Chapter Sixteen: Foundations
Three months later, Lena stood on the roof of a three-story brownstone in Brooklyn, wind tugging at her hair.
The building wasn't grand. Not yet. But it was hers.
Hart & Co. Design Studio was officially open for business.
No Reinhart contracts. No corporate shadows. Just ideas, raw and alive, scribbled in pencil across bare-boned floor plans.
Her phone buzzed.
Alexander: Lunch today? I miss your face.
She smiled. He always texted like a man still trying to win her.
And somehow, she still loved that he did.
She typed back: Only if you bring me coffee and kiss me like you mean it.
Deal, he replied. Ten minutes.
They met at a quiet café tucked into a corner of West Village, one of their secret places.
Alexander walked in holding two coffees, looking far too good in his white dress shirt rolled at the sleeves.
"You look like a man who just outvoted his entire board," Lena teased.
He kissed her cheek. "That's because I did. Claudia resigned last week."
She blinked. "You didn't tell me."
"I wanted to see your face when I said it."
Lena sat back, stunned. "She's really gone?"
He nodded. "The board voted for a full leadership restructure. She made one final threat. Said Wolfe would collapse without her."
"And?"
"She was wrong."
They sipped their coffee in silence for a few minutes.
Then Alexander reached across the table.
"You've been quiet lately."
"I've been thinking."
"Dangerous."
Lena smiled, then said, "I want to build affordable housing. Sustainable spaces that don't cost a fortune to live in. No luxury towers. No glossy magazine spreads. Just homes."
"I love that."
"I'm scared."
"You always are," he said gently. "That's how I know you're about to do something brave."
Later that evening, Lena walked through her new office alone. It still smelled like drywall and sawdust, but the walls held promise.
She pulled out her sketchbook — the one she'd nearly thrown away when she thought she'd lost everything.
She flipped past the pages. Concepts. Rough outlines. Her dreams, captured in graphite and charcoal.
The last page held a drawing she didn't remember finishing.
It was the brownstone.
Her brownstone.
She'd drawn it months ago. Before it was ever for sale. Before she'd had the courage to believe it could be hers.
Sometimes the future sketches itself
— and waits for you to catch up.
That night, Alexander picked her up for dinner. No events. No reporters.
Just a rooftop with string lights, a private table, and the soft hum of a jazz quartet playing beneath the stars.
They danced. Slow. Clumsy. Honest.
At one point, Lena looked up at him and asked, "Do you ever wonder what would've happened if we hadn't met?"
"No," he said. "Because we did."
Then he pulled something from his coat pocket.
Not a ring.
Not yet.
But a key.
To his apartment.
To his life.
"If you ever want to come home," he said quietly, "you already have the door."
Lena took it.
Not because she needed him.
But because she loved him.
And maybe that was the strongest kind of foundation there was.