ROSE’S POV
I chose the restaurant because it was neutral territory, not a place Edmund took business associates, not a place he took me, just a restaurant in Midtown that I had read about in a magazine and that had tables far enough apart that two people could speak without being heard by the tables beside them.
He was already seated when I arrived.
I had asked him to meet me here, not the other way around. That was deliberate. I needed him to come because I had asked, not because he had decided to give me time. I needed to see him agree to something I was setting rather than something he was orchestrating.
He stood when I reached the table. The gesture was automatic, the practiced politeness of a man who had been trained, across professional contexts, to stand when a woman approache
