The Halston auction house was the kind of building that tried very hard not to look like one. Grey stone, high ceilings, a receptionist trained to refer to buyers as "guests”.
Estelle had registered as a shell company three weeks in advance. Isla sat beside her in the third row, laptop open.
"Warehouse goes up in eight minutes," Isla murmured. "You're cleared to six-point-four. Anything over that, I need a nod."
"Understood."
The warehouse was on the river. Sixty thousand square feet, rail access, container truck loading. She'd been tracking it for four months. Her logistics expansion lived or died on this lot.
"Client 47 is ready," Estelle said quietly.
The auctioneer called the lot. Bidding opened at four-point-one.
Estelle's paddle went up at four-point-three. A second paddle went up at four-point-five.
She didn't turn to look. She raised. Four-point-seven.
The other paddle raised. Five.
Isla's fingers paused on the keyboard. "Stel."
"I see it."
She raised again. Five-point-three. The other paddle raised without hesitation. Five-point-six.
She raised. Five-point-eight. The other paddle raised—six.
Estelle finally glanced sideways, and the room rearranged itself into something personal.
Eric was in the fifth row, paddle in his hand. Brandon beside him with a tablet. Eric wasn't looking at the auctioneer. He was looking at her.
He raised again before she did. Six-point-three.
Isla exhaled through her nose.
Estelle did the math in eight seconds and lowered her paddle.
The gavel fell at six-point-five. The auctioneer announced the winning bidder by registered entity—a Vance subsidiary.
But Eric didn’t look triumphant.
Estelle met him in the lobby after, because she refused to leave through a side door. Brandon stood at Eric's shoulder, Isla stood at hers. The four of them formed a small square under a crystal chandelier.
"You bid against me," Estelle said.
"I did."
"You weren't registered for that lot this morning."
"I registered at lunch."
"After you saw my name on the list."
"After I saw Sterling Keep on the list, yes."
She let a beat pass. "Congratulations. You own a warehouse you don't need."
"Actually, I do need it." Eric slid his hands into his pockets. "My distribution projections for Q3 require another river-adjacent facility. That lot was already on our shortlist."
"How convenient that it climbed the shortlist this morning."
His mouth twitched. Not a smile, but near. "I came here to propose something."
"I'm sure of it."
"Joint venture. Sterling Keep holds forty-nine percent of the operational lease. Vance Corp holds fifty-one. You get the space you need, I get the distribution capacity I need, and the capital outlay is split along the same ratio. Commercially, it's clean."
"Commercially, it's brilliant."
"Thank you."
"Personally, Eric, it's so transparent I could read a newspaper through it." She tilted her head. "You outbid me so you could offer me the very thing you just prevented me from buying, at terms that require me to sit in a room with you every quarter. Did you draft this yourself or did Brandon do it?"
Behind Eric, Brandon made a small sound. The kind a man made when he was trying not to laugh and failing. Eric turned his head one degree, shot Brandon a sideways look cold enough to curdle milk.
Brandon composed his face with the speed of a man who had been paid to compose his face.
Isla, who had been silent until this point, took a half-step forward from Estelle's shoulder. "Something funny, Mr..?"
Brandon coughed. "Not at all. And it’s Mr. Cole. Ms..?"
"Navarre. Because you just laughed at my boss. Mr. Cole."
"Not at. With."
"Mm. And 'not at' is generally how men in expensive suits describe what they're doing to women they find amusing."
Brandon made the decision to try charm. "Look—can I just say, for the record, that you're a lot scarier up close."
Isla's expression didn’t move. "Was that a compliment?"
"It was an observation. Would you like it to be a complement, Ms. Ms. Navarre?"
"With 'scary' as its operative word." Isla ignores the first part on purpose.
"In a good way."
"There isn't one."
"There's at least a neutral one."
"There isn't."
"I'm digging, aren't I?"
"You're already six feet down."
"I thought women liked when men admitted they were intimidated."
"Some women, possibly. Not the ones raising a five-year-old alone because the last man they dated found it intimidating to show up at a delivery room."
A small, horrible pause. Brandon's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. "That's…"
"Save it."
"I wasn't going to…"
"Oh really? Because from where I’m standing, you…"
While the assistants continued their verbal tirade between each other, each escalating, Eric caught Estelle's eyes.
He did not speak: tilted his chin a half-inch toward an empty conference room off the lobby instead. A small gesture: Thirty seconds.
Estelle considered it. Considered Isla, currently explaining to Brandon the linguistic history of the phrase charm offensive. Considered the lobby, which had started, discreetly, to notice them.
She followed him. The conference room was small—two chairs, a table, a water pitcher no one had used. Eric closed the door. The sounds from the lobby dulled at once.
"Say it," she said.
"It wasn't about Aurora."
"We've been there."
"We haven't."
"You said the same sentence at the Meridian."
"I said the same sentence. I didn't say what was under it."
Estelle waited. Eric looked at her for a long moment, and then, with visible effort, at a point past her shoulder.
"There were circumstances, Estelle. Circumstances you didn't know about. That I couldn't…" He stopped. Started again. "That I couldn't tell you, because I couldn't prove them, and the part I could prove pointed the wrong way."
"What circumstances?"
His jaw locked.
"Eric, what circumstances?"
Silence again.
Estelle watched the muscle at the side of his jaw work. She watched his hand, in the pocket of his jacket, close around something. She watched him try to draft a sentence that, four years into trying to draft the same sentence, he still didn't have.
"I can't," he said finally.
"Can't or won't?"
"Both."
"Then we're done here." Estelle turned to reach for the door handle, but she didn't reach it.
"Wait!” Eric’s hand closed around her wrist and turned her to face him.
They were now standing closer than either of them had intended. Closer than the size of the room fully explained. She could see, in the flat grey light of the conference room, the faint shadow under his eye, the small crease at the corner of his mouth that hadn't been there five years ago.
Eric’s thumb, where it rested against the inside of her wrist, could feel her pulse. His gaze dropped to her mouth. Her lips partened slightly.
The distance between them shrank by a fraction. Not a decision: something older and more physical than a decision. Eric’s hand came up, but it didn't touch her.
It came up, and it stopped, and it hung for one second in the air between them like a question he had not been given permission to ask. Estelle open her mouth, and…
The conference room door slammed open.
Brandon entered backwards, gesturing. Isla followed, furious.
"—can't be left alone with yours, he has a track record—"
"Oh, please, it's him who can't be left with her, don't flatter yourself!"
"I am flattering no one, I am reporting."
"You have been reporting for twenty minutes, Ms. Navarre, and I think what you actually…"
They registered the room: the silence, the two people in it. The distance between those two people, which was small, and the expressions on those two people's faces, which were not small.
Brandon stopped mid-word, Isla closed her mouth. The moment shattered.
Estelle turned from the door with a motion that ended the argument by existing. Her mask slid back into place so smoothly it was as though the last ten seconds had not occurred.
She walked past Brandon and Isla out into the lobby. Isla, recognizing the signal, snapped to attention and held out Estelle's coat.
Estelle shrugged it on without looking at Eric. "Isla."
"Yes?"
"Set up a meeting with Mr. Vance regarding his proposal." Then, she walked out.
Eric stood in the conference room, blindsided. He had no idea what had changed her mind. Only that something had.