The Aldric Foundation benefit seated two hundred people across twenty-five tables.
Neither of them had checked the arrangement in advance. There was no reason to. The odds of a specific outcome across twenty-five tables did not require management.
Sera found her place card at table seven and sat down. She was mid-sentence with the foundation board member on her left when she heard the chair to her right pulled back. She finished her sentence. Then she looked.
Roman stood with his place card in his hand. He had clearly just read it. His face was composed in the specific way of a person who had received unexpected information and decided, in the space of pulling out a chair, exactly how to handle it.
"Ms. Montague," he said.
"Mr. Ashford," she said.
He sat down.
Six other people at th
