Yet another call had made it impossible for me to greet Eloise the moment she arrived, a fact that gritted against my teeth more than anything else in the world. I had wanted to be there the second she stepped through the doors, to take her coat with hands steady and firm, to offer her the kind of welcome that reminded her she was safe, that this place was hers as much as it was mine.
But my CFO had insisted, practically on his knees, that I consider my brother’s latest request—five hundred thousand more, just because he wanted it. A trivial matter for the world, an irritant, but one that pulled me away from the only thing I had been anticipating all day: her.
I agreed, not because the sum mattered, but because the quicker I ended the call, the sooner I could finally see her, finally c
