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Paloma loops an arm through Mom’s and steers her toward the yard. We breathe for exactly ninety seconds before Mom wanders back into the kitchen doorway.

“Nina said you have a big new client, Isabella. Does that mean a raise?”

Nina mouths sorry at me.

“It means I get to keep my job,” I say. “That’s all it means right now.”

“Well, the entryway could really use some sprucing up. The tile’s cracked, and Maria’s son says he can do it cheap.”

“Mom.” Nina’s voice is sharp. “Izzy paid for your roof two months ago.”

“Hey.” Tony looms in the doorway behind Mom. “You girls show your mother some respect. She worked three jobs for you. Don’t you want to help out your mother, Izzy?”

“My name is Isabella,” I say calmly. “You are not my father, and you don’t get to call me Izzy.”

Tony’s lip curls. “Good thing you make good money,” he says. “You sure as hell aren’t going to land a man with that attitude. Or that body.”

Nina’s cutting board clatters to the floor. Paloma gasps. And Mom—Mom does nothing at all. She just stands there beside Tony, the way she’s always stood beside whoever she’s with.

“Tony.” Jai is in the back doorway, his face like a thundercloud, his SMOKIN’ HOT DAD apron somehow making him look more dangerous. “Watch your mouth in my house.”

“It’s okay,” I say. My hands are shaking, so I fold them on the counter. “His opinion doesn’t matter. He’ll be old news by next week.”

“Isabella!“ Mom gasps, scandalized that I’d say that about Tony. Not that Tony said that about me.

I skewer him with the glare that has made executives cower, and then I walk out into the summer sunshine and don’t take a full breath until I’m standing at the back fence.

Jai finds me there a minute later and hands me a lemonade. “You know he’s just an asshole, right?”

“Apparently, it’s his best skill.”

He nudges my shoulder. “Come help with the balloons. Nova tied some of them, so they’re probably about to fly away.”

I go. I smile for my niece. I sing “Happy Birthday” to a four-year-old in ghost makeup and watch her blow out candles on a cake shaped like a tombstone.

And before I leave, when no one’s looking, I Venmo Mom four hundred dollars for the entryway.

Monday morning, I’m at the small conference table in Sebastian’s office, buried in polling data from the interview. The numbers are moving, slowly, but in the right direction.

Neither of us has mentioned Thursday. He apologized for nothing. I accepted nothing. We’ve spoken exclusively in deliverables. It’s working beautifully, if you don’t count the way the air goes tight every time he walks behind my chair.

My phone buzzes. I send it to voicemail. It buzzes again. Then it starts dinging, text after text after text.

At his desk, Sebastian looks up. His assistants have learned to stop breathing when he looks up like that.

“Silence it,” he says.

“I need to be reachable for work.”

“That’s what assistants are for.” The phone dings again. His jaw tightens. “Answer it, Ms. Medina, or take it outside.”

I grab the phone and walk out into the hallway. Two assistants stop talking the moment I pass. One of them mouths door closed again to the other. I pretend not to see it.

I know exactly who it is.

Answer your phone.

Call me.