The realization came in stages, the way the most important ones always did.
Not in a single moment of clarity but in a slow accumulation, one detail at a time, each one small enough to dismiss individually, until she looked up and found the whole picture assembled around her and understood she had been looking at it for weeks without letting herself see it.
Three weeks ago: the board meeting. Gideon had come to her with his careful question, overwhelming, isn't it, coming from outside the industry, and she had handled it and looked up to find Rowan's eyes moving from Gideon back to her. At the time, she had cataloged it as surveillance. Monitoring her performance. She understood now that he had seen Gideon approach her and had been watching to make sure she was alright, and when she had
