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And HouseMoney, well, he runs his mouth big-time. Runs the room, in fact. Tips like he’s got play money and narrates while he does it. LOOK AT HER. MAKE ROOM. THAT’S MY QUEEN. He's the one who taught my other two regulars how to bid, whether they realize it or not. Now they have some stupid competition going to see who can spend the most on me, and I am so here for that shit.

Thanking my lucky stars.

He turned three strangers into a rivalry. I'm the prize, and I'd be lying if I said I hated it.

I never expected to get good at this. I know how to make HouseMoney spend by acting like I couldn't care less. I know NoComment tips hardest right after I laugh, so I laugh. I know KindRegards goes to pieces if I call him sweet. I run the three of them like a card table, and I'm the only one who knows the house always wins.

And somewhere in the last two weeks—I'm not proud of it, but I've stopped lying to myself about it—I started to like it. Not the money, although that sure is nice. Something else.

There's a thing that happens now, most nights, right around the point where the room goes quiet and forty men are holding their breath to see what I'll do next. I feel it low in my belly, warm and heavy, same as what I noticed after that first crazy night and told myself I’d figure it out later. It isn't shy anymore. Turns out, there's nothing on earth like deciding exactly how much of myself a room full of strangers gets to have, and watching every one of them come apart over the answer. I go slower on purpose now. Partly because slow makes them pay. Partly because slow is the part that revs my engine.

Tonight is not a normal night.

They come in hot, these guys, all three of them, inside of the first five minutes. That’s never happened. Usually they trickle in, one at a time. But tonight, they arrive like a wave, and they're giddy. HouseMoney's typing in all caps before my lipstick's even warmed up.

HouseMoney: THERE SHE IS. HouseMoney: BEST PART OF THE BEST DAY. HouseMoney: NAME A NUMBER, YOUR HIGHNESS, TONIGHT IT’S NOTHING.

And he tips something obscene, a number with a comma in it, just to prove he means it.

Fuck me.

"Somebody had a good day," I say, laughing.

HouseMoney: CLOSED THE BIGGEST DEAL OF THE YEAR TODAY. HouseMoney MONTHS OF WORK. DONE. SIGNED. HouseMoney: NOW I GET THE FUN PART.

Even NoComment is different tonight. He tips twice, fast, back-to-back, which for him is basically screaming. And KindRegards, who usually just checks my temperature and vanishes, gets chatty.

KindRegards: It really was a good day. A long time coming. KindRegards: You should have seen us.

Us.

Us?

I keep talking to the camera and don't miss a beat, because I'm a pro now, apparently. And I’m floating, myself.

I had a good day too. At the front desk. As Agnes.

Today, Ardent Capital closed the Hollis deal.

I know, because I scheduled the closing. I booked the conference room. I ordered the champagne, two bottles of the good stuff, on Beck's card. I made the eight-thirty reservation at the steakhouse and listened to Beck crow about the deal in the lobby for the better part of an hour. Months of work. Done. Signed. The biggest deal of their year.

Months of work. Done. Signed. HouseMoney's exact words. The same words I heard Beck holler across the office a few hours ago.

And there's the other thing. The small one. The timing.

My three are usually camped at the top of my CamALot Round Table by eleven, reliable as a bus route. Tonight, they didn't surface until almost midnight, late, all at once, loud and loose and flush, like three men who just got home from a long dinner somewhere expensive.

The reservation was for eight thirty. A steakhouse dinner runs two hours, give or take. Three, if there's champagne, and there was champagne. After all, I ordered it.

Three men here on my dashboard, flush and celebrating a huge deal that closed today. Right now. Together. Close to midnight. Not the usual eleven p.m.

And three men at my office, flush and celebrating a huge deal that closed today. Also together.

And that's when the floor tilts. Because if that's true, if my three are that three, then for two solid weeks, I have been getting on my knees, half dressed, for the same three men who can't pick me out of an empty lobby. My whole body goes cold, then hot, and I grab the edge of the dresser because the room is moving around me.

No, wait. That's insane. Beck flirts with espresso machines. Elias doesn't know I have a face. Theo thinks I'm a houseplant he's fond of. They cannot be the same men as my Knights.

Can they?