Theo stares at me. “You’re not going to walk away. Let her be...”
“No,” I say. “I’m correcting my approach.”
Elliot considers this. “You led with leverage.”
“I led with the reasoning.”
“You led with control,” Theo counters. “She doesn’t respond to that.”
“Everyone responds to control,” I say.
Theo shakes his head. “No. Everyonesuffersunder it. She’s learned to survive without it.”
I turn back toward the windows.
Lucy Bennett didn’t say no because the offer was wrong.
She said no because I framed it as ownership rather than a partnership.
A miscalculation.
But a correctable one.
I set my glass down, already restructuring the strategy in my head.
“This isn’t a failed negotiation,” I say. “It’s a delayed close.”
Theo exhales a low laugh. “Jesus. You’re enjoying this.”
I glance at him sharply.
He grins wider. “You’re smiling.”
“That’s impossible.”
But as I say it, I feel a warmth that I can't remember ever feeling.
“It’s unsettling,” Elliot chimes in. “Like watching you discover you are human.”
I don’t dignify that.
But the truth coils low and undeniable.
Lucy Bennett didn’t fold.
Didn’t flinch.
Didn’t ask what she could change to make it more palatable for her.
She challenged the premise itself.
And for the first time in a very long time...
I’m not thinking about how to win.
I’m thinking about how to convince her she already belongs with me.
She has no idea what she just started.
