There was a particular symmetry to signing it there, on that table, that I did not plan but did not mind.

An hour before, that surface had held the drink that was meant to put me in my place.

Now it held the document that established where my place actually was.

I have never believed in fate or poetry in business — the numbers do not care about symmetry — but I am human enough to have noticed it, and human enough to have let the pen linger half a second longer than the signature required.

Callum reached out, his hand hovering near my elbow without daring to touch the wet fabric of my sleeve.

“Reyna, please.