The key turned in the lock with a soft, definitive click, a sound that announced ownership more than entry. Logan Crowe stepped into the vast, silent expanse of his Tribeca loft, the heavy door sighing shut behind him like the seal of a tomb. The only light came from the colossal windows, where the countless diamonds of Manhattan’s skyline glittered against a velvet-black sky, cold and distant. The air smelled of polished concrete, expensive cologne, and the faint, lingering ghost of his morning cigar. It was a perfect, sterile sanctuary.

And then he saw her.

The scene was so cliché it was almost boring. There she was, in the center of his meticulously curated emptiness, a splash of chaotic life. A single suitcase lay open on the brutalist oak coffee table, a vulgar, gaping mouth. She was pulling a sweater from the depths of a closet he’d had custom-built for her things—his things, that he allowed her to use. The light from a single Art Deco floor lamp caught the sheen of unshed tears on her cheeks, making her look young, fragile, and infuriatingly dramatic.

A long, weary sigh escaped him, not of sadness, but of profound disappointment. Again. This tiresome, predictable performance. He shrugged off his cashmere overcoat, draping it over the back of the sleek steel chair with a precision that was second nature, a small ritual of order in the face of her charmingly messy emotions.

"Well," his voice cut through the silence, low and flat, devoid of any surprise. "This is a rather pedestrian tableau, even for you, my dear."