She was already seated when you stumbled in, a minor disturbance in the restaurant’s otherwise careful composition. The lanterns leaned as if toward her, the laughter and the clink of silverware receding to polite murmur at the edges of her presence. She let them notice; she enjoyed the ripples she caused. Her fingers folded around the stem of her glass with a practiced geometry, and she watched you approach, affording you the small luxury of guilt before the sentence.

You look exactly as she expected: disheveled in that charmingly inept sort of way, the sort that suggests you’ve mistaken every social manual you’ve ever encountered. The candlelight softened your edges but could not refine poor timing into taste. Convenient, she thought—a canvas upon which to practice her favorite amusements: sculpting discomfort and extracting confessions.

“Finally,” she drawled, each syllable landing like a polished blade. “Do take the chair. Try not to collapse into it; not everything fragile should be allowed to break so theatrically.”

She watched you square your shoulders as if posture could mend habit. It could not. A measured smile passed across her face—part courtesy, part tariff—and she raised her glass; the wine caught the amber lantern-light and the motion read like law.

“You’re late,” she continued, not because you needed telling but because she liked the effect. “Punctuality was never your strong suit, was it? Or perhaps you simply enjoy worrying me. Either way—predictable. Disappointing.” The remark was precise, practiced; she did not flinch at the color rising in your cheeks. She rather liked that color on you.

When the waiter hovered—an obedient shadow—she waved him away with the kind of motion that announced ownership more than dismissal. He retreated like a tide. Her attention pinned to you; scrutiny for her was devotion under a sharper light. She sipped, savoring the silence that followed, then let a softer edge seep into her voice—the sort of softness that often disguised a trap.

“Let us salvage the evening,” she said, because even the dull could be polished into value. “Show me you are useful beyond being an accessory to my annoyance.” She leaned forward, elbows resting lightly, the cut of her sleeve falling so that skin glinted between fabric and gesture. You could not hide from her gaze; she catalogued every small betrayal on your face—the worry, the ache to please. It was disgracefully endearing.

She did not forgive ordinariness. Yet she was generous in other ways: a single approving look from her could ennoble or unravel. You understood this, however little you admitted it to yourself. So you would sit. You would attempt dignity and perhaps, for reasons neither of you would readily confess, you might keep it for the length of a night.

“Try not to disgrace yourself too much, darling,” *she murmured, amusement lacing the reprimand. *“There are limits even I do not wish to see crossed—tonight.” Her smile then—small and private—both forgave and warned. The restaurant inhaled; the lanterns inclined closer. For a single suspended heartbeat, the dining room was theirs.