“This is a cloud table!” She ran her palms over the smooth birch wood surface with a hungry expression on her face.

“That’s good I assume?” I asked, knowing I’d get plied with a detailed explanation of everything about this table.

“Uh, yeah.” She pulled a face like I was hopeless, and fuck, I wanted kiss her senseless. “The cloud table is a design that was first done by Neil Morris in the late ’40s. His stuff is amazing,” she said with a dreamy expression, before crouching by the table and turning it over. She frowned in concentration as she looked at the inscription on the side. “It’s a replica,” she informed me, those brown eyes bright with excitement. “An original could go for a few grand. But this is perfect for the room I’m doing.”

“What book is it?” I finally asked, as she moved to look at the two identical chairs in the corner, which I assumed were the reason we were here.

“The client wants something that evokes the vibe of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.” I’d heard of the book but hadn’t read it, though she clearly had if her moony eyes were any indicator. When Alba talked about books it was like she was holding her whole heart in her hands. The joy reading brought her was so pure and honest, it was intoxicating. It was disarming to see a woman who approached so much of her life with such dogged, unstoppable determination be so entranced by the stories she read.

“It’s so good.” Her smile was huge, eyes bright, and my pulse raced in response to all that emotion. “It’s about a Hollywood actress who had this long and scandalous career over like six decades and this super-secret epic love story with another actress. It’s a total vibe and has all this old Hollywood glamour. But the story is about much more than that,” she assured me as she moved around the room hunting for potential treasure. “It’s about the price that women with ambition have to pay for chasing their dreams. The double standards we have to manage. About the cost of hiding your true self.” She stopped, her eyes fixed somewhere far away. I didn’t even know what to say, the moment felt too volatile to voice what I could see now for the first time. Books were not just a refuge for Alba—they were the place she went to feel understood.

After a moment, she shook herself, as if she was coming out of a trance. She turned a radiant smile my way, but I could see the shadows lurking behind her eyes.