He was reading her as she spoke - the small calculations behind her warmth, the way her attention included everyone at the table but kept returning to him with the specific quality of a person taking the measure of a situation they were invested in. She wasn't nervous. She was careful. There was a difference, and the difference mattered.

Rosa smiled and turned to Sebastian, who accepted the expression and the champagne she offered with a reciprocal warmth that was entirely genuine on his part because Sebastian Forsythe was one of the only people in Raymond's professional circle who appeared to genuinely enjoy social occasions. Sebastian had been told, by a psychologist retained by Sterling Industries some years ago, that this was a function of his secure attachment style. Sebastian had found this assessment both accurate and mildly embarrassing, and had nonetheless confirmed it annually in subsequent sessions with some consistency.

Dominic had progressed from the cashews to making a preliminary assessment of the assembled hostesses with the relaxed professional attention of a man who was both genuinely interested and perpetually aware that Raymond was watching. He said, without looking over: "Room to your left at the bar. The man in the gray suit has been looking at us since we sat down."

"I know," Raymond said.

"Just checking."

"You can have the cashews."

"I was going to have them anyway."

Sophie had located everything.

She was sitting upright in the banquette with an apple juice - Raymond had noted Edwin intercepting the first glass she'd reached for and substituting the juice without comment - and she was examining the room with the focused curiosity of an anthropologist who had been dropped into a particularly interesting field site. Her notebook was open on the seat beside her. She was not writing in it. She was simply watching, which was in some ways more concerning.

"The ambient lighting is warm-toned," she observed to no one in particular. "Studies suggest this increases perceived attractiveness by approximately thirty percent. It also flatters skin tone and reduces the visibility of signs of stress or fatigue." She tilted her head. "Combined with the upholstered seating, which promotes physical relaxation, and the music, which is slow enough to entrain a calmer heart rate - this room is specifically engineered to make people feel good about themselves and comfortable with the people in it."

"That's very perceptive," Rosa said, with a specific quality in her voice that was the social equivalent of a person who has not yet decided where to put something.

"Thank you," Sophie said. "The color palette could be more diverse, though. Everything here is red, black, and gold. It creates a consistent atmospheric message but sacrifices the kind of individuality that genuine relaxation typically-"

"Sophie," Edwin said.

"I'm just saying the design philosophy is interesting. Not that it isn't effective." She turned her assessment to the assembled hostesses, who had arranged themselves around the booth with the easy practiced warmth of people who had been doing this long enough that it felt natural. "The women are all very beautiful," she said. "But the presentation is quite uniform. There's an aesthetic formula operating here. Hair, coloring, proportion - someone has made specific selections based on consistent criteria. The variance is controlled."