I had wanted to know whether I could be loved for myself, and I had gotten an answer, and the answer had been no — from Corvin.

But not from Rosario, who had driven me for nine years and called me by my name in the same tone whether I wore a diamond or a twenty-dollar dress.

Not from Ijeoma, who would have walked into that boardroom for me if I’d owned nothing at all.

Not from the people who had built a life around me without ever needing me to be small.

I had gone looking for the thing in the wrong place, in a handsome man’s regard, and I had missed that it was already all around me, in the plain and unbought loyalty of the people who knew exactly who and what I was and stayed anyway.

Corvin had priced my worth at three thousand dollars a month.