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Petra appears from a side hall. “Ms. Hanes.”

“Petra.”

“Mr. Chandler will be with you shortly.”

She leads me to a sitting area near the fireplace. The chairs are upholstered in some cream fabric that makes me afraid to have skin. I sit anyway, carefully, knees together, hands folded over my bag.

Petra doesn’t sit. Naturally.

She stands near the entry to the hall with her tablet, a sentry with excellent posture.

I try not to stare at anything.

I fail.

There are fresh white flowers in a huge vase near the staircase. A sculpture on a pedestal. A silver tray with water glasses arranged so perfectly they look decorative rather than drinkable. Somewhere deeper in the house, a clock ticks with the slow confidence of something inherited.

This is the world Alester Chandler comes from.

My phone is in my bag.

I don’t take it out.

I don’t check for a message from D.

I don’t think about D.

I think about him immediately.

Stop it, I think to myself. This isn’t the time. I’m here to meet my future baby-daddy, however fucked up that sounds.

When I hear footsteps, I stand before I think.

Alester, I assume.

But the man who walks in is not Alester Chandler.

For a second, my mind empties completely.

It’s him.

For a moment, my body understands before my mind does.

D.

He steps into the room like he belongs here.

Not like a guest. Not like someone impressed by the marble or the chandelier or the portraits looking down from the walls. He walks in with the same quiet certainty he had at the restaurant, the same unsettling control he had in the elevator, the same presence that makes a room seem to notice him before anyone says his name.

He’s in a dark suit now.

Not the open-collar almost-casual version from dinner. This is more formal, more dangerous somehow. White shirt. Dark jacket. No wasted movement. His hair is still dark except for the silver at his temples, and under the lobby lights, that silver is impossible not to see.

And still, all I can think is: I know what he looks like when he loses control.

Heat rushes up my neck.

No. Not here.