Roman let her talk.

Didn’t interrupt.

Didn’t rush to fill the space the way he usually did when someone handed him an opening.

He just walked beside her, hands in his coat pockets, listening with that same steady attention that had been getting under her skin since Saint Celeste.

“Volume with value,” he repeated quietly, almost to himself.

A faint huff of something—not quite a laugh.

“Yeah. I’ve been accused of worse.”

He glanced at her briefly when she said she didn’t perform unfinished thoughts out loud.

That earned something closer to real interest.

“See, that’s where we’re different,” he said.

Not argumentative.

Just stating it.

“You wait until you’ve got the answer.”

A beat.

“I’d rather see the wrong ones before I land on the right one.”

He shrugged slightly as they crossed another stretch of sidewalk.

“Less efficient.”

Another glance at her.

“But it tends to keep people from leading me somewhere convenient.”

That part he didn’t dress up.

Didn’t soften.

He let it sit there between them, quiet and deliberate, before letting the conversation shift again.

⸻

When she came at him about Blackwell, Roman’s mouth twitched again.

That one he’d expected.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Sounded right.”

A small pause.

“Fits you better than anything else I’ve heard so far.”

Not louder.

Not sharper.

Just… placed.

He didn’t elaborate.

Didn’t need to.

⸻

The city moved around them in that late-evening rhythm—wet pavement, low voices, the occasional burst of noise from somewhere that thought it was more interesting than it actually was.

Roman clocked everything out of habit.

People.

Doorways.

Reflections in glass.

Then her again.

Always her again.

He noticed the glance she tried not to make.

Not the fact that she looked—he expected that by now.

It was how quick it was.

Measured.

Controlled.

Like she was checking something she didn’t fully want to acknowledge.

Roman didn’t call it out.

Just filed it.

⸻

Don’t mistake this for me enjoying your company.

That one did get a reaction.

Not outwardly dramatic.

Just the faintest shift in his expression.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said.

Dry.

Easy.

“Pretty sure you’ve made that clear since minute one.”

A beat.

Then, because he couldn’t help himself:

“But I appreciate the clarification.”

⸻

They kept walking.

Roman noticed when her pace slowed.

Not much.

Just enough to signal she’d found what she was looking for.

He followed her line of sight without turning his head too obviously.

The place ahead.

Yeah.

That worked.

Low light.

No crowd spilling out.

Forgettable in the exact way people who didn’t want to be noticed preferred.

Roman nodded once to himself.

Good pick.

⸻

Try not to say anything catastrophic…

That earned him an actual quiet laugh.

Short.

Low.

“Catastrophic?” he echoed.

“Now you’re setting expectations.”

He glanced at her as they approached the door, his tone slipping just slightly more pointed.

“I’ve been on my best behavior all night.”

A beat.

Then, as they reached the entrance:

“But I’ll try to lower the risk profile for you.”

His hand moved to the door before she could reach it this time—not fast, not performative, just instinct—and he pulled it open, stepping slightly aside.

Roman’s gaze lingered on her for a second as she moved past.

Not crude.

Not soft.

Just… there.

Measured.

Then he followed her inside, letting the door close behind them, his voice dropping just enough to keep it between the two of them as the bar’s low hum replaced the city outside.

“For the record,” he added quietly,

“I haven’t said anything catastrophic yet.”

A beat.

“Give it time.”

Vivienne almost smiled.

It was brief enough to disappear before it could properly become one, but it was there—a tiny, private betrayal at the corner of her mouth when he called catastrophic an expectation rather than a warning. Annoying. Entirely his fault.

She stepped through the door he held open and into the bar’s low amber hush with the kind of smooth composure that made it impossible to tell whether she had been amused at all.

Inside, the room was exactly what she’d hoped for.

Dim without being theatrical. Narrow enough to feel tucked away from the street. No DJ, no velvet-roped performance of exclusivity, no hostess with the brittle over-eagerness of someone trained to recognize and announce names that mattered. Just polished dark wood, a long brass rail, a few discreet tables, and the soft blur of conversation from people too absorbed in their own evenings to care about hers.

Good.

Better still, no one looked at her twice.

That alone made the place worth remembering.

Roman’s voice followed her inside, lower now, tucked beneath the bar’s murmur and the clink of glass.

For the record, I haven’t said anything catastrophic yet. Give it time.

Vivienne paused just long enough to glance at him over her shoulder.

The look she gave him was cool by habit, but there was something faintly brighter beneath it now. Not warmth. Never that. More like reluctant entertainment sharpened by skepticism.

“How reassuring,” she said. “I was worried you might start showing restraint.”

Then she turned away before he could enjoy the line too much and let her gaze move over the room once more, assessing tables, exits, sightlines, and who looked least likely to remember faces in the morning.

A booth in the far back corner caught her eye—half shielded by a column, close enough to the bar to avoid feeling hidden, far enough from the entrance to make eavesdropping inconvenient. She headed for it without consulting him, already certain he would follow.

Of course he did.

Vivienne slipped into one side of the booth and set her bag beside her, laying claim to the space with the same quiet efficiency she did everything else. From here, she could see most of the room without being seen too closely herself. The bar mirror caught pieces of movement in fractured reflection; the front windows reflected only streetlight and passing cars. No obvious cameras. No eager staff hovering.

For the first time all night, something inside her unclenched by a fraction.

A server approached—a woman in black, tired in the way only truly useful people ever were, pen poised, expression politely neutral.

“Martini,” Vivienne said, without opening the menu. “Gin. Very cold. No nonsense.”

The woman gave the smallest nod and looked to Roman.

Vivienne didn’t bother pretending not to notice the impulse to listen for his order.

Not because she cared what he drank.

Because every detail a person chose under pressure became part of the whole eventually.

While the server stepped away, Vivienne rested one elbow lightly against the table and studied him properly across the narrow booth. Not the way she had in hallways or security rooms, in fragments and stolen inventory. This time she let herself look for the length of a full beat.

The rough edges were still there. The low-rent insolence. The infuriating calm. The habit of occupying space as though no one had ever successfully trained him out of it. But there was something else now too—something that made him harder to file away neatly under staff and move on from.

He kept surprising her.

Not with softness. She would have despised that.

With precision.

With the fact that he was, irritatingly, more observant than most men she dealt with and less eager to make a performance of being clever than she would’ve expected from someone with his face and his class of arrogance.

Vivienne hated that she found any of that interesting.

She hated, too, the little flicker of curiosity that had started needling at the back of her mind whenever he spoke. Not because curiosity itself was dangerous. Because curiosity, in her experience, was usually the first step toward granting someone more attention than they deserved.

And Roman Kessler did not deserve very much.

Still.

She tipped her head slightly, gaze steady on him.

“You know,” she said, voice dry enough to keep the mood from softening, “for a man who insists on narrating his thoughts to anyone trapped within ten feet of him, you do occasionally manage not to be dull.”

There. That was generous enough.

The server returned with her drink first, pale glass frosted at the stem, the gin sharp and cold enough to smell clean. Vivienne took it without thanks—though not unkindly, just absent the usual performative niceties she reserved for rooms that mattered more than this one—and took the first sip.

It was excellent.

That improved her opinion of the place further.

The second sip came slower.

By the time she set the glass down, the edge in her shoulders had loosened just enough for the amusement from outside to resurface, still faint, still deniable, but present.

“If this has been your best behavior all evening,” she said, eyes on the condensation gathering at the base of the stem, “I imagine your unmanaged form requires legal counsel.”

Only then did she look back up at him, and the amusement was there now, slight but unmistakable if someone knew where to find it. Which, annoyingly, he probably would.

Her fingers curved lightly around the glass.

“I’m still deciding whether your habit of saying the wrong thing at exactly the wrong moment is incompetence,” she went on, “or some very ugly approximation of charm.”

A pause.

“Don’t look so pleased with yourself. I’m not suggesting either one is redeeming.”

The corner of her mouth lifted again—barely.

Then it faded as quickly as it had come.

Because beneath the sarcasm, beneath the relief of not being in a Blackwell building, beneath the novelty of sitting in a room where her surname meant nothing at all, the problem remained exactly where they had left it.

Sebastian’s suite. The missing girl. The altered footage. Charles and Adrian moving pieces around a board they had not yet fully seen.

Vivienne took another sip, eyes drifting once to the bar mirror and the fractured reflections there before returning to Roman.

“And since you’ve now survived several blocks without saying anything truly ruinous,” she said, tone cooling back toward business, “I’ll reward the effort.”

She set the glass down with a soft click.

“Tell me what bothered you most.”

Not what you saw. Not what you think.

What bothered you.

“There were too many things in that suite designed to be noticed by the right person,” she said. “You kept circling that.” Her gaze narrowed slightly. “So stop hovering around it and say the unpleasant part plainly.”

Roman didn’t answer right away.

He let her question sit between them, heavier now, like it had finally crossed from irritation into something that actually mattered. The bar noise faded a little at the edges—not gone, just less relevant—while he leaned back into the booth and studied the rim of his glass like he could pull the shape of it back out of the whiskey.

Then he exhaled slowly through his nose.

“Alright,” he said, quieter now. “You want the unpleasant part.”

His eyes lifted to hers again.

“Here it is.”

A beat.

“That room wasn’t just cleaned well.”

He leaned forward slightly, forearms resting against the table now, voice low enough that it stayed contained between them.

“It was cleaned with intent.”

Not emphasis.

Precision.

“There’s a difference between someone wiping a place down to get rid of evidence and someone resetting it so it reads a certain way.”

His fingers tapped once against the wood, subtle, measured.

“Most people clean to remove risk. They miss things. They rush. They leave inconsistencies because they’re focused on what they think matters—blood, broken glass, obvious signs of a struggle.”

He shook his head once.

“That suite didn’t have any of that.”

Another beat.

“No disruption in the layout. No misaligned furniture. No pressure marks on the carpet where something heavy got dragged. No smell of cleaning agents trying to cover something up. No temperature shift from a room that had been aired out too fast.”

His gaze sharpened.

“Which means either nothing happened there…”

A pause.

“…or whatever did happen didn’t look like the kind of mess people expect.”

He let that settle before continuing.

“And then there’s the timing.”

Roman picked up his glass, rolled it once in his hand, then set it back down without drinking.

“The maintenance guy hits the room. Leaves. Comes back. Then disappears from the feed.”

“While he’s outside smoking, the girl goes in.”

Another beat.

“After that, the hallway footage gets… smoothed.”

He tilted his head slightly.

“Not erased. Not cut. Just… adjusted.”

His mouth flattened.

“That takes time. Not a lot, but enough. And whoever did it knew exactly how much to take out without making it obvious something was missing.”

His eyes stayed on her.

“That’s not someone panicking after something went wrong.”

“That’s someone who expected to need that window.”

He leaned back again, but his attention didn’t soften.

“And the biggest problem?”

A pause.

“They didn’t overcorrect.”

That part came sharper.

“They left Sebastian all over that place. The water, the cologne, the temperature, the whole controlled, empty aesthetic you clocked in five seconds.”

A faint, humorless smirk.

“Which tells me they weren’t trying to hide him.”

“They were comfortable letting him be seen.”

Another beat.

“And that’s what bothers me.”

His gaze didn’t move from her now.

“Because people don’t usually leave fingerprints like that unless they either…”

He lifted a finger.

“Don’t think anyone in the room will recognize them…”

A second finger.

“…or they want someone specific to.”

Silence hung for a moment.

Then he finished, quieter:

“And you’re that someone.”

Not accusation.

Not challenge.

Just fact, laid out clean.

Roman leaned back slightly, one arm stretching along the back of the booth again.

“So either your brother’s involved exactly the way it looks…”

A pause.

“…or someone built that entire scene knowing you’d be the one standing in it.”

His eyes flicked once over her face, then settled.

“And if it’s the second one…”

The faint edge returned.

“…then this stopped being about a missing girl the second you walked into that suite.”

Vivienne held his gaze across the table and let his conclusion settle where it needed to.

Not in the room.

In her.

The bar around them kept moving in its low, amber rhythm—glass against wood, a laugh from somewhere near the front, the soft traffic hiss beyond the windows—but for a few seconds none of it touched her. Roman’s voice had gone quiet by the end of it, stripped of most of its usual abrasion, and that alone made the words harder to dismiss.

He was right.

Not about everything. She was not prepared to grant him that much yet.

But about the shape of it.

The suite had been set for her.

That was the ugly part.

Not the girl. Not Sebastian. Not even the footage. The room itself had been arranged like a thought someone wanted planted in her head. A conclusion they trusted her to reach. Which meant the real work was no longer running after the conclusion they’d chosen for her—it was stepping sideways before they realized she’d done it.

Vivienne’s fingers tightened once around the stem of her glass, then loosened again.

Fine.

If there was a game, she would stop behaving like the designated victim of it.

The missing girl still mattered. That had not changed. But she was no longer wasting another hour personally chasing whatever trail her family had likely already dirtied. Someone else could keep digging, quietly, off-grid, away from Blackwell hands. Someone she trusted to move without reporting upward.

Her attention had shifted now.

No longer cleanup.

Counterplay.

And that required something even more irritating than Roman Kessler’s company.

It required deciding what to do with him.

She still did not trust him. That would have been insane. He had been too conveniently placed, too consistently present, too specifically calibrated for what Charles and Adrian seemed to want from her. But distrust, she thought, did not necessarily exclude utility. It simply demanded better handling.

If he was already on her father’s side, softer tactics would be wasted. If he wasn’t, then she needed him closer before Charles got the chance to pull him back into line.

The trick would be not making it obvious.

Vivienne was too disciplined to suddenly turn sweet. Too smart to let charm look like pleading. Men noticed softness. They missed controlled generosity all the time.

So when she finally spoke, her tone remained cool, but less cutting than before.

“That,” she said, “is the first truly interesting thing you’ve said to me tonight.”

A pause.

Then, because she could feel the edge of amusement trying to surface and refused to suppress it entirely, the faintest shadow of a smirk touched her mouth.

“Which is inconvenient. I had grown rather attached to the idea that you were only decorative in a crisis.”

It was as close to praise as he was likely to get from her.

Vivienne took another sip of her drink, smaller this time, and set the glass down with measured precision. Her eyes did not leave his.

“If someone wanted me in that room specifically, then the room was never evidence.” Her voice lowered by a degree. “It was bait.”

She let the word sit there between them.

Not dramatized. Not softened. Just named.

“And if that’s true, then chasing Sebastian too quickly becomes exactly what they want.”

They.

She chose the pronoun deliberately and watched whether it landed.

The question of his involvement still sat in the back of her mind, cold and sharp. She had not forgotten it. Would not. But his expression when he’d worked through the suite, the clean line of his reasoning, the absence of visible triumph when she named her brother—it had lowered her suspicion enough to make the next step worth the risk.

Enough, at least, to test him.

Vivienne leaned back slightly into the booth, posture still perfect, expression composed, but something in it had altered. Not warmth. Never anything so careless. More like invitation stripped of kindness and left with only intelligence.

“I dislike being maneuvered,” she said. “You strike me as the type who dislikes it too.”

A beat.

“Which means we may have a temporary overlap of interests.”

There. That was better. No plea. No alliance declared too early. Just the clean offer of mutual advantage.

For now, she let her attention rest on him fully.

“If you are part of this,” she said, almost conversationally, “now would be an excellent time to disappoint me efficiently.”

The line was delivered so smoothly it could almost have been mistaken for flirtation by someone much stupider than either of them.

Vivienne knew that too.

She watched to see whether he did.

Then she tilted her head, dark eyes steady, the sarcasm back in place just enough to keep the moment from becoming nakedly serious.

“And if you’re not,” she went on, “then I’d advise you to stop handing Charles and Adrian your observations before you understand what they cost.”

A small pause.

“Tell me first.”

There it was.

Direct enough to matter. Cool enough to deny later. Dangerous enough to be real.

She reached for her martini again, but didn’t drink yet.

“You don’t have to trust me,” she said. “That would be premature and, on your part, a little stupid.” The faintest lift of one brow. “But you can trust that I have no interest in helping my family win whatever this is.”

Now she drank.

Cold gin. Clean burn. Steadying.

When she set the glass down again, the amusement had returned in miniature.

“So,” Vivienne said, voice smoothing back into that elegant, ruthless calm that suited her far better than openness ever had, “are you going to keep brooding at me like a suspicious dog who’s learned to read, or are you capable of behaving like someone who understands an opportunity when it appears?”

Roman didn’t look away when she finished.

He held her gaze like it was something to be worked through, not avoided—steady, unhurried, the way he approached everything else about her. The bar noise stayed low around them, distant enough to disappear at the edges, and for a second he didn’t move at all. No shift in posture, no reach for his drink. Just that same quiet, deliberate attention that had started to feel less like coincidence and more like choice.

Then, finally, he exhaled through his nose, slow.

“Yeah,” he said.

Not dismissive. Not impressed either. Just… landing it.

“Bait.”

The word sat between them for a beat, heavier now that it had been said twice.

His fingers tapped once against the table, a small, unconscious rhythm while he thought. When he leaned forward, it wasn’t abrupt—it was gradual, controlled, bringing him just a fraction closer without crowding her space. Enough to signal he wasn’t brushing this off. Enough to make it clear he was in it now.

“They wanted you in that room,” he continued, voice low, even. “Not just to see it. To react to it. To follow it.”

A slight tilt of his head, studying her again.

“And you would’ve. Anyone would’ve. It’s clean, it’s obvious, it points in one direction—just complicated enough to feel real.”

A pause.

“But not complicated enough to slow you down.”

That part he let sit.

His gaze didn’t break.

“And that’s the problem.”

Roman reached for his glass then, finally, lifting it and taking a small sip, more out of habit than anything else. He set it back down with a quiet click, fingers resting against the side like he was anchoring the thought there.

“Because if they wanted you chasing Sebastian, they would’ve made it messier. Left more room for doubt. Made you work for it.” His mouth pulled faintly. “You like work.”

Not a compliment.

Not an insult either.

Just observation.

“This?” He gave the smallest shake of his head. “This is too clean. Too fast. Too… considerate.”

His eyes flicked over her face, catching that shift in her tone from earlier, the way she’d adjusted without softening.

“They didn’t want you to struggle with it. They wanted you to recognize it, question it just enough to feel clever stepping away…” another beat, quieter now, “…and still stay exactly where they put you.”

His fingers stilled.

“And yeah,” he added, almost under his breath, “I don’t like that.”

Not dramatic.

Just fact.

When she said she disliked being maneuvered, something in his expression tightened—not visibly, not in a way most people would catch, but enough to show it landed somewhere deeper than irritation.

“You’re right about me,” he said.

Simple.

“I don’t.”

A small pause.

“And I don’t like being used to do it to someone else either.”

That part he didn’t dress up.

Didn’t soften.

He just left it there, between them.

Then she made the offer.

Not sweet. Not clean. Not even particularly safe.

Tell me first.

Roman went still for half a second.

Not frozen.

Measured.

Because that was the real line.

Not the sarcasm. Not the test. Not even the accusation.

That.

His eyes dropped briefly to her glass, then back to her face, recalibrating.

“You’re asking me to cut them out of the loop,” he said.

Not a question.

Not a challenge.

Just naming it plainly.

“And you’re doing it like it’s obvious I should.”

A faint shift at the corner of his mouth.

“Which is either very confident…”

A beat.

“…or very dangerous.”

His gaze lingered a fraction longer than it should have.

He noticed she didn’t flinch.

Not surprised.

Just… noted.

Then he leaned back again, just enough to break the intensity without losing it entirely, one arm returning to the back of the booth.

“You’re also right about something else,” he continued. “I don’t trust you.”

Flat.

Honest.

No edge to it.

“But I don’t trust them either.”

That mattered more.

His fingers brushed the rim of his glass again, slow, thoughtful.

“And right now, they’re the ones setting the board.”

A pause.

“And you’re the one trying to flip it.”

His eyes met hers again.

“That’s more interesting.”

The faintest hint of something—not quite amusement, not quite approval—moved through his expression.

“So yeah,” he said quietly.

“I see the opportunity.”

Another beat.

“And I understand it.”

He leaned forward again, just slightly, enough to close that space between them back down.

“But don’t confuse that with me falling in line.”

A small pause.

“I’ll tell you what I find,” he said. “When it matters. When I know it’s real.”

His head tilted just a fraction.

“Not before.”

There it was.

His version of agreement.

Controlled. Conditional. Entirely his.

Then, because he couldn’t quite leave it clean:

“And for the record…”

A faint, dry edge slipped back in.

“You don’t come off like someone who needs help not helping her family win.”

A beat.

“You come off like someone who plans on beating them at their own game.”

His gaze held hers, longer this time.

Intentional.

“Which means the real question isn’t whether I understand the opportunity.”

Another pause.

“It’s whether you’re as good at this as you think you are.”

Vivienne let his question hang there between them.

Not because she needed time to answer it.

Because men like Roman so rarely understood that silence, used properly, was an answer before words ever arrived. He had given her something worth more than agreement just then—resistance with shape to it. Conditional, irritating, intact. He was not offering obedience. Good. Obedient men were usually useless the moment things became interesting.

She studied him over the rim of her glass, the condensation cold against her fingertips, and felt the faintest, most dangerous flicker of amusement.

Whether you’re as good at this as you think you are.

There it was again. That same rough-edged instinct of his to push where most men postured or flattered. It should have annoyed her more than it did. It certainly would have, if she hadn’t already begun to suspect that Charles and Adrian had chosen him precisely because he would do this—refuse easy hierarchy, refuse easy charm, force her to stay sharp even when she wanted the room to tilt in her favor on instinct alone.

He was right about one thing, at least.

She did plan on beating them.

The only part still in question was how many pieces on the board were playing under someone else’s hand.

Vivienne set her martini down with careful precision and leaned back into the booth, one arm resting lightly against the leather, the posture deceptively casual. Her face remained composed, but her eyes had sharpened again—cool, dark, and very awake now.

“If you were the type to fall in line,” she said, voice smooth as cut glass, “my father would have sent someone else.”

A beat.

“He didn’t need a yes-man. He needed someone difficult enough to keep me occupied.”

That much she said plainly. No ornament. No softness. The truth looked better when she didn’t bother dressing it up.

The bar’s low golden light caught the curve of her hair where it spilled over one shoulder, and she became aware—without any real intention of it—of how closely he was watching her again. Not in the clumsy way she was accustomed to, but with that same deliberate attention that somehow managed to feel both professional and personal in ways she disliked examining too closely.

She ignored it.

Mostly.

“What you choose to tell me and when,” she continued, “is your concern. I’m not asking for loyalty, Mr. Kessler. That would be naïve.”

The corner of her mouth moved, not quite a smile.

“And beneath me.”

She let that settle, watching to see whether it landed where she intended—not as cruelty, though there was enough of that in it, but as definition. She was not extending trust. She was setting terms.

“What I am offering,” she said, “is efficiency.”

Her gaze did not leave his.

“If you find something that matters, you tell me before it climbs back up the family tree. I will do the same.” A pause. “Not because we like each other. Not because I expect honesty from men on principle. Because at the moment we are both more likely to get answers if Charles and Adrian don’t know which direction we’re actually looking.”

There.

That was the cleanest version of it.

No alliance declared too soon. No sentimental nonsense. Just shared advantage sharpened into a structure.

Vivienne reached for her drink again, but instead of sipping, she turned the stem between her fingers and watched the light shift through the glass.

“And as for whether I’m as good at this as I think I am…” She tilted her head slightly, eyes lifting back to his. “If I weren’t, my family would never bother trying this hard to keep me pointed the wrong way.”

That earned him a fraction more truth than she had planned to give. Perhaps because he had earned it. Perhaps because she was already recalibrating around him and hated the fact enough to stop pretending otherwise.

Her attention moved over his face for a beat too long, measuring him again, and some quieter instinct in her noted—annoyingly—that he seemed more solid now than he had across a security desk or in a hallway. Less theatrical. More dangerous, perhaps, because of it.

Not danger in the crude sense.

Danger in the sense of becoming relevant.

Vivienne disliked relevance where men were concerned. It complicated things.

She looked away first.

“The girl is still the only part of this that isn’t strategic,” she said, the line of her mouth flattening slightly. “That means she’s either collateral damage or the original reason for all of it. I haven’t decided which.”

Her voice cooled another degree.

“But I’m done treating every flare-up they send me as if it deserves my full attention on command.”

Now the irritation returned, but cleaner than before. No longer diffuse. Directed.

“They want me reactive. Busy. Following whatever scent they put in front of me. Sebastian’s room, Lucien’s stupidity, Halcyon House, whatever comes next.” Her gaze narrowed faintly. “I’m not doing that anymore.”

Roman had asked the real question, she thought. Not whether he understood the opportunity. Whether she was actually capable of playing at this level without being pulled apart by the family that had built her.

He had every right to ask.

He just wasn’t getting reassurance.

Vivienne finally drank, the gin cold and exact and bracing enough to make the next words come cleaner.

“What I think,” she said, setting the glass back down, “is that Charles and Adrian are moving attention. Possibly money. Possibly people. Possibly both. I think Sebastian is helping because he wants to be let into whatever room they’ve kept him outside of so far. And I think Lucien is exactly what he has always been—an idiot useful to smarter men because he mistakes recklessness for charm.”

She stopped there deliberately.

No mention of proof. No overstatement. Just the shape of the board as she saw it now.

Then she looked at him again, and this time there was a trace of something more openly amused in her expression.

“You see?” she said lightly. “I can say unpleasant things plainly too. I simply prefer to wait until I’m likely to be right.”

The line was dry, but not dismissive. Almost companionable, if one were feeling generous. Vivienne was not.

She let the moment stretch, then decided to give him something else—small, but chosen.

“You should also know,” she said, “that if you are playing both sides badly enough for me to notice, I will not confront you dramatically in a public place. I’ll simply adjust.”

A faint lift of one brow.

“I find men become very careless once they think they’ve been believed.”

Another sip. Slower this time.

“So if your conscience suddenly becomes inconvenient and you decide to be useful in the right direction, I recommend doing it while I’m still in the mood to reward initiative.”

That, too, could almost have sounded flirtatious if she had wanted it to.

She didn’t.

Or told herself she didn’t.

Vivienne let the silence breathe for a second, then slid one polished fingertip through the small circle of condensation her glass had left on the table.

“I don’t need you on my side,” she said finally. “But if you’re not already on theirs, then for the moment it would be strategically stupid for us to work against each other.”

Her gaze lifted once more and locked to his.

That was the real offer.

No velvet on it. No smile to soften it. Just sharp intelligence and the smallest sliver of permission.

“Think whatever you like about my chances,” she said. “Question my methods. Distrust my motives. I assure you, the feeling is mutual.” The faintest ghost of amusement returned. “But if you’re going to sit there and test whether I’m good enough to beat them, at least have the courtesy to make yourself difficult for the right people.”

She reached for her martini again.

“And if you happen to discover that I’m better at this than you hoped,” she added, voice going smooth and cool all over again, “try not to take it personally.”

Roman let her finish without interrupting.

Not because he couldn’t—he had, all night—but because this wasn’t the kind of thing you cut across without losing something useful. So he stayed where he was, one arm stretched along the back of the booth, the other resting near his glass, and watched her the same way he had been since she sat down: steady, deliberate, taking in the parts she didn’t intend to emphasize as much as the ones she did.

The way she chose her words.

The way she didn’t.

The way her tone shifted just slightly when something mattered more than she wanted it to.

By the time she was done, the bar had folded back in around them again—low voices, dim light, the quiet rhythm of people who had nothing to do with any of this. Roman didn’t move right away. He let her last line sit there between them, felt the edge of it, the challenge buried cleanly inside something that almost passed for composure.

Then he huffed a quiet breath, something just short of a laugh.

“Yeah,” he said, voice low. “I don’t think you’re in danger of disappointing me on that front.”

There was no mockery in it.

No softness either.

Just acknowledgment.

His gaze stayed on her, a second longer than necessary, before it shifted briefly to the condensation ring she’d traced on the table, then back up again.

“You’re right about them,” he continued. “About how they move things. Attention, money, people—it’s all the same to men like that. They don’t separate it. It’s just… leverage.”

A small pause.

“And you’re right about Sebastian.”

That one came flatter.

Less interested.

“Men like him don’t build anything on their own. They attach themselves to something bigger and hope it passes for power.” His mouth tilted faintly. “If he’s involved, it’s because he was let in. Not because he forced his way there.”

Roman shifted slightly in his seat, not restless—just adjusting, grounding himself into the conversation like it mattered enough to settle into properly.

“But here’s where I think you’re underestimating something,” he said.

Not condescending.

Not sharp.

Just direct.

“They’re not just moving you.”

His eyes held hers.

“They’re moving around you.”

A beat.

“You’re not the distraction. You’re the variable.”

That sat heavier.

“They don’t know exactly what you’ll do, but they know how you think. So they build something that catches your attention either way—whether you chase it or step around it.”

His fingers tapped once against the table again, quieter this time.

“Which means the play isn’t just to ignore the bait.”

A slight tilt of his head.

“It’s to make them think you took it.”

There it was.

Plain.

Uncomfortable.

Roman watched her carefully when he said it, not looking for approval, just… checking the impact.

“Because if they’re watching—which they are, one way or another—then the moment you stop reacting, they adjust. Faster. Tighter. Less room to move.”

His voice dropped slightly.

“And right now, they think they’ve got you in a pattern.”

A pause.

“So breaking that pattern too cleanly?” He gave the faintest shake of his head. “That’s just as loud as following it.”

He let that sit, then leaned back a fraction, easing the intensity without losing it completely.

When she talked about efficiency, about terms, about not needing loyalty—his expression didn’t change much, but something in it sharpened. Not defensive. Not resistant.

Interested.

“You’re not asking for loyalty,” he said. “You’re asking for timing.”

Another small nod.

“That I can work with.”

His hand finally closed around his glass again, but he didn’t drink—just held it there, thumb resting against the rim.

“You get what matters before it goes upstairs,” he continued. “Same the other way around.”

A beat.

“No promises about anything else.”

That was his line.

Clear.

Deliberate.

Then, because he couldn’t quite leave it clean again:

“And for the record,” he added, “I don’t hand them everything now.”

His gaze didn’t waver.

“Just enough to stay useful.”

It wasn’t an apology.

It wasn’t a confession.

It was information.

He let her decide what to do with it.

Silence stretched for a second, but it wasn’t empty. It had weight now. Shape. Something almost like alignment, if you looked at it from the right angle.

Then she mentioned the girl.

That shifted something.

Roman’s jaw tightened slightly—not dramatic, just enough to register—and his gaze flicked briefly away, toward the bar, before coming back.

“She’s the only part of this that doesn’t fit their pattern,” he said. “Which means she’s either the reason all of this exists…”

A pause.

“…or the thing they’re hoping gets lost inside it.”

His voice stayed even, but there was less detachment in it now.

“Either way, she’s the one piece they don’t control as cleanly.”

Another beat.

“So she’s the one I’m not ignoring.”

Not defiant.

Just set.

Then he looked at her again, properly this time, and there was something steadier in it than before—not softer, not easier, just… decided.

“You don’t need me on your side,” he said. “I get that.”

A faint shift at the corner of his mouth.

“You wouldn’t know what to do with it if I was.”

Dry.

Measured.

But not entirely untrue.

“But you’re also right about something else,” he continued. “Working against each other right now would be a waste of time.”

He leaned forward slightly again, forearms resting lightly against the table now, closing that distance just enough to matter.

“So here’s how this goes.”

His tone didn’t rise. Didn’t harden.

But it settled into something more defined. Less reactive. More… intentional.

“You run your counterplay. Make them think you’re still chasing whatever they put in front of you.”

A small nod.

“I’ll keep moving where they expect me to. Keep feeding them just enough to stay where I am.”

His eyes held hers.

“And anything that actually matters?” A pause. “You hear it first.”

There was no flourish to it.

No dramatics.

Just a decision, stated clean.

Then, quieter:

“Same expectation back.”

He leaned back again after that, letting the space between them return to something less charged, though the weight of the conversation didn’t really lift with it.

“And if you turn out to be better at this than I expect…” he added, voice slipping back toward that dry edge she seemed to enjoy resisting, “…I won’t take it personally.”

A beat.

“I’ll adjust.”

His gaze lingered again—longer than it needed to, longer than was strictly professional—taking her in not like a problem now, but like something he was actively choosing to keep up with.

Then he reached for his drink and finally took a sip.

“And Blackwell?”

A slight tilt of his head.

“If I was looking for easy, I wouldn’t be sitting here.”

Vivienne let that last line settle between them and found, to her irritation, that it almost amused her.

If I was looking for easy, I wouldn’t be sitting here.

No defensiveness. No swagger worth mocking. Just the sort of blunt, rough-edged truth men rarely offered unless they were either lying very well or had decided the performance was no longer worth the effort.

She studied him over the rim of her glass for a beat too long.

The bar’s dim amber light softened nothing about him. If anything, it made the harder lines more obvious—the angle of his jaw when he’d decided something, the stillness he fell into when a problem finally interested him enough to stop talking around it. He was still infuriating. Still too observant. Still far too comfortable saying exactly enough to be useful and never quite enough to be pinned down.

And now, unfortunately, he was no longer just a complication.

He was a variable she could use.

That realization sat coolly in her chest.

Not trust. Not anything so naïve.

Just position.

Vivienne set her glass down and tipped her head slightly, the movement elegant and almost idle, though her eyes had sharpened again.

“No,” she said. “You wouldn’t.”

The faintest trace of amusement touched her mouth, then vanished before it could become anything generous.

“Easy men are usually decorative, overconfident, and dead weight by the time the second drink arrives.” Her gaze held his. “You’ve managed to avoid at least two of the three.”

Which, in her language, was dangerously close to a compliment.

She let him have it anyway.

For a moment, she said nothing more. Let the room breathe. Let the terms they’d just set begin to harden into something real enough to be acted on. Around them, the bar remained politely unaware—someone laughing too loudly near the front, a bottle set down behind the bar, the low hum of a room full of people whose worst problem tonight would likely be whether they ordered another round.

Vivienne envied them very briefly.

Then she stopped. Envy was useless.

Her attention returned to Roman.

“If this is going to work,” she said, “then it needs shape.”

Not a suggestion. A refinement.

“My family already believes they know how I react. They expect me to move fast, aggressively, and with just enough pride to make the bait feel personal.” Her fingers traced once through the condensation around her glass. “So that is what they’ll continue to see.”

A pause.

“I’ll let them think I’m fixated on Sebastian in the most obvious way possible.”

Not entirely false, which was part of the elegance of it.

“They’ll expect questions, irritation, probably a few strategically visible mistakes.” The corner of her mouth moved faintly. “I can manage all of that without straining myself.”

Her eyes lifted back to his.

“You, meanwhile, continue exactly as you have been. Annoyingly competent. Slightly insolent. Just useful enough that Charles keeps you close and Adrian keeps underestimating how much you notice.”

It fit him so well she almost disliked saying it aloud.

Almost.

“But if you’re going to feed them just enough to stay where you are,” she continued, voice cooling, “be careful not to enjoy the balancing act too much. Men who think they can play both sides indefinitely usually end up crushed in the middle.”

There. A warning, cleanly wrapped inside strategy.

Because if Roman was being honest—and she believed, provisionally, that he was—then the danger had changed shape now. No longer simply whether he was theirs. But whether he thought himself nimble enough to remain no one’s for too long.

Vivienne knew better.

Nobody touched Blackwell machinery without eventually paying in blood, reputation, or both.

She leaned back slightly into the booth, letting her posture relax just enough to feel intentional rather than softened.

“As for the girl,” she said, and here her tone flattened, because that part still mattered in a way the rest did not, “I’m not leaving her inside their architecture. Not anymore.”

She didn’t elaborate on how.

She didn’t need to.

Roman was smart enough to hear what she was not saying: that whatever search had existed within Blackwell reach was now compromised, and she had no intention of letting the only genuinely human piece of this disappear into their hands.

“If she’s the loose end, they’ll try to tighten it,” Vivienne said quietly. “If she’s the reason, they’ll bury her under the performance of everything else.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Either way, she does not stay where they can reach her first.”

That was the nearest she would come to urgency.

Even now, it came out sounding cold.

Roman would have to be observant enough to hear the difference.

He probably was. Annoyingly.

Her gaze drifted to his hand around the glass, then back to his face.

There was something almost perverse, she thought, in how naturally this had shifted. Forty-eight hours ago she’d wanted him out of her sight. Twelve hours ago she’d wanted him contained, managed, and ideally nowhere near her decisions. Now they sat in a dim Chelsea bar speaking in terms and patterns and false fronts as if this had always been where the night was heading.

No.

Not natural.

Engineered.

That thought brought her back to herself fast enough to matter.

She straightened slightly.

“One more thing,” she said.

Roman’s attention sharpened at once. She noticed that too.

“If you hear my father or uncle use my name with too much ease over the next few days—if they sound pleased, or unsurprised, or just a little too patient—I want to know.” Her voice had gone very precise. “Not because I care what they think. Because that’s usually when they believe the board is behaving.”

A beat.

“And I’d prefer to know exactly when they become comfortable.”

Comfort made men sloppy.

Blackwell men especially.

She picked up her martini again, but before she drank, she looked at him with a steadier, more openly assessing interest than she had allowed herself so far.

He was still difficult to place cleanly. Still too rough for her world and too calm inside it. Still the kind of man she had been raised to dismiss on instinct and keep at a professionally useful distance. Yet here he was, not disappearing under her scrutiny, not bending beneath the weight of her name, not doing the expected thing simply because everyone else around her always had.

It was a dangerous combination.

Perhaps that was why she found herself watching him more carefully than she ought to.

Or perhaps, she thought with private irritation, that too was part of the trap.

Vivienne took a sip of her drink and let the gin cut through the thought before it could become anything more.

Then she set the glass down again.

“So,” she said, the sarcasm returning just enough to keep the moment from becoming too nakedly aligned, “now that we’ve agreed not to sabotage each other unless absolutely necessary, I imagine we should decide what version of tonight gets to exist tomorrow.”

Her eyes held his.

“Because if Charles asks, I’d rather not sound like we suddenly became cooperative adults with shared interests. It would make him suspicious.”

The faintest pause.

“And I find I prefer him smug.”

That, more than anything else, was true.

A smug man relaxed. A relaxed man revealed. A revealed man could be beaten.

For the first time since they’d sat down, something like a real, if very small, smile touched her mouth.

“Tell me what you’ll say,” she said. “I’ll decide whether it’s believable.”

Roman watched that almost-smile happen.

Didn’t react to it. Didn’t chase it. But he clocked it the way he clocked everything else about her—filed it somewhere useful, somewhere he could come back to later when the pattern needed it.

By the time she finished, he was already leaning slightly forward again, not crowding, just engaged in a way that made it clear he’d shifted from reacting to actively building alongside her.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “It needs shape.”

Not agreement for the sake of it.

Recognition.

His gaze moved over her face once, slower than before, like he was recalibrating to this version of her—the one that wasn’t just sharp, but strategic in a way that didn’t waste motion.

“You fixate on Sebastian,” he continued, picking up her thread without hesitation. “Visible. Irritated. Just reckless enough that it looks like pride instead of planning.”

A faint edge touched his mouth.

“You’re good at that.”

Not flattery.

Just fact.

“They’ll believe it. They already do.”

He shifted his glass slightly, turning it in his hand but not drinking, eyes dropping to it for half a second before lifting again.

“And I stay where I am,” he went on. “Close enough to hear things early, not close enough that they feel the need to explain them.”

A beat.

“Useful. Not trusted.”

His eyes flicked back to hers.

“That’s the line.”

He let that sit, then added, quieter:

“And I don’t enjoy the balancing act.”

There was something in the way he said it—flat, almost dismissive of the idea—that made it clear he wasn’t posturing. If anything, it irritated him.

“I tolerate it,” he corrected. “Because it works.”

A small pause.

“For now.”

Her warning about men getting crushed in the middle didn’t go ignored. It landed, just not where she might expect. He didn’t argue it. Didn’t brush it off.

“Yeah,” he said after a second. “I’ve seen how that ends.”

No elaboration.

Didn’t need it.

When she shifted to the girl, though, something in him tightened again—more visibly this time, not by much, but enough that it registered.

“She doesn’t stay in their system,” he said, matching her tone now—lower, cleaner. “Agreed.”

No hesitation.

“If she’s still inside anything they can touch, she’s already in danger.”

His jaw set slightly.

“So we pull that thread separately.”

A glance at her, sharper now.

“Quietly. No Blackwell channels. No overlap with anything they can trace back to you.”

A beat.

“I know a couple of ways to do that.”

He didn’t expand.

Not yet.

But it was there—offered, not explained.

Then she gave him the piece about Charles and Adrian.

Roman’s expression didn’t change much, but his focus did—narrowed, sharpened in a way that meant he understood exactly what she was asking for.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll know.”

A faint shift at the corner of his mouth.

“They don’t hide it as well as they think they do. Especially when they think something’s going their way.”

He leaned back slightly again, letting the tension ease just enough to make room for the next part.

The version of tonight.

That pulled something almost like amusement out of him again, quieter this time.

“Right,” he said. “We definitely can’t sound like this.”

His hand finally lifted the glass again, but he only took a small sip before setting it down, like he didn’t want to break the rhythm of it.

“If Charles asks,” he continued, “I tell him you were exactly what he expected.”

A glance at her, deliberate.

“Sharp. Difficult. Convinced you’re right about Sebastian and not interested in hearing otherwise.”

A beat.

“I tell him you pushed the room hard. Saw what you wanted to see. Left annoyed because there wasn’t anything cleaner to grab onto.”

His tone stayed even, but there was a quiet precision to it now—he wasn’t improvising, he was constructing.

“I mention you don’t like being handled,” he added. “That part’s obvious anyway. Makes the rest more believable.”

A faint, dry edge returned.

“And I tell him you don’t particularly like me.”

His gaze held hers for a fraction longer.

“That part sells itself.”

He let that land, then continued.

“As for me,” he said, “you don’t defend me. You don’t recommend me. You don’t even mention me unless you have to.”

A small pause.

“If it comes up, I’m just… there. Someone they sent who didn’t get in your way but didn’t earn your approval either.”

Another slight tilt of his head.

“That keeps me useful. Keeps you consistent.”

He watched her carefully now, measuring whether it fit, whether she’d adjust it or tear it apart.

“And if Adrian asks,” he added, quieter, “I lean into the parts he underestimates. I let him think I’m noticing less than I am.”

A faint exhale.

“He likes thinking he’s the smartest one in the room. That’s easy to work with.”

Then he stopped.

Let it sit.

The structure was there now, clean enough to hold.

For a second, neither of them moved.

Then Roman’s gaze shifted back to her fully, slower this time, less clinical. There was something different in it now—not softer, not safer, just… more aware of her as a whole rather than a problem to solve.

“You want him smug,” he said.

A faint hint of something—approval, maybe—ghosted through his expression.

“Yeah.”

A beat.

“That’s when people stop checking their work.”

His fingers tapped once against the table again, then stilled.

“And Blackwell?”

That name again. Same way. No apology for it.

“If this is engineered—and it is—then they expect friction between us.”

His eyes held hers.

“So we don’t get along.”

Simple.

“Not publicly. Not where it counts.”

A slight tilt of his head.

“Just enough disagreement that it looks real. Just enough overlap that we still end up in the same rooms.”

Another pause.

“Anything cleaner than that, they’ll start asking why.”

He leaned back again after that, letting the space between them settle into something that felt… intentional.

Then, almost as an afterthought:

“And if you decide tomorrow that you hate that version of events,” he added, voice dry again, “feel free to improve it.”

A faint glance at her glass, then back to her eyes.

“I’m sure you will.”

His gaze lingered, just a second too long to be entirely professional.

Not pushing.

Not pulling back either.

Then he picked up his drink again.

“And for the record,” he said, quieter now, almost casual, “you’re better at this than they think.”

A beat.

“Which is probably why they’re trying this hard.”

He didn’t dress it up.

Didn’t soften it.

Just left it there for her to take or ignore.

Then he took a sip.

Vivienne let him finish and, for once, did not immediately cut the shape of his answer to pieces.

She sat with it.

Not passively. Never that. She turned it over in her mind the way she turned everything over—testing the weak seams, checking for vanity disguised as insight, looking for the little self-serving bend men so often slipped into their logic without even noticing they’d done it.

There was less of that in him than she would have preferred.

It would have been easier if he were sloppier.

Easier if his version of events had come out bloated with ego or thick with the kind of masculine certainty that begged to be punctured. Instead, Roman had done something much more inconvenient: he had given her something clean. Usable. He had taken her instinct, shaped it, and handed it back with just enough structure to matter.

She hated useful men.

More accurately, she hated how quickly the world arranged itself around them once they proved they could survive pressure.

His last line lingered longest.

You’re better at this than they think.

Vivienne’s fingers settled lightly against the stem of her glass, but she didn’t reach for it. Her eyes remained on him instead, cool and unreadable on the surface, even as something more complicated moved quietly beneath.

That was not flattery.

He was too sparing with it to waste it as decoration.

And because he had not dressed it up, it landed more cleanly than it should have.

For one brief, private second, Vivienne considered the possibility that Roman understood something ugly and familiar about her without yet fully knowing its shape: that she had been raised in a room full of men who mistook control for genius and women’s endurance for inevitability. That they had underestimated her for so long it had become habit. That some part of her had spent years learning how to survive inside that miscalculation and make it useful.

She did not thank him for noticing.

That would have ruined it.

Instead, the faintest edge of amusement returned at the corner of her mouth—small, restrained, but real enough to count if someone knew where to look.

“That,” she said at last, voice cool and almost lazy with restraint, “is a surprisingly serviceable version of tomorrow.”

A beat.

Then, because she was still herself, “Which I say with great reluctance, so try not to look proud of it.”

Her gaze drifted to his glass, then back to his face.

He had built the cover story well. Almost too well. She could hear Charles accepting it already, hear Adrian smoothing the edges where it pleased him, hear the men congratulating themselves on how predictable she remained.

Good.

Let them.

Vivienne leaned back slightly into the booth, one arm settling against the leather, posture loose enough to suggest ease while her mind continued moving ten steps ahead.

“There is one adjustment,” she said. “You don’t tell my father I saw what I wanted to see.”

Her tone sharpened just a fraction.

“That flatters him too much.”

She let that settle.

“You tell him I saw enough to be irritated and not enough to be satisfied.” The faintest lift of one brow. “He’ll like that better. It sounds closer to control.”

Because Charles Blackwell did not merely want obedience. He wanted frustration measured into manageable channels. He wanted Vivienne looking exactly near enough to the truth to tire herself out before reaching it.

Roman, she suspected, already understood that. But she liked saying it aloud. It made the board feel more real.

“And if Adrian asks,” she went on, “you let him think I’m still reacting personally. He prefers women easier to explain when they’re angry.”

Her mouth thinned, though not quite in bitterness. More like familiarity refined to contempt.

“He’ll believe pride before he believes strategy. Men like him usually do.”

She reached for her martini then and took a smaller sip, colder now, cleaner. By the time she set the glass down again, the amusement had faded back into calculation.

“As for us not getting along,” she said, “that won’t require much acting.”

The line landed exactly where she wanted it to. Dry enough to make the truth funny. Sharp enough to keep it from becoming warm.

And yet—

There was something faintly ridiculous in how easy it suddenly was to picture it. The two of them crossing paths in hallways or offices or hotel lobbies, giving the family exactly the friction it expected to see. Roman needling. Her cutting him off. A polished hostility with just enough authenticity to survive scrutiny.

They wouldn’t have to fake much at all.

That thought should have reassured her.

Instead, it made her more aware of him all over again—of the steadiness in his attention, of the way he seemed to watch her without ever becoming clumsy about it, of how little effort it took now for him to sit across from her and occupy the space as if he had every right.

Infuriating.

She looked away first, toward the amber-glow bottles lined behind the bar, and let the shift pass without acknowledging it.

“The girl,” she said after a moment, tone flattening back into business. “The two methods you mentioned.”

Her eyes returned to him.

“You don’t need to explain them yet. I don’t care how you move as long as you move quietly and away from anything my family can touch.” A pause. “If you find her first, you tell me where she is and whether she’s safe. Not a version. Not a summary. The truth.”

This, more than anything, mattered.

No ornament. No irony. Just terms.

Vivienne rested her forearm lightly on the table and watched to see whether the seriousness of that landed where it should. It needed to. She could play games with Charles, Adrian, and Sebastian. She could let Lucien hang himself in whatever silk rope he preferred.

But the girl did not belong to the family’s choreography, no matter how hard they tried to use her as part of it.

“If she disappears deeper into this because we were busy being clever,” Vivienne said quietly, “I will take that personally.”

There.

Now he had the shape of the line.

She let the silence hold for a second, then exhaled softly through her nose and allowed the room around them back in—the clink of glass, the low murmur at the bar, the pleasant anonymity of a place that did not care who her father was.

She liked that more than she wanted to admit.

Roman still sat there with that same irritatingly calm focus, as though none of this—none of her, none of the family, none of the game—had managed to make him hurry.

That, too, she found herself studying.

And then, because she could feel the conversation nearing a point where it might become too serious if she let it, she made the tactical decision to ruin that.

“Well,” she said, eyes sliding over him once more, “now that we’ve established you are capable of constructing a believable lie, following a trail, and occasionally saying something worth hearing, I imagine the next step is obvious.”

A beat.

“Try not to get killed.”

The line was cool. Slightly amused. Entirely her.

Then, with a quieter edge beneath it:

“Or compromised. I’m not interested in replacing you with someone more obedient and half as competent.”

That one she let sit a second longer, mostly because she enjoyed the fact that it could be read more than one way.

She reached for her glass again but did not drink.

“And Roman?”

It was the first time she used his name without title, and she did it as if she hadn’t noticed.

“Do try to avoid giving me reasons to regret this. I would hate to discover I was momentarily optimistic.”

The corner of her mouth moved again, smaller this time.

Then she leaned back and looked at him with all the elegant, ruthless composure that had gotten her through far worse rooms than this one.

“Now tell me,” she said, “whether I’m going to need a second drink before we part ways, or whether you’re finally clever enough to leave on a high note.”