Chapter 1

Idala

The only thing stronger than the smell of burnt coffee in my office is the scent of impending doom. It’s a subtle fragrance, notes of recycled paper from a bank’s legal department, with an undertone of stale desperation. At nine p.m. on a Wednesday, it’s my signature scent.

My finger hovers over the trackpad, tracing the outline of a bright red digital banner. FINAL NOTICE. It’s the third one this month. I click the little ‘x’ and the email vanishes, but the feeling of it—a cold dread coiling in my gut—remains. Out of sight, deep in my spleen.

“Any movement on the Kinsley account? Did they pay the invoice?” I ask, pinching the bridge of my nose. The phone is slick with sweat against my ear.

On the other end, Joan lets out a sigh that sounds like a deflating balloon. “They said the check is in the mail. The classic lie we tell ourselves to sleep at night.”

“Sleep,” I snort, leaning back in my chair. The leather groans in protest. “What a concept. Remind me to schedule some of that in 2026.”

My office is my fortress. Floor-to-ceiling shelves are crammed with books on structural engineering and brutalist theory. The walls are a stark white; the lines of my drafting table, clean and severe. It’s a space built on the principle of order, my personal rebellion against the chaos of the outside world. The only things out of place are the dozen empty coffee mugs that form a ceramic skyline on my desk and the stack of bills I’ve strategically hidden under a copy of Form, Space, and Order.

“Okay, but for real,” Joan continues, her voice softening. “Did the bank…?”

“Extensions don’t pay for the server hosting, Joan. Or the electricity. Or your salary, which I intend to keep paying.” I adjust the cuff of my blazer, a nervous tic I’ve never managed to shake. It’s a gesture that says, I am in control, even when my insides are staging a full-scale mutiny.

“I know. It’s just… if Marco hadn’t—”

“Don’t,” I cut her off, the single word as sharp and cold as a shard of glass. “We don’t use that name in this office. He made his choice. Now we’re making ours.”

The silence on the line is heavy. Marco’s name is a ghost that haunts this firm, a specter of stolen clients and shattered trust. 

He didn’t just leave; he took a wrecking ball to the foundation of my life, professionally and personally, and I’ve been trying to patch the cracks ever since. He was the one who taught me that love is chaos disguised as a blueprint. A lesson I have no intention of forgetting.

“Right. Sorry,” Joan says finally. “It’s just… this isn’t fair. Your design for the Holiday Hearth submission was genius, Idala. The geothermal integration, the cantilevered observation deck… it was poetry. No one else is doing work like that.”

A small, weary smile touches my lips. Joan’s faith in me is one of the few structural supports I have left. “Poetry doesn’t matter if you’re second place, Joan. Second place is just the first loser.”

“You’re not going to be second place.”

Her certainty is a balm, but my pragmatism is a shield. “We need this win. It’s not just a contract; it’s a defibrillator for the firm.”

As if on cue, a notification dings, sliding into the top right corner of my screen. My breath hitches.

From: Holiday Hearth Resort Committee

Subject: Finalist Announcement - Holiday Hearth Resort Project

The world narrows to the glowing pixels on my monitor. My heart starts a frantic, staccato beat against my ribs. This is it. The defibrillator, or the final nail.

“Joan,” I whisper, my throat suddenly tight.

“What is it? Is that… is that them?” Her voice is a squeak of tension.

I can’t form words. I just nod at my empty office. I take a steadying breath, the kind you take before you walk into a client meeting you know you’re about to lose. My hand, slick with a fresh layer of sweat, moves the cursor. It trembles slightly.

Click.

The email opens. It’s a wall of text, formal and impersonal. I skim past the pleasantries, my eyes hunting for the words that matter. Dear Ms. Fillmore… rigorous selection process… wealth of talent…

Come on, come on…

…after careful consideration, we are pleased to inform you that Fillmore Design has been selected as one of two finalists for the Holiday Hearth Resort project.

The air rushes out of my lungs in a single, whooping gasp. A giddy, unfamiliar lightness blooms in my chest. I grip the edge of my desk, anchoring myself.

“We’re in,” I breathe into the phone. The words feel foreign, wonderful. “Joan, we’re in.”

A shriek erupts from the other end of the line, so loud I have to pull the phone away from my ear. “OH MY GOD! I KNEW IT! I TOLD YOU! We have to celebrate! I’m opening the emergency prosecco I keep in my desk for moments like this!”

A real, genuine laugh bubbles up out of me. It feels like cracking open a window in a room that’s been sealed for years. “Don’t you dare drink that without me. We’ll celebrate tomorrow. Tonight, I need to read the details.”

“Okay, okay! Boss mode, I get it. This is amazing, Idala. Truly. I’m so proud of you.”

The warmth of her words settles over me as I scroll down the email. “Thank you, Joan. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

My eyes catch the next line. The final stage of the competition will be held at the Holly & Ivy Inn in picturesque Stowe, Vermont, where you and the other finalist will present your final concepts to the board…

Vermont. Okay. I can do Vermont. Quaint, cold, full of maple syrup. Manageable.

We look forward to welcoming you and the principal architect from our other finalist firm…

A name. I’m looking for a name. Who is the dragon I have to slay to save my kingdom? My gaze drops to the next line, to the corporate letterhead of my competition.

Cobbett & Associates

The name is vaguely familiar, one of the big corporate firms from Boston that churns out aesthetically pleasing but soulless glass boxes. A formidable opponent, but a beatable one. My style is unique. My vision is clear. I can beat a glass box.

And then I see the name printed below the firm’s. The name of the principal architect.

Andrew Cobbett.

The air freezes in my lungs. The giddy warmth in my chest vanishes, replaced by a shard of ice. The room tilts on its axis. It can’t be. It’s a common name. It has to be a different Andrew Cobbett. A fifty-year-old Andrew Cobbett with a comb-over and a paunch.

But then I scroll to the very bottom of the email, to the embedded signature. And there he is.

A professionally taken corporate headshot. His light brown hair is still perpetually rumpled, as if he just ran his hands through it. His deep blue eyes still crinkle at the corners. And that smile—that goddamn slightly crooked smile that feels both mischievous and genuine—hits me like a physical blow. It’s the same smile that once promised me a future, right before it shattered my past.

The phone is still pressed to my ear. Joan is chattering away, mapping out a battle plan for Vermont. “…and we can pull the geothermal efficiency reports, maybe create a 3D walkthrough… Idala? You still there? Who is it? Who are we up against?”

My voice is gone. My entire world has collapsed into the four-inch square of that photograph. The man who taught me that passion was a liability. The ghost I had spent the last eight years burying under deadlines and concrete-and-steel designs.

I disconnect the call without a word, dropping the phone onto my desk with a clatter. The silence of the office is suddenly deafening. It’s just me and him. Me and the smiling, infuriating, heartbreaking face of the only man I ever let tear down my walls.

My hand clenches into a fist. A tremor runs through me, pure, unadulterated rage mixed with a terrifying dose of something else. Something I refuse to name.

With a sharp, guttural sound, I slam my laptop shut. The crack of the impact echoes in the cavernous silence.

Not him. Anyone but him.