"That company does not take meetings with people like you," Liam said. "They don't take cold calls, they don't take referrals, and they certainly don't take —" he gestured at Marcus with the same dismissive sweep his father used, the Steel family's inherited vocabulary of contempt — "whatever this is."His voice was gathering momentum now, the comfortable momentum of a man back on familiar ground. "Look at him, Carter." He turned to Reynolds with a spreading smile."Look at this man. Look at his suit. Look at — just look at him." He spread his hands as though the visual evidence was its own complete argument. "Does this look like a person with a direct line to Iron Hands International? Does this look like a person with any line to anything above a basic income bracket?"One of the Steel Holdings attorneys turned away to hide something that might have been a smile.Reynolds looked at Marcus.And Marcus watched Reynolds look at him — watched the rep's eyes do the same thing everyone's e

He reached Marcus and extended his hand with both arms — the full, two-handed grip of a man expressing something that a single handshake couldn't adequately convey. He pumped it twice, then again, his composure replaced by the barely-contained energy of someone who has just received news they have been waiting three years to receive."Mr. Hayes," Reynolds said, and his voice had a quality in it that hadn't been there thirty seconds ago. "It's a done deal." He pumped the hand again. "Morrison Accounting Group has our partnership. Full terms, as originally proposed." He was smiling with the unguarded, unstudied expression of a man who had forgotten for a moment that he was in a professional setting. "And an Iron Hands introduction —" he stopped himself, shook his head once. "This is — yes. Yes. We have a deal."The conference room was absolutely silent.Liam Steel sat in his chair.He looked at Reynolds's face. He looked at Reynolds's two-handed grip around Marcus's hand. He looked at t

"An introduction was brokered," Reynolds continued, "contingent on this partnership moving forward with your firm. Which tells me —" he looked at her with the frank expression of a man stating something he found both surprising and worth stating — "that you have a very powerful person in your corner, Ms. Morrison." He tapped the contract gently. "You're lucky."Diana looked at the contract.She signed it.Reynolds thanked her, shook her hand with both of his the way he had in the conference room, and left.Diana sat with the signed copy in her lap and her phone in her other hand and the quiet, reorganizing sensation of a situation that had been pointing in one direction suddenly pointing in another.A very powerful person in your corner.She thought about Ryan. About the way he had come to the hospital — dressed well, prepared, with the forward momentum of a man executing a plan he had constructed in advance. About the way he had spoken in her room — I'm going to get to the root of it

Diana watched the doorway he'd disappeared through for approximately two seconds longer than she needed to, then turned toward the staircase to change.Claire found him at the counter twenty minutes later, working in the focused, methodical quiet that meant his hands were busy and his mind was somewhere considerably further away."She left," Claire said, unnecessarily."I know," Marcus said.Claire stood near the kitchen door with her hands folded and the careful expression of a woman who had been in this household for three years and had developed a reasonably accurate model of its internal weather systems. She looked at the set of Marcus's shoulders — the contained, precise stillness of a man holding something in — and said nothing further about Diana or where Diana had gone."The paste," she said instead.Marcus looked up."She asked about it," Claire said carefully. "In the hospital. She noticed the spots were gone. She wanted more." A pause. "I told her I made it."Marcus was qui

Ryan sat down across from him with the easy, proprietorial manner of a man returning from something that went exactly as planned."Good," he said. "Better than good." He adjusted the cuff of his jacket with a slight smile. "She thinks I went against you on the Strong Inc situation. She thinks I pulled the deal back to her firm as a gesture on her behalf."Lucas looked at him steadily. "And she believes that.""She believes it." Ryan's smile settled into something more comfortable. "I let her. She's been revising her opinion of me in real time — I could see it happening across the table." He picked up his uncle's second glass, looked at it, and set it back down. "Diana Morrison respects decisive action. She respects someone who takes a risk for a principle. As of tonight, she thinks I'm that person."Lucas was quiet for a moment."And the husband?" he said.Something moved across Ryan's expression — brief and less controlled than the rest of his face."She went to dinner with me," Ryan