Chapter Six
Living Together
He came back on a Tuesday.
I didn't know he was home until I heard the elevator open. I was in the living room at the time, fabric swatches and sketches covering the dining table — the flat wide surface was the best workspace I'd found, and since Lucas wasn't here to mind, I'd spread out.
I was in the middle of pinning a toile when the doors opened and Lucas Lancaster walked into our shared life for the first time.
He stopped when he saw the table.
I stopped when I saw him.
He looked like he'd stepped off a transatlantic flight and still managed to appear like a man in complete control of every room he entered. Jacket over his arm. Top button open. The single concession to twelve hours in the air.
His eyes moved over the table. The swatches. The sketches. A half-constructed bodice pinned to a dress form in the corner.
"The dining table," he said.
"I'll move it for meals."
A pause. "It's fine."
He set down his bag. Looked at the dress form.
I waited for the diplomatic suggestion that I set up a proper studio somewhere else in the apartment — a guest room, perhaps. Something contained.
Instead he crossed to the table, picked up one of the fabric swatches — midnight blue silk, with a hand-painted grain pattern I'd been testing — and held it to the window light.
Something in his expression shifted. Brief. Hard to read.
"Lancaster Fashion is relaunching in six months," he said.
"I read about it." I watched him. "Congratulations."
"We're looking for a creative director." He set the swatch down. "Someone who understands luxury without performing it."
I kept my voice even. "I have my own studio."
"I know."
"Then you know that's not something I'd walk away from."
"I'm not asking you to walk away from it." He met my eyes. "I'm asking if you'd consider a conversation."
A conversation. Not a command, not an assumption — a question. From Lucas Lancaster.
I filed that away somewhere.
"I'll think about it," I said.
He nodded once and went to change. No pressure. No follow-up.
Dinner was Mrs. Chen's doing — she'd prepared for his return without being asked. We sat at the cleaned table. He ate with focused efficiency. I ate and watched the city out the window.
The silence wasn't comfortable. But it wasn't hostile either.
It was two separate people, in the same space, not yet sure what the rules were.
"Ground rules," I said, halfway through the meal.
He looked up.
"We share the kitchen. I work in the dining room during the day. I won't leave anything in your study. You don't touch my sketches." I paused. "Does that work?"
He looked at me for a moment.
"Yes," he said.
We finished dinner.
That night I lay awake and listened to the apartment settle — the faint sounds of another person present in it. Him moving to his room. A light under his door at midnight when I went to get water.
Still working.
I went back to bed and stared at the ceiling.
He notices things, I thought. The swatch. The light.
I fell asleep before I could finish the thought — which was probably for the best.
