Dinner that first night was supposed to be simple.
“Family meal,” Rafe had called it on the group chat. “Staff only. Carb load before the content horde descends.”
Sophie clung to that phrase as if it were an amulet.
Family.
Not clients. Not executives. Not cameras.
Just people who knew how to stack chairs and tape cords and make obsolete chafing dishes work like magic.
By six-forty-five, the long table in the dining room was set—not in gala finery, but in something warmer. No tablecloth, just the smooth pale wood with woven runners down the middle. Plates mismatched from the estate’s less formal cupboards. A row of glass jars holding simple arrangements of eucalyptus and white candles.
Rafe had gone full comfort mode.
Roast chicken, the skin blistered and golden. Bowls of herb-slicked potatoes. A massive salad of winter greens, toasted nuts, shaved fennel. Fresh bread, still hot enough to make the butter sigh.
“If this is ‘simple,’” Mia whispered to Sophie as they helped carry dishes out, “I need to see his idea of complicated.”
“He complicated your menu once,” Sophie said. “You cried.”
“Those were tears of joy,” Mia insisted. Then, sotto voce: “Mostly.”
The staff filtered in, shedding the day’s work like coats.
Mia, cheeks still flushed from hauling lighting rigs.
Two of the local A/V techs, arms already inked with cable burns.
Amber, the housekeeper, in a soft sweater instead of her uniform, hair in a loose braid.
Howard, of course, appearing with the sort of quiet grace that suggested he hadn’t been wrangling contracts and grocery deliveries all afternoon.
Nathan was the last.
He came in from the far hall in a dark Henley and jeans, barefoot again, hair damp from what had clearly been a recent shower. The more formal version she’d seen in the ballroom had been replaced by this—less armor, more skin.
Ridiculous, her brain thought, that ankles could be so distracting.
He paused at the threshold, taking in the scene: the food, the gathered people, the warm low light from the pendant lamps.
For a second, something like wariness flickered. Then his shoulders loosened a fraction.
Rafe’s head popped up from behind a stack of plates.
“We have rules,” he announced. “One, you sit where I tell you. Two, you eat everything. Three, no talking about work for the first ten minutes.”
“That seems counterproductive,” Howard murmured, moving toward a chair.
“It’s healthy,” Rafe said. “You all need to remember you’re humans, not job descriptions.”
“Therapists,” Nathan muttered. “You’re all in league.”
Sophie carried a basket of bread to the table and nearly collided with him at the end.
“Sorry,” she said.
“You say that a lot,” he replied.
“For running into you with bread?” she asked.
“For a lot of things you don’t need to apologize for,” he said.
Heat crept up her neck.
“Sit,” Rafe commanded, tapping the back of a chair near the middle of the table. “You here.” He pointed to Sophie. “You—” he waved at Nathan “—there. Not next to each other. Opposite. For structural integrity.”
“For what?” Nathan asked.
“Nothing,” Rafe said cheerfully. “Obey, or I tell embarrassing kitchen stories.”
They obeyed.
Sophie sank into her seat, halfway down one side.
Nathan took the chair across, offset so that when she looked up, she’d have to look slightly right to see him.
It was unfair how aware she was of that distance.
“Okay,” Rafe said, taking the head of the table like a general. “No work for ten minutes. Talk about… movies. TV. Anything but how many amps the generator can handle or whether the StreamWave logo looks best in teal or vomit-green.”
“It’s turquoise,” Priya said, sliding into the seat next to Sophie with a grin. “And it’s hideous. But we’re not supposed to say that out loud.”
“You just did,” Amber pointed out.
“We’re among friends,” Priya said.
“You all have a very loose definition of ‘friends,’” Howard observed, but there was a faint smile at the corner of his mouth.
“What’s the last non-work thing you watched?” Rafe asked, pointing his fork at Sophie.
She thought.
“Uh,” she said. “A baking show where British people apologized to pastry.”
“Excellent choice,” he said. “Nathan?”
Nathan made a face. “A documentary about North Korean prison camps,” he said.
The table groaned.
“Of course,” Mia said. “Can you watch anything that doesn’t give you nightmares?”
“I like *Planet Earth*,” he said defensively. “Sometimes. When the animals don’t die.”
“I’m banning the word ‘die’ from this table,” Rafe said.
“Good luck,” Nathan muttered.
Howard cut in. “I watched a romcom on a plane last week,” he said, surprising everyone. “Two strangers in New York, one bookshop, many misunderstandings.”
“You? A romcom?” Amber said. “Did someone tie you to the seat and prop your eyes open?”
“It was either that or the Marvel sequel with the raccoon,” Howard said. “I chose charm over explosions.”
“Raccoon is charming,” Mia said.
“This is progress,” Sophie said. “Look at us. Talking about media like normal people.”
“Time’s up,” Rafe announced, slapping his palm on the table. “You did terribly, but I’ll allow it. Eat.”
Conversation loosened further as plates filled.
Someone made a joke about the four extension cords that had mysteriously vanished and reappeared in the mudroom. Amber told a story about catching a previous guest trying to skinny-dip in the outdoor plunge pool and having to herd him inside with a towel like an errant cat.
Mia and Priya discovered they both followed the same chaotic wedding-planning meme account and spent five minutes showing each other cursed cake photos.
Sophie listened, laughed where appropriate, let the hum of voices wrap around her.
Across the table, Nathan was quieter.
He responded when spoken to.
He even told a story—about a book tour years ago where his plane had been diverted three times and he’d ended up doing a signing at an airport bookstore at midnight for two drunk businessmen and a kid who’d thought he was someone from a superhero movie.
“It was the best event I’ve ever done,” he said. “The kid drew me as an actual raccoon.”
Howard’s lips twitched. “I knew there was a Marvel tie somewhere,” he murmured.
What struck Sophie was that, when Nathan talked, he didn’t look down the table, or at his plate, or at some fixed point on the wall.
He looked, more often than not, at her.
As if gauging her reactions.
Measuring his own comfort by hers.
She tried not to read too much into it.
She failed.
At one point, while Rafe was pontificating about the importance of properly salted pasta water, Mia leaned in.
“He’s a lot,” she whispered behind her hand.
“Which he?” Sophie asked, though she knew.
“The famous one,” Mia said. “I feel like he’s trying to burn holes in the table with his eyes half the time.”
“That’s just his face,” Sophie said.
“And half the other time,” Mia went on, “he tunes in like a satellite whenever you talk. It’s freaky.”
Sophie’s fork paused halfway to her mouth.
She forced it to continue.
“Focus,” she said. “We’re here for the job.”
“Sure,” Mia said. “Job. That’s what we’re calling it now.”
Sophie elbowed her in the ribs.
“Eat your potatoes,” she hissed.
After dinner, when plates were scraped and Rafe had shooed anyone who wasn’t on dish duty out of the kitchen, people drifted.
Some went to their rooms to call home, charge phones, or fall face-first into beds.
The A/V guys headed back to the conference room to tweak the lighting cues one last time.
Sophie found herself standing at the edge of the living room, staring out at the dark.
The valley was a velvet stretch below, sprinkled with the distant lights of the town. The sky above was clear enough that stars pricked through, cold and sharp.
She hugged her arms around herself, not because she was cold—Rafe’s roasted potatoes had her practically radiating heat—but because habit.
She counted the points of light.
One, two, three—
“You’re doing it again,” a voice said at her shoulder.
She started.
Nathan had appeared beside her, silent as his cat.
“Doing what?” she asked.
“Mapping exits in your head,” he said. “Even when you’re looking at the sky.”
Her lips quirked.
“Can’t turn it off,” she said. “Occupational hazard.”
He stood close but not touching, arms folded loosely.
His reflection hovered beside hers in the glass.
“You did good tonight,” she said.
“At chewing,” he said.
“At being with people,” she amended. “No one left the table in tears.”
“Low bar,” he said.
“It’s my favorite kind,” she replied.
Silence settled.
Comfortable.
Almost.
“How bad are they, do you think?” he asked after a moment.
“StreamWave?” she said. “On a diva scale?”
“On a ‘will they show up with ring lights and dance in my hallways’ scale,” he said.
“Some of them will want to,” she said. “Most of them will be too intimidated. You in a black Henley is a natural content deterrent.”
“That’s… good?” he said.
“Highly,” she said.
He glanced at her profile.
“You’re… calm,” he observed.
“For the moment,” she said. “Tomorrow I’ll wake up and remember we have twenty-four people to shepherd and twelve separate schedules to sync and a streaming giant expecting magic.”
“You like that,” he said.
“Yes,” she admitted. “I do.”
“Masochist,” he murmured.
“Projecting,” she shot back.
He smiled.
The stars reflected in the glass gave the illusion of them having constellations over their heads.
He shifted, weight from one bare foot to the other.
“I have something for you,” he said abruptly.
Her heart stuttered.
“If you pull out a ring light, I’m leaving,” she said.
He snorted.
“No,” he said. “Something less cursed.”
He walked over to the built-in credenza under the far window, opened one of the drawers, and rummaged.
She watched, curiosity fighting nerves.
He came back with a small, rectangular object wrapped in brown paper.
“Oh God,” she said. “If that’s a framed NDA, I’m quitting.”
“Funny,” he said. “No. It’s… idiotically sentimental.”
Her breath caught.
He held it out.
She hesitated.
Then took it.
The paper crackled under her fingers as she unfolded it.
It was a book.
A hardcover, familiar by weight alone.
His.
One of the earlier ones.
*Blackout Corridor*.
She recognized the cover instantly: a hallway in shadow, a door half-open, light spilling out.
She’d read this one on a plane years ago, heart pounding.
This copy, though, was different.
The dust jacket was worn at the edges, the spine creased.
She flipped it open.
On the inside front cover, in his neat, small handwriting:
> Sophie— > > This is the first one I wrote after the roof. > > I thought for a long time that it took something from me I’d never get back. > > You’ve shown me, in the last year, that maybe I didn’t lose as much as I thought. Or that what I lost, I’ve rebuilt differently. Better. > > Thank you for keeping the lights on. > > —N
Her eyes blurred halfway down.
She blinked, hard.
“This is…” she managed. “Nathan.”
His ears had gone faintly pink.
“Howard found a box of author copies in the cellar,” he said. “I thought… if I was going to sign one for anyone, it should be… you.”
Her throat worked.
“You hate signing things,” she said.
“I hate signing things for people who want… a piece of the brand,” he said. “This is… different.”
She ran her fingers over the lines, the grooves his pen had left in the paper.
“‘Keeping the lights on’ is very on the nose,” she said, voice wobbling. “Even for you.”
“I considered ‘stop letting your generator almost kill me,’” he said. “But it didn’t fit.”
A wet laugh escaped her.
She closed the book gently.
“Thank you,” she said.
The words felt inadequate.
He shrugged one shoulder.
“It’s just paper,” he said.
“No,” she said quietly. “It’s… not.”
Silence stretched, heavier now.
Not uncomfortable.
Weighty.
She wanted to step into him again.
Rest her forehead on his chest.
Let the solidity of him ground her.
Rule two pulsed in her head.
During the summit, no sex. No more than we can handle.
Hello-hugs had already pushed the border.
This—this gift—was a different sort of intimacy.
Slow burn, remember, a small voice chided.
Build, don’t blaze.
“Are you going to read it?” he asked, breaking the tension, eyes flicking to the book.
“I already did,” she said. “On a red-eye. I almost chewed through my own hand on the last chapter.”
“Good,” he said, satisfied.
“I’ll read it again,” she added. “Differently.”
Knowing what was under it.
What had gone into it.
What came after.
“Just don’t send me editorial notes,” he said.
“Maybe I will,” she said. “You overuse weather metaphors.”
“Says the woman who texts me about storms as if they’re characters,” he shot back.
She smiled.
“Go to bed soon,” she said, tucking the book against her chest. “Tomorrow’s going to be… a lot.”
“I know,” he said. “You’ll handle it.”
The way he said it—matter-of-fact, like it was a given—made something ease in her.
“Get some sleep too,” he added. “Or I’ll revoke your key privileges.”
Her hand twitched over her pocket.
“You don’t scare me,” she lied.
He arched a brow.
“Liar,” he said softly.
Their eyes held.
The air felt thin.
“Goodnight, Nathan,” she said, before she could do something stupid like climb him like a tree.
“Goodnight, Sophie,” he replied.
She turned, the book a warm weight in her hands, and walked away.
The house hummed quietly around her, full of potential energy.
Outside, the stars burned cold.
Inside, a slow fire was building.
Not the kind that destroyed.
The kind that, if tended carefully, could warm.
If they didn’t get burned first.
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