Paris in January was cold and grey and indifferent to drama, which suited Lila perfectly.
They flew out on a Wednesday — just the two of them and two security men who stayed invisible — to close a deal that had been in play for six weeks: a partnership with Duval Technologies, the dominant player in AI-assisted urban planning across the Asian and European markets. Damian had been trying to acquire Duval for eight months. Kingsley-Wilder had offered a better partnership structure, better margins, and a vision statement that didn't read like a corporate takeover dressed in friendly language.
Duval's CEO — a small, precise Frenchman named Renaud who wore the same dark suit every day and drank espresso like it was oxygen — had looked across the table at Lila on the first morning and said, in
