But unfortunately for the screen, it died down just as she saw the display.
Sloane walked in.
She looked wrecked, which I now realized was likely an intentional aesthetic choice. Her hair was damp from the New York humidity, sticking to her forehead in messy, dark waves. There was a smudge of grease on her cheek—placed a little too perfectly near her jawline, I noted. A prop. A costume choice for the role of the working-class hero.
She was carrying two plastic bags that smelled like a heavenly mix of peanut sauce and toasted garlic.
"I come bearing gifts," she announced, kicking the door shut behind her with a heavy thud of her heel. "Pad Thai and spring rolls. And I hope you like heat, because the woman at the truck said this will burn your soul."
I spun the spaceship-style chair around, plastering on my best, brightest "disowned heiress" smile.
"My soul is already burnt," I said lightly, my voice airy and carefree. "But my stomach is empty. You're a lifesaver, wife."
She walked toward the desk, her eyes scanning my face with that same intense, protective gaze that had fooled me in the rain. She was checking for cracks. She wanted to see if I'd fallen apart in her "friend's" glass castle while she was out "changing oil."
"Writing going okay?" she asked, setting the containers down on the coffee table. She moved with a certain grace that didn't belong to a woman who spent her days under a car. It was the movement of someone used to being watched.
"Productive," I lied, standing up and stretching my arms over my head, letting the oversized black shirt ride up just enough to catch her eyes. "I wrote twenty-five thousand words."
She paused, a noodle box halfway to the table. She actually looked stunned. "Twenty-five thousand? In one day? Is that even humanly possible?"
"For me? It's a slow Tuesday." I walked over to her, my bare feet silent on the polished concrete. "When the flow hits, I don't stop. It's a trance. I just... vomit words onto the page until the story is purged."
She blinked, a flicker of genuine amusement breaking through her "exhausted mechanic" mask. "Charming image."
"I'm a charming girl," I said, flopping onto the matte black couch and pulling a container toward me. "How was the garage? Change a lot of filters? Save any damsels in car-related distress?"
She stiffened. It was a micro-movement, a slight tightening of the shoulders that I would have missed yesterday. But now that I knew she was a CEO dodging a hostile takeover and a tyrannical grandmother, I saw it for what it was: the physical manifestation of a lie.
"Yeah," she said, focusing with sudden, intense interest on opening a packet of soy sauce. "Greasy. Boring. My boss is a total tyrant."
Your boss is you, I thought, suppressed laughter bubbling in my throat. And you're right, Sloane. She really is a tyrant.
"Speaking of bosses," I said, grabbing a golden-brown spring roll. "We had a visitor today."
Sloane froze. Her plastic fork stopped halfway to her mouth. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees in a single second.
She turned her head slowly, her dark eyes locking onto mine. "A visitor?"
"Yeah. Blonde. Tall. Angry. She wore a white suit that cost more than your imaginary car." I took a bite of the roll. Crunch. The sound was deafening in the sudden silence.
"Did she... say a name?" Her voice was controlled. Low. But I could hear the underlying frequency of a woman who realized her cover was being shredded.
"Veronica," I said around a mouthful of cabbage and shrimp. "She was shouting about something called a 'Board.' I didn't really get it."
I tilted my head, widening my eyes into the perfect, innocent doe-eyed expression I'd spent years perfecting at Vane family galas.
"Do you surf, Sloane? She seemed very insistent that the Board was waiting for you. I didn't know mechanics were so into water sports."
Sloane choked.
She actually choked on thin air. She grabbed a water bottle from the table, coughing harshly to clear her lungs. Her face turned a slight shade of red—not from the "heat" of the food, but from the sheer absurdity of the situation.
"She... uh... she's the landlord's assistant," she lied, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "The owner. My friend. She's on the Condo Board. They're incredibly strict about noise complaints and guest policies."
"Right," I nodded slowly, mentally applauding her quick thinking. "That explains the merger talk. Is the Condo merging with another building? It sounds incredibly complex for a residential loft."
Sloane looked like she wanted to jump off the balcony. She ran a hand through her hair, looking genuinely flustered for the first time since we met.
"It's... real estate jargon," she muttered, refusing to make eye contact. "She's dramatic. A total shark. Just ignore her. Did she leave anything else?"
"Just this."
I reached under the coffee table and pulled out the heavy, cream-colored envelope. I slid it across the glass toward her.
"She said to give you this. Something about a gala tonight? And your grandmother cutting you off if you don't show?"
I leaned forward, dropping my voice to a whisper of mock concern. "Sloane... does your grandmother own the garage? Is this like a family business thing?"
She stared at the envelope like it was a live grenade.
"Give me that," she said, snatching it off the table. She didn't open it. She just tossed it onto the kitchen counter behind her as if it were junk mail.
"My grandmother... she likes to help out," she said, her jaw tightening so hard I thought I heard a tooth crack. "She's old-fashioned. She wants me at some boring family dinner. She calls it a 'gala' because she likes to feel important. It's all ego."
"I see," I said, picking up my chopsticks. "So you're not going? Even with the threat of being cut off? We really could use the cash, Sloane. We have exactly twenty bucks and a very expensive dream."
She smirked, her mask sliding back into place. It was a practiced, charming look—the "Iron Heir" pretending to be a rebel.
"I'd rather eat Pad Thai with my wife than listen to my grandmother criticize my life choices for four hours," she said. "Besides, I have a sugar momma now. You're going to write that bestseller and keep me in the luxury I'm clearly not accustomed to, right?"
I laughed, a genuine sound this time. "Careful, Ms. Cross. If I get that rich, I might decide to trade you in for a younger, less greasy model."
"I'm irreplaceable," she said, handing me a fresh napkin. "Eat. You look pale. You spent too much time in front of that screen."
We ate in silence for a few minutes, the only sound the city traffic humming thirty stories below. But I watched her. I watched the way she pointedly ignored the envelope on the counter, even though her eyes kept flicking back to it like a magnetic pull.
She was skipping a multi-billion dollar corporate event—a night that could decide the fate of her trillion-dollar empire—to sit on a floor and eat twenty-dollar noodles with a woman she thought was a beggar.
Why? Was she that desperate to hide? Or did she just hate her gilded cage that much?