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I have met him once. Properly once. There were lawyers, doctors, two people from the agency, Petra, and a conference room table large enough to land a helicopter on. He shook my hand, thanked me for my time, and then his experts did most of the talking.

He was composed. Polite, composed, distant. A man who could discuss a potential child the way other people discussed acquisition timelines.

“I don’t really know him,” I say.

Petra’s gaze flicks to me. “You are entering a significant arrangement with him.”

“Yes, I’m aware.”

“Then a meeting is appropriate.”

I remove the cotton ball from my arm. There’s a tiny red dot where the needle went in.

“What time?”

“Seven.”

Petra closes her tablet case. “A car will be sent for you at six thirty.”

“I can get there myself.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“I didn’t say it was necessary. I said I can.”

She pauses at my door and looks back at me. “I’m sure you can, Ms. Hanes.”

I spend the afternoon trying to act like a normal person.

I fail.

I open a textbook and read the same paragraph four times. I make tea and forget to drink it. I check my email, then my phone, then the time, then my phone again. I think about unblocking D and then remember that he’s already unblocked. I think about texting him. I think about what I would even say.

Hi. I might be pregnant today. Also I left you in a hotel room with a one-word apology and still remember your hand on my thigh.

No. Absolutely not.

At five thirty, I give up pretending to study and shower.

I dress carefully, which annoys me. A black dress with sleeves. Simple. Fitted enough to look like I tried, plain enough not to look like I tried too hard. Low heels. Hair down, then up, then down again because up makes me look like I’m going to defend a thesis and down makes me look like I have a pulse.

I go downstairs, and like Petra said, the car is already waiting for me.

The driver opens the door. I slide in and immediately feel like I have entered someone else’s tax bracket.

The ride takes twenty minutes. The city changes as we move. Smaller apartment buildings give way to quieter streets, older brick, iron gates, trees planted with intention instead of hope. The houses get wider apart. The sidewalks get cleaner. Even the streetlights seem more discreet, as if wealth has asked them to lower their voices.

Alester Chandler’s home is not a home. It’s a fucking castle.

The car turns through a gate and follows a curved drive toward a stone building lit from below, all tall windows and severe symmetry. The kind of place that makes you instinctively sit up straighter and wonder if your bloodline has been properly documented.

A man in a dark suit opens the car door. “Ms. Hanes.”

“Yes,” I say, because apparently this evening is going to involve a lot of men already knowing my name.

Inside, the air smells faintly of polished wood, flowers, and money that has never once been folded. The lobby is enormous. There is marble under my shoes and a chandelier overhead that looks like it requires its own insurance policy. A staircase curves up one side of the room, wide and pale, with a banister dark enough to look antique. Paintings hang on the walls, portraits mostly, unsmiling people in expensive clothes looking down like they personally disapprove of my student loans.

A woman in a black dress takes my coat.