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This trip is different. The European acquisition on my desk requires sustained attention in London for the next several months, which means I am here long enough to use my own office properly, sleep in my own bed and remember what it feels like to live in the city rather than move through it between flights.

The boardroom door opens again, and Richard steps back inside.

“Frankfurt confirmed three thirty,” he says.

“Good.”

“And Sebastian’s on his way up.”

I glance at him. “Why?”

Richard’s mouth twitches. “I assume he’ll tell you.”

That usually means Sebastian has decided my schedule looks too serious. I close the folder in front of me and pick up my phone.

“Send him in.”

A few minutes later, the door opens and Sebastian walks in without knocking, carrying a folder under one arm and a coffee in the other.

“You moved the New York review again?” he asks as he crosses the office.

“I moved it twelve hours,” I reply.

“You moved it across an ocean,” he says.

“It’s still happening.”

Sebastian drops into the chair across from my desk and sets the coffee beside his folder.

“The Zurich side wants another revision to the joint-venture terms.”

I look up from the memo Richard left behind.

“Of course they do.”

“They’re pushing for broader discretion on capital deployment,” Sebastian says.

“They’re not getting it,” I reply.

“That was my answer,” he says.

I hold out my hand for the folder, and Sebastian passes it across the desk. I scan the marked sections while he gives me the condensed version of the issue, most of which confirms what I already suspected.

“They’re trying to turn flexibility into authority,” I say.

“Exactly,” Sebastian replies.

“They can have operating discretion inside the agreed thresholds,” I tell him.

“Anything beyond that comes back to us.”

Sebastian nods. “That’s where I landed too.”

“Then send it back,” I say.

“I already did,” he replies.

I look at him. Sebastian gives me a faint smile.