“No.No,” Narri said quickly, wiping her face with her sleeve. “You better not. I swear I’ve just been emotional as hell lately and I?—”
Sabine paused. Her eyes narrowed. “Nar…”
Silence.
“Are…are you pregnant?”
A pause. Then:
“…Yes.”
Sabine sat slowly on the edge of her bed again, hand over her heart. “Oh, Narri.”
“I don’t even know how I let it happen,” she whispered. “I didn’t even want him to touch me that night but then I did. And now…”
“You’re not alone,” Sabine said. “Okay? You’re not. Whatever you need—I’m here.”
Narri nodded slowly. “I know.”
Sabine stared at herself in the mirror. The earrings were in now. The slit in the dress still sat just right. The lipstick was perfect, but her heart was heavy. Not confused. Just...full. With Narri’s pain. With Adair’s voice. With her own need to move, to feel something that wasn’t duty.
“I don’t even know if I want to go anymore,” she whispered.
“You should.”
“But you need me.”
“I’ll need you tomorrow and the day after that. But tonight?” Narri gave a watery smile. “Tonight, go be seen.”
DINNER W/ HARLAN
The restaurant sat tucked beneath a private rooftop garden in the heart of the city—a quiet jewel carved out of chaos bustling below. The host didn’t ask for a name when Sabine walked in. He just smiled, nodded, and led her through a dim corridor lined with wine bottles behind glass.
Harlan was already seated. He stood when she approached, wearing a deep navy suit with no tie, collar open just enough to show a hint of gold at his neck. His watch gleamed faintly under the soft overhead lights, but everything else about him was intentionally unshowy. Controlled. Masculine. Effortless.
“You look incredible,” he said. “Thank you for coming.”
Sabine’s dress was simple—black, off-the-shoulder, the slit hugging just above the knee but the way he looked at her made it feel like more.
“Thanks for the invite,” she replied, easing into the seat across from him.
The menu was all white linen and handwritten calligraphy. French-leaning dishes with things one had to Google under the table but Harlan didn’t rush her. Didn’t show off. He just asked how she liked her steak and what kind of wine she enjoyed.
The first sip of the red he ordered tasted like velvet and fire. It warmed her chest.
Conversation flowed easily. They started with safe ground—Aderra, market strategies, the quiet ego death of building something no one believed in until it worked. But soon, the conversation shifted.
Harlan sipped his wine, then looked at her more fully.
“What made you get into data?” he asked.
Sabine smiled. “Honestly? I was good at math. That was it at first. Then I realized I didn’t want to just solve problems, I wanted to solvesystems. Understand why things worked, and why they didn’t. The people side of data. That’s what stuck.”
“That’s rare. Most people either fall in love with the numbers or the control. Not the empathy.”
“And you?” she asked, setting her glass down. “What made you start Pillar Grove?”
“I got tired of being ‘the Black guy’ at someone else’s table. I wanted to build my own. My father ran a corner store his whole life and was the smartest man I ever knew. Could forecast supply better than any algorithm but nobody ever called him a strategist. Just a hustler. I guess I wanted to rewrite what that meant.”