I found the bar by accident. Or maybe on purpose. I'd been walking for twenty minutes with no destination, just away from the penthouse, away from the silence that had teeth.
The East Village dive was dim and honest about it. No chandeliers. No marble. Just scarred wood and low music and people who didn't care who my father was.
I ordered whiskey. Drank it too fast. Ordered another.
"Sierra?"
I turned. Romeo stood three feet away, holding a beer, looking at me like I was something breakable he'd found on the sidewalk.
"Romeo." I tried to smile. "What are you doing here?"
"I live two blocks away." He slid onto the stool beside me without asking, which somehow felt like the kindest thing anyone had done all week. "What are you doing here?"
I looked at my glass. "Drinking."
"Yeah, I can see that." He didn't push. Just sat there, present, like he had all the time in the world and no agenda for it.
We talked. About nothing important. A documentary he'd watched. A bakery that opened near his apartment. He asked if I'd seen the Vermeer exhibit at the Frick, and when I said no, he didn't say I should go—he just described his favorite painting in detail, the way the light fell, until I could almost see it.
I laughed. Actually laughed, the sound startling me.
"There it is," Romeo said quietly.
"What?"
"The first time I've seen you smile in months."
I looked away. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Maybe not." He took a sip of his beer. "But I know what lonely looks like."
Before I could answer, the door slammed open.
Cassian.
He crossed the bar in four strides, jaw tight, eyes flat and furious. His hand closed around my wrist—not hard enough to bruise, but hard enough that I felt owned.
"We're leaving," he said.
Romeo stood. "She's in the middle of a conversation."
Cassian finally looked at him. Really looked. Like he was cataloging every reason Romeo didn't matter.
"Stay out of things you don't understand, kid."
Romeo's jaw tightened, but he didn't move. He just looked at me, a silent question I couldn't answer.
I let Cassian pull me toward the door. I didn't fight. I never fought.
Outside, the car was waiting. Cassian opened the door and I slid in, and he followed, slamming it shut behind us. The driver pulled away without being told.
"What the hell were you thinking?" Cassian's voice was low, controlled, which was somehow worse than yelling. "Do you have any idea how this looks? My wife, alone in some dive bar in the East Village with some kid—"
"His name is Romeo," I said quietly.
"I don't care what his name is." Cassian turned to face me fully. "You're embarrassing the family. You're embarrassing me."
I stared out the window at the blurred lights. "I wasn't doing anything wrong."
"You were alone with another man."
"You're alone with my sister three times a week."
The silence that followed had weight.
"That's different," Cassian said finally.
"Why?"
He didn't answer. He didn't have to. We both knew why. Kensley was sacred. I was obligation.
I turned back to the window. The city slid past, all those lit windows full of people living lives I'd never have.
"I don't want you," I said, so quietly I wasn't sure he heard. "You've made that clear from the beginning. So why does it matter if someone else does?"
Cassian's hand flexed on his knee. "Because you're mine."
Not I love you. Not I care. Just possession. Ownership without affection.
I closed my eyes. Something small and quiet inside me made a decision I didn't have words for yet.
---
Romeo texted the next morning.
*Hope you got home okay. No pressure. Just wanted you to know I'm here if you need anything.*
I stared at the message for a long time. Then I saved his number under a different name, something Cassian wouldn't recognize if he ever looked.
Over the next few weeks, Romeo appeared. Not intrusively. Not desperately. Just there.
An article link about a Frida Kahlo retrospective I'd mentioned once, months ago. A coffee left at my office reception during a late meeting, still hot, with a note that just said *Thought you could use this.* His name on the volunteer list for a Carpenter Industries charity run, in sneakers that had seen better days, grinning at me from the registration table.
He never asked for anything. Never pushed. Never declared.
But I started looking for him. Started noticing when he wasn't there. Started texting back.
And Romeo, for his part, stopped pretending this was just gratitude. He watched me across crowded rooms with an expression that made my chest tight. He remembered things I said in passing. He showed up.
Cassian noticed, eventually. His eyes would narrow when I checked my phone. His questions got sharper.
"Who are you texting?"
"Work."
"You smiled."
"It was a funny email."
Lies came easier than they used to. I was learning.
One night, alone in the penthouse while Cassian was at Kensley's apartment for the third time that week, I sat on the balcony and looked at my phone.
Romeo's last message: *You deserve better than this.*
I typed and deleted five responses before settling on the truth.
*I'm starting to believe you.*
I hit send. Stared at the skyline. Felt something shift, small and irreversible, like the first crack in ice before the thaw.
