Her expression does something complicated—surprise, maybe gratitude, maybe disbelief. "You're making a lot of assumptions about my marriage based on surveillance footage and intuition."
"I'm making assessments based on evidence. The way you positioned yourself at Lucien's dinner—back to the wall so you had clear exits. The therapy appointments twice a week with someone who specializes in trauma recovery. The apartment you haven't unpacked five months after leaving your husband's estate." I count them off. "Those aren't assumptions. Those are patterns of someone who escaped something dangerous."
"Or patterns of someone guilty. Running from what she did rather than what was done to her."
"If you were running from guilt, you wouldn't have stayed in Miramont. You'd have disappeared, started over somewhere nobody knew Gabriel's name." I hold her gaze. "You're not running. You're rebuilding. There's a difference."
She's quiet for a moment. Then: "Solange said something similar. That staying was brave. I told her it wasn't bravery, just inertia. I'm too tired to run."
"Inertia doesn't start foundations. Doesn't try to fight estate challenges. Doesn't show up to Lucien's dinners knowing you'll be assessed and judged." I gesture at her half-eaten lunch. "You're not operating on inertia. You're operating on determination to become someone other than Gabriel's widow. That's the opposite of running."
"You're very good at reframing narratives. Making survival sound heroic instead of just... continued existence."
"Maybe both are true. Maybe surviving Gabriel was heroic and continuing to exist requires daily courage you're too close to recognize."
She studies me with an intensity that makes me want to look away. I don't. Looking away would be retreating, and retreating would confirm that this conversation has become more personal than professional.
"Why are you doing this?" she asks finally. "Not the protection—I understand tactical reasoning. But this. Sitting here, telling me I'm heroic, reframing my damage as strength. What do you get from that?"
The answer I give her will determine what this becomes. Professional relationship. Something more. Or the beginning of the obsession everyone keeps warning me about.
I choose honesty.
"Two years behind cameras taught me that distance is just another word for isolation. That competence without connection is just high-functioning emptiness." I lean forward, closing the space between us. "You make me want to be present instead of absent. Engaged instead of observing. That's terrifying and necessary in equal measure."
"That's not protection. That's need."
"Maybe need is what makes protection real. Maybe caring whether you survive is what separates security from surveillance."
"Or maybe caring too much is what turns protection into possession." Her voice is firm but not unkind. "Gabriel cared whether I survived. He just cared more about controlling how I survived than respecting my autonomy in the process."
The comparison stings because it's accurate. "Then help me avoid becoming that. Like I said, tell me when I'm crossing lines. Make me accountable to boundaries you set, not boundaries I assume."
"And if I set boundaries you can't accept?"
"Then I step back. Let someone else protect you. Prove that caring doesn't have to mean controlling."
She's quiet for a long time, studying me like I'm a problem she's trying to solve. Then: "Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay, I'll hold you to everything we agreed yesterday. Transparency, veto power, no decisions made for me." She meets my eyes. "But I want to add one more thing: regular check-ins. We meet weekly—like this, neutral territory—and assess how the protection is working. If either of us feels it's becoming something else, we adjust or end it. No questions, no guilt."
"Weekly check-ins. Agreed." I lean forward. "And I'll add one more: if you ever feel unsafe with me, if anything I do makes you feel controlled instead of protected, you tell Elias. Give him veto power over my involvement."
Her eyebrows rise. "Why Elias?"
"Because he'll see patterns I'm too close to recognize. Because giving someone else authority to remove me from your protection is the only way to prove I'm not building another cage."
She nods slowly. "Okay. We have an agreement."
We shake hands across the table—formal, contractual, the way people do when they're negotiating business relationships. But the touch lingers a moment longer than necessary, and we both feel the charge.
The server returns with the check. Lana reaches for it immediately.
"My treat, remember?" She pulls out her wallet before I can argue.
"You don't need to do that. This isn't—"
