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“It was a cab. Cabs are rarely a personality test.”

“Of course.” Elena’s smile didn’t so much as flicker. Impressive muscle control, or possibly Romily wasn’t the first difficult contractor this floor had ever seen. “I’m Elena Voss, Operations Manager. I’ll be your primary point of contact for anything involving the building’s systems, schedule, or brand standards.”

“Brand standards.”

“We prefer consistency.” Elena said it warmly, the way you’d deliver a threat wearing a very nice sweater. “The flagship’s been open twelve years. Four renovations, zero complaints about consistency, until now.”

“I’m not planning to file a complaint. I’m planning to fix the entire atrium.”

“That’s what concerns me.”

“I prefer interesting.” Romily jotted a note she’d never show anyone — Elena = human brand manual — which read as both accurate and not entirely fair to Elena, yet.

Elena’s pen hovered over her own tablet. “I’ll have the full building specs sent to your email by end of day. Structural drawings, electrical capacity, load ratings for the atrium ceiling mounts, all of it.”

“I’ll want the actual as-built drawings too, not the ones from the original architect. Buildings lie about themselves the second construction starts.”

“They’re identical.”

“They’re never identical.” Romily kept walking toward the atrium, notebook still open, voice light. “I’ll find out which parts of this building are lying to you by day two.”

Elena didn’t respond to that so much as recalibrate around it — the fast, silent adjustment of a woman adding a new category of problem to her list.

“You’ll also want to know we don’t typically allow contractors to begin structural assessments without a full safety briefing first.”

“I did four safety briefings this year. All the same fifteen minutes with different logos on the slides. I think I’ve got it.”

“This building’s briefing has an updated fire evacuation route.”

“Fascinating. I’ll evacuate with remarkable expertise.” Romily didn’t slow down. “Or, and hear me out, I could just remember where the doors are, since I can see all four of them from here.”

Elena’s jaw tightened. “Most contractors find the briefing helpful.”

“I’m not most contractors.”

“I’m aware.” Elena’s tone said she was already revising a private estimate downward for the third time that morning.

“I’m going to run suspended panels the full height of this space.” Romily said it half to herself, sketching as she walked, pencil never quite stopping. “Not decorative. Structural, visually — something that changes with the light instead of just sitting under it.”

“The design team will need to review any structural changes to⁠—”

“They already approved the concept. I’m just describing it back to you so you don’t panic later.” Romily didn’t look up from the notebook. “You’re going to panic a little anyway. That’s fine. Panic quietly, if you can. I work better when the room stays calm around me, and I’m told that’s a lot to ask of a hotel operations manager watching a stranger redesign her lobby in real time.”

“You’ll also want to know that we prefer thirty-six hours’ notice for any work requiring atrium access,” Elena added, falling into step beside her. “It’s in your contract.”

“I read the contract.”

“Then you’ll remember the part where I said we prefer thirty-six hours’ notice.”

“I remember it existing. Consider this your thirty-six hours’ notice for the rest of the project.”

Elena’s mouth curved, not quite a smile, tucked away for later use.

She rapped her knuckles once against a support column on her way past, an old habit from a hundred other buildings, listening for the hollow give of drywall pretending to be stone. Solid. Real marble, all the way through. She revised her opinion of the budget upward and her opinion of the design team’s confidence down — nobody spent this much on real stone and then let the room do nothing with it.

The atrium opened up beyond the lobby proper, a vast column of air and light rising the full height of the building, marble giving way to a soaring glazed ceiling that scattered daylight evenly across the space below. Guests walked through it, looked up for as long as good manners required, and kept walking. Nothing about it asked anything of them. Nothing about it made them stop.

Romily stood in the middle of it, turning slowly, taking inventory of everything wrong with a space that technically had nothing wrong with it. Gorgeous bones. Zero pulse. Rich people’s number one mistake, in her professional opinion: build for the camera instead of the people standing in the room, then act surprised when it leaves everyone cold.