In which champagne flows, defenses fall, and secrets rise to the surface.
- Aurelia -
She hadn't meant to invite Max in.
They were supposed to part ways after the investor dinner—polished smiles, firm handshakes, the kind of cool detachment expected from two powerful women who had perfected the art of performance. The official obligations were done. The press had their soundbites, the investors had their assurances, and the collaboration had survived another round of public scrutiny.
But when they reached the lobby of Aurelia's building, Max's posture faltered—just for a second. Her shoulders dropped, her hand lingered at the hem of her jacket like she didn't quite know what to do with it. That moment of fatigue, of unguarded quiet, made Aurelia stop.
"Come up," she said.
No pretext. No strategy. Just the raw instinct that she wasn't ready to let the night end.
Max didn't ask questions. Just nodded and followed her into the elevator.
Now, hours later, Aurelia sat on her velvet sofa, legs folded beneath her, barefoot in an oversized silk button-down, sipping 1986 Dom Pérignon like it was just another Tuesday. Jasper, her ever-particular Russian Blue, perched on the armrest with his usual air of judgmental affection, occasionally flicking his tail against Max's shoulder with deliberate ownership.
Max sat at the other end of the couch, one arm draped lazily over the backrest, the sharp lines of her usual uniform softened into a borrowed camisole and a pair of silk pajama bottoms that didn't quite reach her ankles. The sight of her—relaxed, rumpled, here—was disorienting in the best way.
The penthouse was silent but warm, the hum of the city sealed out by soundproof glass and distance from street-level chaos. There was no press. No boardrooms. No competition.
Just them.
"You don't like champagne," Aurelia said, quietly.
Max didn't deny it. She tilted her glass, watching the bubbles rise. "I like the way you drink it."
Aurelia raised an eyebrow. "Which is?"
"Like it's a secret," Max said. Her voice was soft, but her eyes didn't waver. "Like each sip is telling you something no one else is allowed to hear."
The words hit her with strange, unexpected weight. Not flirtation. Not banter. Just observation. Thoughtful, intimate, true.
Aurelia turned the glass in her hands, let the candlelight shimmer through the gold liquid. "My father taught me that. Said good champagne is like a confession. It reveals itself slowly. You have to listen to the bubbles."
Max nodded, her gaze never leaving her. She understood. Aurelia could tell—not just the words, but the meaning underneath. The unspoken history they both carried like expensive tailoring: flawless on the outside, but stitched over bruises.
Silence settled again, but this one was richer than most. It wasn't awkward. It was comfortable. Trusting. The kind of silence that made space for truth.
Aurelia sipped her champagne, then set the glass down and said, "My mother betrayed my father's first collection."
Max straightened slightly, alert without pressing.
"She licensed Kaiser Originals without telling him," Aurelia continued. "Mass-produced knockoffs of his early designs. Sold the soul of his work to a chain store while he was still building the brand."
She didn't look at Max as she spoke. She didn't need to. This story had lived in her bones for years.
"They divorced within a year," she said. "He never forgave her. I don't think I did either."
The bubbles in her glass had gone flat. She didn't care.
"I was eleven. I knew what happened. I understood the betrayal, even if I couldn't name it yet. I watched my father become a ghost of himself, obsessed with rebuilding. And I watched my mother become a brand ambassador for cheap gloss and higher margins."
Max said nothing, but the intensity of her attention was its own kind of response.
"She said it was just business," Aurelia murmured. "That it was necessary for growth. But it felt like something sacred had been gutted. You know what I mean?"
Max's voice was low. "Yes."
And Aurelia knew she did. Even without the story, she could see it in her face.
"She taught me what betrayal looks like in silk gloves," Aurelia said. "With a smile. With a press release. With all the right numbers and none of the right reasons."
Silence again. Heavy now. But not cold.
Max leaned forward, elbows on her knees, studying her like a problem she didn't want to solve but wanted to understand. When she finally spoke, her voice was careful. Not cautious. Just... reverent.
"That's why you run Kaiser like a storm," she said. "Why you're always the first to strike. Why you keep the world off balance."
Aurelia tilted her head. "You psychoanalyzing me now, Maxine Sterling?"
Max didn't smile. Not yet. "You seduce investors so they never ask real questions. You blow up trends so no one notices the fortress behind the spectacle."
Aurelia breathed out a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "Protection through performance."
Max nodded. "Armor made of red lipstick and beautiful ruin."
The phrase landed deep. Too deep.
It was exactly right.
Aurelia swallowed, the aftertaste of champagne sharper now.
"You made yourself uncontainable," Max said. "So no one could ever do to you what your mother did to your father."
Aurelia stared at her.
No one had ever seen that. Not Vivien. Not past lovers. Not business rivals or clients or press.
But Max saw.
And what was more terrifying—Aurelia didn't want to hide from it.
"You're not wrong," she said, the words quiet and raw.
No wit. No pivot.
She just let it sit there—her mother, her pain, her defenses—and Max didn't flinch.
Didn't fix it.
Didn't run.
She just stayed.
And somehow, that was the most intimate thing of all.
---
- Max -
She didn't like staying overnight anywhere that wasn't hers.
She didn't like vintage champagne or candlelight, or the decadent velvet curves of the sofa beneath her.
But she liked this.
Aurelia—barefoot and unguarded, her silk shirt slipping off one shoulder, her walls momentarily lowered. The air between them charged not with heat this time, but with something quieter. Something deeper. Something dangerously close to comfort.
It wasn't like the other nights.
Not Paris, not the elevator, not even that late rendezvous after a midnight message Max had barely managed to send.
This wasn't urgency. This was permission.
To breathe.
To exist outside of performance.
To speak.
She glanced down at her champagne flute, fingers absently trailing its delicate curve.
Then she said it.
"My father almost sent me to conversion therapy."
The words hit the air and hung there, brittle and sharp.
Aurelia stilled, the way people do when instinct tells them not to shatter something by moving too quickly. She didn't rush to fill the silence. Didn't recoil.
Max couldn't look at her. Not yet.
"I was sixteen," she continued, voice measured only because she'd learned how to make it so. "I told him I might be bisexual. He told me to fix it. That there was a place. Discreet. Efficient. No one would ever know."
She swallowed. "My mother intervened—not out of support. She was just... concerned about how it might look. That's what saved me. Not love. Not protection. Image control."
Max's grip on the glass tightened, and she forced herself to breathe through it. "I learned to want things that couldn't be used against me. Controlled things. Safe things."
She looked up.
Right at Aurelia.
"You are not a safe thing."
Aurelia's expression was unreadable. But her body spoke for her. She shifted closer—not with urgency, but with quiet purpose. Closing the last of the space between them.
Max let her.
Let the warmth of their knees touching seep in.
Let the silence be filled by shared breath and the fragile threads of understanding they were finally willing to acknowledge.
"I've only ever trusted the parts of myself I could weaponize," Max admitted. "The rest—I buried. I called it discipline. Strategy. Legacy. But it was fear."
Aurelia's voice was barely more than a whisper. "And now?"
Max didn't answer right away.
Because there were no tidy resolutions here. No clean edges.
Just this woman sitting next to her, who saw too much and hid too well, who built her empire out of spectacle and shields. Just this moment, wrapped in champagne and confessions, in candlelight and the soft hum of the city held at bay.
"Now," Max said quietly, "I'm starting to think maybe safety isn't worth the price."
Aurelia reached out, resting her hand on Max's, fingers curling without pressure. No seduction. No angle. Just connection.
Simple. Steady.
And for Max, earth-shaking.
They didn't kiss.
Didn't need to.
They had already crossed the most dangerous threshold: letting themselves be known.
They lay together on the couch in the gentle, flickering dark, bodies tangled not in passion, but in quiet presence. Max curled her fingers in Aurelia's hair, and Aurelia tucked herself into Max's side, breathing slow and even, her hand resting over Max's heart like a seal.
And in that rare, unguarded space between night and morning, something inside both of them settled.
Not resolved.
But acknowledged.
---
Morning Light
Aurelia woke first.
Sunlight spilled through the curtains, cutting soft gold lines across the floor. The bedroom was quiet, warm, the kind of morning that usually came after long nights with someone you trusted not to vanish when things got too real.
Max was still asleep—stretched across Aurelia's bed like she belonged there. One arm tossed across the pillow, hair mussed, lips slightly parted.
Jasper was curled near her hip, smugly purring in his sleep like he'd claimed her too.
Aurelia slipped out from under the covers, padded to the kitchen to make coffee, heart heavier than she expected with the quiet weight of this is starting to matter.
The scent of roasted beans filled the kitchen.
And then—Max's phone buzzed from the living room. Again. Then again.
Aurelia paused.
The logical part of her said don't check it.
The part that had watched Max's jaw tighten last night at the mention of her father—the part that had heard the story she'd never told anyone else—moved toward the phone anyway.
Four missed calls.
Everett Sterling.
Board meeting: 8:30AM.
Aurelia glanced at the clock. 7:15.
And still, Max slept. Peacefully. For once.
Aurelia stood there, phone in hand, unsure whether to wake her or shield her for just a little longer.
Before she could decide, warm arms wrapped around her waist.
Max's voice brushed her ear, rough with sleep: "Spying?"
"Protecting your inbox," Aurelia murmured.
Max peered at the phone. Sighed. "He'll survive."
"You have to go."
"I know."
But she didn't move.
Instead, she silenced the phone, set it down, and leaned her forehead against Aurelia's shoulder. "Just a little longer."
Aurelia reached for a mug and handed it to her. "Fifteen minutes. That's all you get."
Max took the coffee with a smile that wasn't for cameras or meetings or headlines. It was hers.
Soft. Private. Real.
"You know," Max said, "if your champagne comes with confessions, your coffee might be dangerous."
Aurelia turned to face her. "Only if you drink it like it's a secret."
They stood like that—close, sipping quietly—as the city stirred around them.
It wasn't forever.
But it was enough.
For now.