Lena's POV
I chose a Sunday.
Not arbitrarily, I had been thinking about when to ask for weeks, turning the question of timing over the way you turned something fragile over, looking for the angle that was least likely to result in damage.
Damien was not someone you approached without thought. He was not someone you ambushed with emotional requests on busy mornings or between meetings or at the end of days that had required everything from him.
Sunday mornings were different.
The mansion ran at a different frequency on Sundays. No Claire. No external meetings. No calls that couldn't wait. Just the house and the family in it, the particular quality of a large space occupied by people who were choosing to rest in it rather than move through it toward something else.
I found him in his
