The weight on Talia Solomon's shoulders was metaphorical, but the 40-kilo basket digging into her hip was painfully real.
"Just... hold on... a little longer," she muttered, her biceps burning and her sneakers slipping on the damp cobblestones of the Mayfair mews.
The mews was a shortcut, but it was also risky. The narrow corridor of centuries-old brick was a racetrack for delivery vans and, more frighteningly, the silent, expensive supercars of the men who lived in the nearby homes.
But it saved seven minutes off her route, and she was already four minutes late.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. A text.
Maya: Mom's having a good day! Said your ras el hanout smells like dad's. Go get 'em, Tali! xxx
Talia's throat tightened. She didn't text back. She couldn't. Her sister's cheerful message felt heavier than the basket.
Dad.
He had been gone for three years, and at 26, Talia felt ancient. She was the one who held everything together. She balanced the books, negotiated with suppliers, and woke at 4 AM to grind the spices her father had taught her to love.
She was the one who was failing.
"Solomon's Spices" was her inheritance—a fragrant, beautiful, money-bleeding burden. The shop was her father's dream, but it covered her mother's mortgage and her sister's tuition. This delivery, the one clinking in her basket, was the only thing keeping them afloat.
Élan.
Just the name made her stomach clench. Chef Arnaud, the three-Michelin-star chef, had agreed to a trial contract. He was a notorious perfectionist who built menus around scent. And by some stroke of luck, he had chosen her.
This basket—this 40-kilo package of saffron, smoked paprika, hand-ground ras el hanout, and grains of paradise—was worth more than their shop's total weekly revenue. This delivery would cover the quarterly lease. This delivery would finally let her breathe.
She adjusted her grip, her knuckles turning white. The smell of her father's ras el hanout—a 20-ingredient secret—mixed with the cold, damp scent of London. She was fifty yards from Élan's service entrance.
She never saw the car.
It didn't roar, screech, or announce itself.
It simply appeared.
One second, the mews was an empty, gray corridor. The next, it was filled with a wall of silent, polished black.
A Rolls-Royce Ghost. It was less a car and more like predatory architecture on wheels.
"Oh my God!"
Talia screamed, a sharp, terrified sound. She stumbled backward, twisting her ankle on a loose cobble. She didn't fall, but her arms flew wide to keep her balance.
The basket did not.
It hit the pavement with a sound that would haunt her nightmares. A sickening crash of shattering glass.
Time stopped. The world narrowed.
A cloud of paprika puffed up, a rusty-red smoke. Precious strands of saffron, worth more than gold, scattered into the oily grime of the street. The complex scent of her father's legacy exploded, mixing with the sharp smell of petrol.
Talia stared, her lungs frozen. The ras el hanout, her morning's work, turned into a muddy paste on the stones.
She was shaking.
The car, an imposing beast, had stopped. Its grille was a polished silver shield, and its windows were so dark they appeared black. It stopped inches from her.
She looked at the driver's window, her heart racing, waiting. Waiting for the glass to slide down. Waiting for a face. A voice. "Are you alright?" "I'm so sorry!"
Nothing.
The engine's low, expensive hum was the only sound in the mews.
A beat. Two.
Talia, as shock turned into scalding fury, stepped toward the window. "Are you blind?" she yelled, her voice breaking. "Do you... do you see what you just did? That's... that's my livelihood!"
She pointed, her hand trembling, at the colorful ruin on the ground.
The window remained opaque. It was like shouting at a mountain.
Then, with smooth elegance and complete indifference, the Rolls-Royce turned its wheel slightly to the left and navigated around her. It didn't speed off. It didn't flee.
It proceeded.
It glided as if she were nothing more than a small puddle, an insignificant piece of debris to avoid. It reached the end of the mews and turned onto the main road, disappearing.
He hadn't stopped. He hadn't looked. He hadn't even acknowledged her.
The silence that fell was absolute, broken only by her own ragged breath.
Talia stood there, fists clenched, her nails digging into her palms. The sheer arrogance of it stole her breath more than the near-collision.
He hadn't just ruined her delivery. He had wiped out her existence.
"You... you... BASTARD!" she screamed at the empty street, the word echoing against the old brick. "You absolute, self-important, platinum-plated, faceless jerk!"
Tears, hot and furious, pricked her eyes. She refused to cry. Crying was a luxury. Crying didn't pay the bills.
But as she knelt, the rough cobblestones digging into her knees, the scent of her failure rising around her, Talia felt something inside her crack.
She was 26 years old, and she was so tired. And some ghost in a $400,000 car had just pushed her over the edge.
Her phone buzzed.
Chef Arnaud (Élan): 4 minutes late. Unacceptable. Do not bother.
Talia squeezed her eyes shut, the text message a final blow. She was ruined.
Talia was left shattered, her delivery destroyed, her one chance at saving her family gone. Across town, the man in the car was about to face a betrayal of his own, setting two worlds on a collision course.