Chapter seven
Lindsay
Evelyn gestures for me to sit in one of the leather chairs positioned across from her mahogany desk, then asks if I'd like water or coffee.
"Water," I say.
My mouth feels like I've been breathing desert air for hours.
This is the first place I've been since the lottery where no one looks at me like a walking headline waiting to happen.
No one asks what I plan to do with my money, their eyes calculating percentages they might claim. No one offers congratulations that feel more like fishing expeditions than genuine well-wishes.
It's deeply unsettling—and profoundly relieving in equal measure, like stepping out of a crowded, overheated room into cool night air.
Evelyn doesn't start with romance or compatibility questionnaires or any of the soft-focus imagery I'd half-expected.
"You've experienced a fundamental shift that most people can't begin to comprehend," she says, settling into her chair.
"Wealth at this level doesn't just change your material circumstances. It changes how you're perceived by everyone around you."
Everything she says mirrors thoughts I've been having during those long, sleepless hours on my couch at three in the morning, staring at the ceiling while my phone buzzes incessantly with messages from people I haven't heard from in months—or years.
Messages I don't want to read because I already know what they'll contain.
She explains ERS's role carefully. They're not saviors riding in to rescue wealthy clients from their isolation. Not fixers promising to solve the fundamental problems that money can't touch.
They're designers of careful, intentional frameworks.
They don't eliminate risk—that would be impossible, she explains. They design around it, creating spaces where vulnerability can exist without becoming exploitation.
"When we suggest a relationship," she says, her fingers steepled as she leans slightly forward, "we've already mapped the vulnerabilities on both sides. The pressure points. The potential fault lines. We understand what each person stands to gain and what they might lose."
It sounds practical. Necessary.
Like everything I've been trying to figure out alone, but didn't have the vocabulary and expertise to name.
Evelyn studies me for a moment, her gaze sharp but not invasive.
"Before we discuss options," she says, "there's something you should know. Someone has reached out asking to be paired with you."
She says his name without ceremony.
Arthur Dupree.
For a second, I think I misheard her. Or that she's talking about someone else. Someone who happens to share the name of my former boss. Someone impossibly distant from my current reality.
But Evelyn is watching me too closely for that to be true.
My heart stutters, then recalibrates like it’s bracing for impact.
Old memories surface uninvited—late nights at the office, quiet competence, the way he noticed things without comment. The way his voice sounded when he was focused. The exact shade of his eyes when he looked up from a report and found me standing in the doorway.
The way I noticed him without permission.
"Arthur joined ERS independently," Evelyn continues, voice even. "He did not know you had been in contact with us."
Relief mingles with something sharper, something I'm not ready to name.
