The man standing in the entrance hall of the Calloway estate doesn't introduce himself. He doesn't need to. The house does it for him — twelve-foot ceilings, marble the color of old bone, and a silence so deliberate it feels installed. "Nadia." He lets the name settle, then adds: "Reyes." My middle name. Not my last name, not the one on the job posting. My middle name, which I haven't used since I was seventeen and my mother stopped filling out my school forms. Rafe Calloway is tall in a way that takes up more space than height alone explains. Dark suit, no tie, the collar of his shirt open exactly one button — not casual, just controlled. His jaw is the kind of sharp that looks like it was cut rather than grown, and his eyes are a gray so pale they register as almost colorless in the afternoon light coming through the tall windows. He holds himself with the total stillness of someone who has never been startled in his life. I tell myself I am not affected by any of this. "The position is still available," he says, as if I came here to ask. I did come here to ask. I just didn't expect him to know that before I opened my mouth. He turns toward a side table where a cup of coffee sits waiting — no steam, which means it's been poured to exactly the temperature I'd want it, not scalding, not cooling. Oat milk, no sugar. My order. The one I've been making at the same café on Ardmore Street for two years. "How do you—" I start. He hands me the cup. Doesn't answer. I take it, because my hands need something to do and because the smell of it is steadying and because I am twenty-six years old with forty-three thousand dollars of debt that has been overdue for three months and I cannot afford to be particular about how my coffee arrives. Rafe lifts a document from the table beside him and holds it out. The contract is the thickness of a small novel. My name — all three of them — is printed on the cover page. I take it. He nods toward a tray of food arranged on the sideboard. Small pastries, fruit, a dish of nuts. My hand moves toward the cashews automatically — and Rafe says, without looking up from whatever he's reading: "The pistachios. You're allergic." I pull my hand back. He doesn't explain. He just waits, as if he knew I'd stay anyway. He's right.