He became the boy who checked on everyone, who noticed when a friend went quiet, who could not walk past a person in trouble.

It made him kind in a way that is genuinely rare.

It also made him, though neither of us saw it as a danger for years, the perfect target — because a person whose deepest reflex is to protect and to believe the best is a person who can be steered by anyone willing to perform helplessness or love.

He grew up, and did well, and built an investment company of his own rather than simply living on what his father had left, which made me prouder than any foundation ever could.

He was successful and gentle and a little too trusting, and I used to worry, in the ordinary way of mothers, that the world would one day send him someone who understood exactly how to use all of that against him.

I did not know, when Sabine appeared, that she was the answer to that worry.

I only knew that something in me went very still the first time I watched her be kind to me — the same stillness I felt in those foundation dinners, watching the edges of the room.

Chapter 4 — Polished Glass

Three weeks before the bucket, Gabriel had announced his engagement.

Sabine had come into his life like polished glass: beautiful, expensive, and sharp enough to cut anyone who touched her carelessly.