corporate filings last night.
He arrives without hurry. “Nathaniel. It’s been a while.”
Nate’s face gives him nothing. “Adrian.”
“Well.” Adrian’s eyes travel to Jace and Elias. “I see the duo has evolved since Harvard. More colorful than I remember.”
Then his eyes move to me, recognition flashing almost immediately. “Twice in two days. I’m starting to think Nathaniel is keeping you close.”
“Or San Francisco is smaller than you think.”
His smile widens. “I never did get your name.”
“No. You didn’t.”
Adrian extends his hand to me. “Adrian—”
“Cross.” My hand meets his, a firm, deliberate pressure learned from my mother for men who mistake courtesy for submission. “Founder of Obsidian. SOLAÉ’s primary competitor. Seventy percent of your manufacturing is still in-house, if I recall.”
He stills. A half-second pause before the smile knits itself back together, a fraction smaller than before. “Most people don’t open with that.”
“Most people aren’t paying attention.” I hold his stare as I extract my hand. “It’s a real achievement. Genuinely.”
Something shifts in him; not pleasure, exactly. Recognition. He wants to be seen, and I’ve just seen him. “It is,” he says.
“Doesn’t close the gap with SOLAÉ, though.”
The warmth in his expression doesn’t disappear. It hardens into something that only resembles warmth. “Excuse me?”
I let the silence go one beat past comfortable before I answer. “SOLAÉ may outsource the majority of its parts, but it still outperforms in the North American market, brand retention, and patent volume. Not to mention their performance globally.” I let my eyes stay level with his. “The West Coast expansion is a bold move, though. I’ll be watching.”
Adrian’s eyes tighten at the corners—almost nothing, the kind of tell that disappears in a crowd. I clock it anyway. My grandmother’s voice in the back of my head: you watch the eyes, not the mouth.
“Gosh, where are my manners?” I let the drawl surface, easy and unhurried. “Forgive me. Sloane Harper.”
Something calculates behind his expression. “Sloane. You’re wasted there. At Obsidian, you would flourish.”
“She’s not on the table.” Nate’s voice lands flat and final.
Adrian’s gaze drifts to him, and the smile turns private. “Everything finds its way to the table eventually, Nathaniel. You wrote half that playbook yourself.”
Jace steps forward, easy as anything. “Is that the philosophy talking, or is that from the deposition?”
Nobody speaks. Adrian scans the four of us, reading the room, and I watch the grimace on his mouth like he's tasted something sour.
“Ms. Harper, my door is open whenever you’d like to see how the other half operates.” His gaze slides to Nate. “Nathaniel. I do hope you’re bringing her to the gala.”
“Mr. Cross.” Nate’s tone closes the door on the conversation with the quiet finality of a vault.
Adrian goes, unhurried, threading back through the dining room like he arrived on his own schedule and is leaving on it too. The moment he’s clear, Jace exhales through his teeth.
