Nadia's POV
I didn't think about Serena Cole on Monday.
I thought about her on Tuesday. Not obsessively. Not the kind of thinking that derails work or requires management. Just the occasional surface-level appearance of her name in my mind, the way an unwelcome variable appears in a model you thought was complete.
Julian had been transparent. He'd told me before he'd read the brief, before he'd made any decision. He'd taken the meeting on his terms, at his office, his assistant's involvement making it professional by structure.
I knew all of that.
I also knew that I didn't know Serena Cole. I knew them for eight months, four years ago, and they were mutual. I knew David Song had recommended Julian to her, which meant David knew they had history and had made the introduction anyway, wh
