Chapter 7 - The Seat He Saved for Her
Six months later, snow returned to Meridian Street.
Café Lumière was crowded again.
Olivia entered carrying a portfolio beneath one arm.
Her life looked different now.
Not because Adrian had rescued her financially.
She had refused that.
Instead, he had done something she hadn't expected.
He had sent her artwork—without changing a single page—to a gallery owner who owed him no favors.
The gallery wanted twelve paintings.
Olivia had sold nine.
She had returned to school part-time.
Noah was doing well.
And Adrian?
Adrian was still complicated.
Still powerful.
Still a man with a past neither of them pretended didn't exist.
But he was building something different from it.
Olivia searched the café.
Then smiled.
Corner booth.
Adrian sat alone.
Black coffee.
Open book.
One empty chair across from him.
Olivia approached.
“Excuse me.”
Adrian looked up.
She tried to keep a straight face.
“Can I sit with you?”
“No.”
Olivia blinked.
Adrian closed his book.
“This seat is reserved.”
“For whom?”
“A woman who talks too much.”
Olivia narrowed her eyes.
“She sounds exhausting.”
“She is.”
“Pretty?”
“Very.”
“Smart?”
“Annoyingly.”
“Curvy?”
Adrian raised an eyebrow.
“I'm trying to survive this conversation.”
Olivia laughed.
“Does she bring muffins?”
“Sometimes.”
“Then I understand your devotion.”
She sat anyway.
Adrian reached beneath the table.
“Actually, I brought something.”
He placed a wrapped package before her.
Olivia opened it.
Inside was the original sketchbook from the night they met.
She turned the pages.
Near the back was a new drawing.
Adrian sitting alone in Café Lumière.
An empty chair opposite him.
Underneath, he had written one sentence.
The best thing that ever happened to me took the seat nobody else wanted.
Olivia looked up.
“You drew this?”
“Noah helped.”
“That explains why your proportions are terrible.”
“They are not terrible.”
“They're criminal.”
Adrian gave her a look.
She smiled.
Then her expression softened.
“You kept the sketchbook.”
“I kept the first thing that showed me how you see the world.”
Olivia reached across the table.
His hand met hers.
“Do you regret that night?” Adrian asked.
“Which part?”
“Sitting down.”
She considered the question.
“No.”
“You should.”
“Probably.”
“Olivia.”
She squeezed his hand.
“You know what I saw that night?”
“What?”
“A lonely man pretending he wanted an empty chair.”
Adrian went quiet.
“And now?”
She looked around.
At the crowded café.
At Noah entering with Marco behind him, excitedly pointing through the window at a bird.
At Adrian.
“At a man who finally understands why people need somewhere safe to sit.”
Noah reached the table.
“Peregrine!”
Olivia turned.
“Where?”
“Outside.”
They all looked.
High above Meridian Street, a peregrine falcon crossed the winter sky.
Noah smiled.
“They always come home.”
Adrian looked at Olivia.
She understood.
Later that evening, when Olivia stood to leave, Adrian caught her hand.
“One question.”
“What?”
“The first night.”
“Yes?”
“Why did you choose my table?”
Olivia stared at him as though the answer were obvious.
“My feet hurt.”
Adrian laughed.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“I spent six months believing fate brought you to me.”
“Nope. Bad shoes.”
He shook his head.
Olivia leaned down and kissed his cheek.
Then whispered:
“Maybe fate has a sense of humor.”
She started toward the door.
Adrian called after her.
“Olivia.”
She turned.
“What?”
He pointed at the empty chair.
“Tomorrow?”
Her smile came slowly.
“Save me a seat.”
“I always will.”
Outside, snow drifted across Meridian Street.
Six months earlier, Olivia Carter had walked into a crowded café looking for somewhere to rest.
She had unknowingly chosen the one table everyone else feared.
She had shared half a blueberry muffin with a stranger.
Nine days later, his world had nearly cost her the person she loved most.
But Noah came home.
Victor Soren fell.
Olivia found her way back to the future she had once abandoned.
And Adrian DeMarco discovered that power could make an entire city afraid of him—but it could never give him what one fearless woman had offered without knowing his name.
A chair.
Half a muffin.
May you like
And the chance to become someone worth sitting beside.
THE END
