Eleanor Ashford called from the lobby of his building rather than from her hotel.
That was how Roman knew the conversation was not optional. He took her to a restaurant she had liked for twenty years. She ordered without looking at the menu. She had the particular ease of a woman who had been certain of herself for long enough that it had stopped looking like certainty and started looking like simply how she was.
She looked at him across the table with the eyes he had inherited and used considerably less well.
"You look tired," she said.
"I'm fine."
"I know you're fine. I said, You look tired." She set her menu down even though she had not opened it. "Your father used to do that. Turn observations into arguments." She picked up her water glass. "I met Sera twice. At the wedding and at
