Anastasia’s POV:
Patricia Haines was not what I expected.
I had built a picture of her in my head during the forty eight hours between her phone call and Friday morning, the kind of woman who wore her authority like a uniform, sharp and deliberate and slightly intimidating in the way that people who spent their careers dismantling powerful men’s empires tended to be. I was not entirely wrong. She was sharp and she was deliberate and she had the kind of stillness that came from years of sitting across tables from people who were lying to her and knowing it before they finished their first sentence.
But she was also younger than I expected. Late thirties, natural hair cut close, a grey blazer over a burgundy shirt, and eyes that moved over me when I walked into the hotel lobby where we ha
