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“Then I’m fine with it, assuming the updated condition report comes back clean.”

Naomi makes the note immediately.

We move through the rest of the collection without wasting time. One work needs additional provenance research before we recommend a sale. Another has far more sentimental importance to the family than market value, which means it stays. Two pieces should be reassessed before anyone makes a decision because the valuations are several years old.

By the end of the meeting, Naomi closes the tablet and looks at me.

“I’ll have the revised strategy memo to you before lunch,” she says.

“Send it to me first,” I reply. “I want to sign off before it goes to the family.”

“You’ve got it.”

She starts toward the door, then pauses.

“You still have the Whitcombe meeting at eleven?”

“Yes.”

Naomi gives me a look that tells me she has already decided it matters.

“I pulled the background file,” she says. “She’s not casual.”

“I gathered that.”

“She has been with the firm before, but never through us directly. Old family money, international holdings, extremely private.”

“That explains why she asked for an in-person meeting.”

Naomi nods. “And why she asked for you.”

That makes me pause.

“She asked for me specifically?”

“Twice.”

I look toward my office.

“What does she want?”

Naomi lifts one shoulder. “Wouldn’t say.”

“Helpful.”

“I thought so.”

She smiles and continues down the hall.

I return to my office, answer two emails, approve the museum loan language and sign off on the revised acquisition recommendation from my first call of the morning. The next forty minutes disappear into decisions that would once have required three layers of approval above me.

Now they stop at my desk.

At eleven precisely, my assistant appears in the doorway.

“Charlotte Falkenrath Whitcombe is here,” she says.

I close the file in front of me and stand.