This wasn't the first time it had happened—Natalie could never seem to remember where Chloe had rented her parking spot. The underground garage had terrible reception, and as she tried to follow Chloe's fragmented instructions over the phone, her car traced the same loop through the maze-like lot again and again. What started as a soft, coaxing murmur in her voice always ended up tinged with an edge of impatience—even if Natalie barely noticed it herself.
It wasn't entirely her fault. At home, she didn't have to share parking with anyone. And besides, this sort of thing was always taken care of by her driver.
But when she came to see Chloe, how could she possibly let a chauffeur drop her off?
Natalie had always hated the feeling of incompetence, especially when that frustration came from stepping outside her carefully structured routine. It felt like a bright red warning light blinking in her face, telling her with infuriating clarity: This is not something someone like you should be dealing with.
Of course she knew.
How could she not?
So damn annoying.
Chloe's greatest strength was her attentiveness. After Natalie had gotten flustered over the parking situation twice, Chloe began coming down early to wait for her. As soon as Natalie's car pulled in, Chloe would slide into the passenger seat without a word, her smile soft as she launched straight into a string of complaints about the garage's ridiculous layout—never once bringing up directions—before gently guiding her through the mess, like calming a cat on the verge of hissing.
Once soothed, Natalie's tense expression would ease, her voice turning nasal and sweet like a spoiled child's as she asked, "What's for dinner?"
Chloe knew exactly how to handle her—like preparing a pot of shrimp and crab congee: with just the right attention to timing, temperature, and taste. Too much, and it would be overwhelming. Too little, and it would fall flat. Just a simple, easily appeased little girl.
After one particularly aggravating parking incident, Natalie, on a whim, decided to walk. Once they'd parked, the two of them strolled into the complex through the front gate.
Aside from the two years post-graduation she'd spent cutting her teeth at her father's real estate firm, Natalie had rarely set foot in places like this.
She'd grown up in a row of brownstones in New York's Upper East Side, the only daughter of a powerful real estate mogul and a mother descended from generations of quiet, patrician elegance. The three of them had lived among a staff that easily outnumbered them. Later, while studying abroad, she collected rent from properties her father had bought under her name—while others juggled classes and part-time jobs.
In her first year of running her own company, when she was pulling sixteen-hour days and shedding weight from stress, her grandfather, worried sick, gifted her a luxury apartment near the office—"a unit" that was actually two adjacent condos, merged and renovated into a sprawling home fit for a young woman living alone.
Before she struck out on her own, Natalie might as well have been a princess in a diamond-encrusted sky garden. On the surface, people had no choice but to praise Miss Natalie for her ethereal grace, though behind her back, they sneered—What's so noble about being propped up by money?
When Natalie first stepped alone into the ruthless world of business, she paid heavily for her sheltered upbringing, fumbling to descend from her ivory tower into the gritty, winding world of human relationships. And even now, as she looked around the neighborhood, taking in the hurried locals with the wide-eyed curiosity of a child stumbling into a carousel for the first time, it was clear—the imprint of one's upbringing is a brand that never truly fades.
No matter how many hardships Miss Natalie endured or how expertly she could now play the game, deep down, she was still the same girl who once gazed down at the world from the clouds. She had seen the hardships that people lived through, but she had never really lived them. Privilege meant there was always a safety net below.
Not far off, a young couple stood by the curb—a man in a tailored suit with a briefcase slung over one shoulder, murmuring about mortgage payments to his wife while their small son clutched her hand. Natalie figured he was about her age. To own a modest three-bedroom apartment in a middle-class neighborhood in New York at that age was, by real estate standards, an impressive feat—a member of the so-called "urban elite." A little farther down, a grandmother pushed a giggling child on a balance board, chatting with a woman just back from the market, the two trading complaints about the outrageous price of the cherries the little girl insisted on every week.
These weren't problems Natalie would ever face. Her fascination with them carried an unconscious condescension, the quiet arrogance of someone who had already won before the game began.
Just like the cherry-loving little girl, who at eighteen would have an easier path than her peers in smaller towns fighting tooth and nail for a single make-or-break exam, Natalie's own eighteenth year had been absurdly charmed. In New York, the golden youth of every background danced together in penthouses and rooftop lounges, where champagne flowed freely—less a drink than a sparkling accessory for the party.
Fate, more often than not, is sealed at birth.
Some people are simply born different.
At parties, people jokingly called her the belle of the Upper East Side. She always offered a flat, unimpressed smile in response, never once indulging the nickname. The belle? More like the most difficult, the most impossible—a reputation far more common in whispers.
Here was a woman undeniably beautiful and undeniably accomplished, yet somehow always stuck in a strange paradox: men who couldn't reach her called her cold, and those who had claimed she was too much. A rare breed, indeed.
But Natalie never saw herself as the problem. She was capable of reflection—just not when it came to love. In work and in friendship, yes. But romance? She'd never had a reason to bend. She was her parents' only jewel, spoiled with indulgence, and no one had ever told her she asked for too much.
Not even her first love—perhaps the only one she remembered with fondness—had dared say so. He'd been foreign, blond-haired and blue-eyed, treating her like a delicate Eastern porcelain doll. Somewhere deep in her Facebook feed, there was still a photo of him lifting her into the air at their graduation ball.
In love, Natalie had always been a spoiled child—used to the best, but never quite learning how to give it back.
The scent of steamed pork ribs drifted from the kitchen. Natalie sat at the dining table, casually flipping through her phone.
The new guy she'd met wasn't bad—handsome, well-mannered, and most importantly, clever. His sharp jokes caught her off guard, tugging real laughter from her more than once.
From the kitchen, Chloe heard her laugh—clear, high, unguarded. She sounds so happy.
Natalie's tastes were notoriously finicky. She preferred light flavors but still demanded depth in every bite. Even someone as practiced as Chloe had to put in extra effort. Worse still, Natalie ate like a bird, but expected a spread fit for a banquet.
Like a spoiled little cat, Chloe mused. Small appetite, endless appetite for indulgence.
Natalie's phone buzzed incessantly on the table. She set down her chopsticks, glanced at the screen, and frowned slightly.
The boy had sent a photo of a homemade dinner he'd made.
Her impression of him had been decent—he was good-looking, affectionate, quick-witted… Dating him had been pleasant enough, the rare case where she'd offered that rare, measured praise: Not bad. His only flaw? A man her age who still hadn't outgrown a certain juvenile streak.
Not that it was exactly a flaw. Some might've called it charming. Endearing, even. But in Natalie's romantic equation—too cocky, too boyish. Take their last dinner, for example. She'd been looking forward to a signature dish at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Instead, he emerged from the kitchen in a chef's uniform, beaming with pride, gesturing at a spread he'd cooked himself. "I made this just for you. Try it!"
A cold breath seemed to pass through her chest, but her expression didn't waver. She lifted a fork with polished elegance, took a bite, and smiled with practiced restraint. "Mmm, wonderful."
He'd twirled his chef's hat like he was on stage. "I'll cook for you anytime you want!"
Natalie, silent, took another bite of foie gras.
…Let's not.
Her phone buzzed again—this time asking if she wanted any. With a quiet sigh, she flipped the phone face down on the table.
"Not even half as good as yours, but still so eager to show off."
The room went still.
Only after she heard her own voice aloud did she realize she'd spoken. She glanced up instinctively, a flicker of guilt crossing her face.
Chloe didn't seem to mind. Her chopsticks moved lightly, slipping a piece of scrambled egg with tomato onto Natalie's plate.
"Know the secret to perfect scrambled eggs and tomatoes?" Chloe asked, voice teasing, eyes gentle.
Natalie leaned back, playing along, her tone skeptical. "Do tell."
Chloe rested her chin in her palm, smiling. "It's a secret even Michelin chefs don't know."
So silly. So sweet. So effortlessly thoughtful.
Natalie gave her a mock pout. "You'd keep secrets from me?"
Chloe shook her head slowly, then raised an eyebrow, her voice dropping into a whisper, rich with playful mischief. "Want to know?"
Women always acted like this when they were being coy. Natalie used to find it ridiculous, sometimes even exhausting. But Chloe made her notice everything—and like it. Chloe had once called her a spoiled cat, but now it was Chloe who was purring with every glance, every half-smile, every drawn-out moment.
Had women always been this soft?
Before, she'd found them tiring—too full of invisible rivalries and games. The last thing she expected was to let one tease and pamper her like this.
Natalie smirked. "Of course I want to know. Unless… you don't want to tell me?"
Chloe ducked her head with a laugh. "I would. But I won't."
"One of a kind, never to be recreated."
"Just so you'll always come back for more."
Chloe was always gentle—too gentle, in fact. So much so that Natalie had, without realizing, started to think of her as something rare and endlessly accommodating. A soft place to land. A quiet kind of constant.
She adored those delicate moments between them—like when Chloe's fingers combed through her damp hair under the hum of the blow-dryer. The warmth of her palm against Natalie's scalp, the care in each slow stroke. The intimacy of it, the calm.
But there were moments that weren't gentle, too—
Natalie, stripped bare and pliant, pressed flush against Chloe's chest, her fingers twisted tight in the sheets while Chloe's hands moved with unhurried precision between her thighs.
A kiss grazed her ear. Then a sharp bite to her jaw—just enough to sting.
Scrambled eggs being coy?
No. This was the real theater. This was where Chloe shed her softness.
"Sweetheart, when you're in my home, you don't get to think about anyone else."
"Distracted girls get punished."
New York was a city of contradictions—sprawling in scale, yet suffocatingly intimate.
When they'd first met, Natalie had worn white—crisp, minimal, untouched. Chloe had taken her for the usual breed of Upper East Side rich girl: a fresh graduate playing at humility. Nothing remarkable, just another name with a quiet trust fund and good skin.
Then she saw Natalie in a suit—tailored within an inch of its life, every movement honed to elegance and power. Smiling with her teeth, speaking in perfect measured cadence, leaning in just close enough to make clients feel important.
Ah, Chloe thought. An heiress with ambition.
Only later—after watching how casually Natalie lit her life with extravagance—did she do her homework. And realize exactly how deep that family fortune went.
That demure low profile? Part upbringing. Part exhaustion—from a girl who'd already tasted everything the world could offer, and found most of it unimpressive.
Still, Chloe had to admit—Natalie wore her privilege well.
The poise, the cultivated restraint, the balance of old-money grace and boardroom grit—it wasn't something you could fake. That kind of polish took generations.
Probably rebelled younger, Chloe mused. But girls like her always know where the cliff ends.
What a perfect little sister.
And Natalie was ambitious. Or, more accurately, relentless. She'd chosen a path outside her family's legacy and carved it clean with grit and will. Her success felt inevitable—an object propelled by its own velocity.
Which meant she had no time.
Not for friends. Not for lovers. Sometimes not even for Chloe—not because she didn't care, but because the clock simply didn't allow it. Weeks would pass. Messages skimmed. Plans postponed.
After one brutal fourteen-hour flight, Natalie returned home, soaked in the tub until her skin puckered, then passed out in bed. She woke hours later to a room thick with silence—something that rarely unsettled her.
Tonight, it did.
Before she could talk herself out of it, she was already standing in front of Chloe's building.
The night air licked through her thin loungewear, wrapping her in the city's usual springtime dampness. She rubbed her arms, trying to summon warmth from memory.
This city had always belonged to her, in the way it belongs to girls born into penthouses and international schools. But now, with cold creeping into her knuckles and nerves she didn't know how to name, she felt like a visitor.
She knocked once. Then again.
No answer.
Dark windows. No familiar shadow behind the curtains.
Of course—Chloe wasn't home.
Where else would she be?
It's her working hours.