The Gala

The Hartwell Gala was the first real test, and Maya failed it within twenty minutes — by being too good.

She'd expected to be decorative. Instead, she found herself in a conversation with the deputy mayor about affordable housing design, and by the time Alexander extracted her, she had a tentative invitation to pitch Chen Studio for a municipal contract.

"You were supposed to smile and hold my arm," he murmured as they crossed the floor.

"You should've put that in the contract. Clause twelve: fiancée must not have opinions."

"Noted for next time." His hand rested at the small of her back, contextually appropriate, and she was annoyingly aware of it.

The room glittered with people who knew Alexander Voss as a headline. Maya watched them approach him — the flatterers, the rivals, the ones who smiled while calculating. She watched him give each of them the same polished nothing. And then she watched him cross the room to bring an elderly woman a chair and her dropped wrap, quietly, when he thought no one was looking.

"You're staring," he said, reappearing at her side with two glasses.

"I'm an architect. I assess structural inconsistencies." She took the glass. "You're not what your reputation says."

"Neither are you. The deputy mayor's aide just asked for your card. You came here as my accessory and you're leaving with a pitch meeting."

It should have felt like a triumph. Instead, on the ride home, Maya looked at him in the dark of the car — tie loosened, head back, finally unguarded — and felt the first true flicker of panic.

Because the contract had a rule about feelings. And rules, she was discovering, were a lot like the buildings she designed: they only held if everyone respected the load-bearing walls.