Three days later, I saw him again. In the worst possible way.
The Beverly Hills Gallery was hosting the "Los Angeles Urban Renaissance" exhibition — a showcase of local artists whose neighborhoods Morgan Industries was about to flatten. We called it "preservation." It was a funeral dressed up as a party.
I was adjusting my Saint Laurent blazer when I heard his voice cut through the champagne chatter.
"My work was supposed to be here. Three months of preparation, and now you're telling me it's too 'controversial' for your donors?"
My blood went cold.
Mateo stood near the back wall, pointing at a blank space. He was wearing the same ripped jeans, but tonight they looked like armor.
"The piece was called 'Gentrification,'" he said to the gallery owner. "Maybe that hit too close to home?"
Then he saw me.
I watched recognition cross his face — followed by something worse. He looked at my clothes, at the way the gallery owner hovered beside me, at the champagne glass in my hand. And he understood.
"Charlotte Morgan," he said. My last name sounded like a verdict.
"Mateo, let me explain —"
"Explain what?" He stepped closer. "How you stood in my gallery, looked at my brother's dream, and already knew you were going to destroy it?"
"I didn't plan —"
"Didn't plan what? Running into me? Or getting caught?"
The room had gone quiet. I could feel a hundred eyes on us, but all I could see was the betrayal in his.
He pulled out his phone. "This is Mrs. Rodriguez. Forty years in the apartment above my gallery. Your project relocates her to Van Nuys." Swipe. "This is Carlos. His father built that garage. You're turning it into condos." Swipe. "And this is where my father painted his first mural. Twenty-five years. Gone."
He looked up at me, and I saw everything — love, grief, fury — compressed into a single expression.
"You don't just destroy buildings, Charlotte. You destroy the places where people learned to dream."
"I didn't know," I whispered.
"Would it have mattered?"
The honest answer three days ago: probably not. The honest answer now, looking into his eyes: I didn't know anymore.
"I don't know," I said.
Something shifted in his face. Not forgiveness. Surprise.
"At least you're honest," he said quietly. Then: "You know what the real tragedy is? Last night, I thought I'd met someone real. But you're just the woman who signs the demolition orders."
He walked out. The party resumed around me like nothing had happened.
But everything had.