Chapter 5 - The Lunch at NoBu
By twelve-forty-five, I had my sketchbooks spread out across my cutting table, my favorite shears polished, and three dress mannequins draped in rich emerald silk and midnight-blue velvet.
At precisely one o'clock, the studio door opened.
Alex walked in.
He wasn't wearing his formal gala suit from the night before. He wore an open-collared dark charcoal shirt beneath a dark blazer, looking effortlessly handsome and completely command of his surroundings.
He stopped just inside the doorway, his eyes taking in the hanging fabrics, the high ceilings, and the sketches pinned to the cork wall.
“It suits you,” he said softly, his gaze settling on me.
I was wearing a simple cream tailored jumpsuit I had designed last spring, my hair tied back in a neat silver clip, showing the small bandage over the scratch on my cheek.
“It suits me better now that I own the floor,” I said, stepping around the table. “Sarah told me what you did with the bank debt last night.”
Alex walked over to my sketch table, looking down at an illustration of a dramatic, backless gown with hand-beaded silver stars along the train.
“Harrison Miller tried to cut your oxygen,” Alex said, his finger lightly tracing the pencil lines on the paper. “I simply gave you the air estate you earned.”
He looked up, his gray eyes locking onto mine. “Are you ready for lunch?”
We drove to Malibu in Alex’s open-top vintage Jaguar, the warm ocean breeze blowing through my hair as we swept along the Pacific Coast Highway.
We sat on the private outdoor deck at NoBu, overlooking the crashing blue waves of the ocean. It was a world away from the stuffy, political ballroom of the Beverly Hills hotel.
For two hours, we didn't talk about Brad. We didn't talk about the scandal in the newspapers.
We talked about art, about architecture, about his childhood growing up between London and San Francisco, and about my dream of launching an independent haute couture house that focused on sustainable, hand-crafted craftsmanship instead of mass-produced luxury trends.
Alex listened to me with a deep, quiet intensity that made me feel like every word I spoke was the most important thing in the room. He didn't interrupt. He didn't correct my perspective. He didn't try to make my dreams sound smaller to fit his ego.
“You speak about your work with a rare kind of reverence, Kate,” Alex remarked, pouring a chilled glass of white wine for me.
“Because it saved me,” I confessed, looking out at the ocean. “When my parents passed away when I was nineteen, sewing was the only thing that kept my hands steady. When I met Brad, I thought he was offering me security. I didn't realize until last night that security built on someone else’s terms is just a golden cage.”
Alex set his glass down, his expression turning serious.
“A woman like you doesn't belong in a cage, Kate,” he said softly. “You belong at the top of the tower, looking down at the people who were too blind to see your worth.”
At that moment, my new phone buzzed on the wooden table.
I looked down at the screen.
It was an incoming call from a number I knew by heart, even though I hadn't saved it.
Bradley Miller.
Alex saw the screen, but he remained quiet, waiting for my reaction.
I picked up the phone, swiped the decline button without a second thought, and flipped the screen face-down on the table.
“He’s called me eleven times since nine o'clock,” I said calmly.
“He will call a hundred more,” Alex noted, his gray eyes shining with an unreadable emotion. “Harrison’s board members are panicking. Two major investors pulled out of their commercial port project this morning, citing 'unstable family leadership.'”
I stared at him. “Did you have something to do with those investors?”
May you like
Alex took a slow sip of his wine, his lips forming a dangerous, beautiful smile.
“I may have mentioned to them over breakfast that Hawthorne Logistics was looking for a new corporate partner,” Alex murmured. “And that we prefer to do business with families that treat their women with respect.”
