"Keep that," she said. "And the little paint drip beside it. She always said it was our mistake, not the table's."
They repaired the table together over two weekends. Victoria removed the loose paint under Daniel's guidance and cleaned the old hardware, while he strengthened the weakened joint and replaced a damaged piece too far gone to preserve. They matched the yellow finish carefully without covering every sign of age. When the work was complete, she placed the table in a sunny room of her mansion rather than hiding it among the expensive furnishings already there. She began eating breakfast at it on mornings when she was home.
One Sunday, Daniel arrived with fresh bread and found her standing beside the table with tears in her eyes. He did not ask what was wrong. She told him she had remembered her mother dancing beside the stove while a favorite song played on the radio. Daniel set the bread down, found the song on a small speaker, and offered his hand. They danced slowly around the yellow table, laughing when Victoria nearly bumped into a chair, and she felt closer to Eleanor than she had in years.
As their relationship deepened, Victoria became less interested in separating her life into the house where she worked and the house where she felt at home. Some weeks Daniel came to her estate and stayed in the guest room when work finished late. Other weeks she spent evenings at the workshop and helped cook a meal in his compact kitchen. They talked about what living together might mean someday, but refused to turn the conversation into a deadline. They wanted the decision to serve their lives rather than satisfy curious strangers who liked stories with quick conclusions.
The outside world occasionally tried to make a spectacle of them. A magazine requested an interview about Victoria's transformation, offering Daniel a prominent place in the accompanying photographs. She declined the framing, explaining that no man had rescued her from the responsibilities of running her company and no amount of romance excused leaders from correcting mistakes. Daniel likewise refused an invitation to appear on a television program about ordinary heroes. He preferred to spend the afternoon finishing a chair for a customer who had waited patiently through several delays.
Ethan asked Victoria once whether she regretted not using the public attention to strengthen Sterling Living's image. They were in her office after a long meeting, the city lights coming on below the windows. Victoria considered the question seriously. "I used to believe every part of life could be converted into an advantage," she said.