VIOLET

His hand closed around my wrist before I could step back.

"Violet." Gregor MacAulay, smiling. Phone in one hand, my wrist in the other. "I heard about your aunt. I'm sorry."

I went very still. The old reflex – don't react, don't flinch, don't give him a reason to tighten his grip. It wasn't tight. It didn't need to be. The fact of his hand on my wrist was enough.

"Thank you," I said.

"You look well." Still smiling. "I'm glad you're doing better."

Doing better. As though I'd been broken. As though he'd been patient with it. As though the two years I'd spent with him were something I'd needed to recover from rather than something he'd done to me.

I pulled my wrist back. Gently. Carefully. The way you moved around something that might bite if you startled it.

"I have an appointment," I said.

"Of course. It's good to see you, Violet."

He walked away. I stood on the pavement breathing until my hands stopped shaking. Then I walked to the solicitor's building on the next block and let myself in.

Through the glass door, two men stood in the reception area. I barely looked at them – two dark suits, both still, both watching the street rather than the room. Then I was past them and inside, because I was late and Mr. Fraser was waiting.

I had not cried yet. Not at the funeral, not in the months since. Pancreatic cancer moved fast when it moved. Three months from diagnosis to gone. I kept thinking I should feel more than I did, but what I mostly felt was tired and faintly angry at her for dying before I'd figured out what I wanted to say.

The solicitor's office smelled of old carpet and cold stone. Mr. Fraser sat across from me with a folder open on the desk. He had kind eyes and a terrible tie. Margaux would have said something about the tie. She would have leaned across and told him, very gently, that paisley had not been acceptable since 1987, and then she would have recommended a shop.

"Miss Sinclair," Mr. Fraser said, and I made myself focus. "As outlined in Mrs. Hyland's will, you are the sole beneficiary of her estate."

I nodded. I'd known this part already. Margaux had no children, no living siblings except my mother – who had not returned from Portugal for the funeral and would not be mentioned in any will Margaux wrote. That left me.

"The estate includes the property in Cults," Mr. Fraser continued, "a portfolio of investments currently valued at approximately three point two million pounds, and a twelve per cent shareholding in Mercer & Cross Capital."

The last part I had not known.

"Mercer & Cross," I repeated.

"A private energy investment firm here in Aberdeen. Mrs. Hyland was an early investor. The shares are non-voting, but they represent a significant holding."

I looked at the folder. The numbers were there in black and white, but they felt hypothetical. Three million pounds was not a real amount of money. It was a number that appeared in news articles about other people.

"There is one condition," Mr. Fraser said, and I felt the room change.

I waited.

"To access the full inheritance, you must spend six months working at Mercer & Cross Capital. Embedded with the firm, reporting directly to the partners. The purpose is to ensure you understand what the shareholding represents before you take formal ownership."

I stared at him. "Six months."

"Yes. If you decline, the shares revert to the firm, and the remainder of the estate is held in trust for five years."

"Five years."

"Correct."

I sat back. The chair gave too much under me. Outside the window, Union Street was grey and wet – buses, tourists, seagulls that sounded like they were personally offended by something. I thought about Margaux in this same office, writing this condition into her will, probably smiling while she did it.

She had always thought I was hiding. Not from anything specific – just from the fact of myself. She'd told me once, after too much wine at Christmas, that I had made myself small on purpose and it was getting boring to watch. I had not spoken to her for a month after that. Then she was diagnosed and we had pretended the argument never happened.

This felt like her last word on the subject.

"The partners are here, actually," Mr. Fraser added. "They agreed to attend the reading in case you had questions about the firm."

Of course they were here. Of course Margaux had arranged that too.

"All right," I said. "I'll meet them."

Mr. Fraser stood and opened the door to the inner conference room. I followed him through.

Two men sat at a long table. They both stood when I entered, which should have felt courteous and instead felt choreographed. The taller one was dark-haired, broad-shouldered, a build that said physical work before desk work. The other was leaner, lighter-haired, with green eyes that tracked my movement across the room with an attention I couldn't read yet.

They were both looking at me in a way that made me think they'd already decided something. I didn't know what.

"Miss Sinclair," Mr. Fraser said, "this is Callum Mercer and Dorian Cross, the managing partners of Mercer & Cross Capital."

I shook their hands. Callum's grip was warm and deliberate. Dorian's was lighter but lasted a fraction longer than it needed to.

"Please, sit," Callum said.

I sat. The chair on this side of the table was firmer. Both men sat after I did, – and I told myself not to read into it. They were directly across from me, and the table felt narrower than it should have.

"We were very sorry to hear about Mrs. Hyland's passing," Dorian said. His voice was easier than Callum's, more conversational. "She was a remarkable woman."

"She was," I said.

There was a pause. I did not fill it. I had learned that much from Gregor – that silence was often the only move you had when you didn't know what the room wanted from you.

Callum leaned forward slightly. "Mr. Fraser has explained the condition."

"He has."

"And you understand what it entails. Six months, working at the firm. You'd have an analyst-level position, reporting to both of us. The work would be genuine – due diligence, contract review, client research. We don't carry passengers."

I looked at him. There was no particular expression on his face, but I had the sense he was waiting for me to react in a specific way. I didn't know what way that was yet.

"What's your current role, Miss Sinclair?" he asked.

"Financial analyst. Mid-tier consultancy. Nothing glamorous."

"And before that?"

"Same field. I've been in finance for five years."

He nodded once. "You're underemployed."

It wasn't a question. I didn't answer it.

Dorian smiled slightly. "What Callum means is that your CV suggests someone capable of more than mid-tier consultancy work."

"You've seen my CV."

"Mrs. Hyland provided it when she structured the condition," Dorian said. "She wanted to be sure we understood who we'd be working with."

Of course she had. Of course Margaux had sent them my CV, probably with annotations. I could picture her doing it – sitting in this same office, or maybe in the house in Cults, writing notes in the margins about my degree and my references and the fact that I had been deliberately aiming low for three years.

"I also do illustration work," I said. "Botanical and natural history. That's the part I care about."

Dorian's expression shifted slightly. I couldn't read it.

"We're aware," Callum said. "That won't be a problem. The position is nine to five, Monday to Friday. What you do with your evenings is your own business."

I looked between them. They were both very still. Not tense – just contained, like they were used to sitting in rooms where decisions were made quietly and everyone knew the stakes without naming them.

"I'd need to give notice at my current job," I said. "And my flat lease is up for renewal in two months. I'd need to sort that."

"We can accommodate a start date that works for you," Dorian said. "Within reason."

"There's a guest suite in our building," Callum added. "Rubislaw Den North. If you'd prefer not to commute."

I blinked. "Your building."

"We own the top two floors. The suite is furnished and available."

I looked at him. I looked at Dorian. I looked at Mr. Fraser, who was watching this exchange with the expression of someone who had seen stranger things in his career but not recently.

"That's generous," I said carefully.

"It's practical," Callum said. "The office is in the West End. Albyn Place. If you're coming from Spital every day, you'll spend half your morning on buses."

He knew where I lived. Of course he did. Margaux had given them my CV; she'd probably given them my address too. I felt cold move through me – not fear exactly, but the old instinct that said: this is a room where you do not have all the information.

"I'll think about it," I said.

"Of course." Dorian's voice was still easy. He hadn't asked me a single direct question since I'd sat down. Callum had asked two. Dorian had just watched.

Mr. Fraser cleared his throat. "Miss Sinclair, do you have any questions about the terms of the condition?"

"If I complete the six months, the shares transfer to me outright."

"Yes."

"And if I don't, they revert to Mercer & Cross, and everything else sits in trust for five years."

"Correct."

I thought about my flat. The heating was ancient and the windows faced north and I had lived there for two years because it was mine and no one else's. I thought about my illustration work – the commissions I'd lined up, the gallery in Edinburgh that had started taking my prints, the dried flowers pressed between the pages of books all over my flat. I thought about Margaux, who had looked at me once over Christmas dinner and said, You are so much more than you let yourself be.

I thought about five years.

"I accept," I said.

Callum nodded. Dorian smiled – brief, genuine. Mr. Fraser looked relieved.

"Excellent," Mr. Fraser said. "I'll have the paperwork drawn up. You'll need to sign an employment contract with Mercer & Cross as well, but that can be handled separately."

"When can she start?" Callum asked.

I looked at him. "Two weeks. I'll hand in my notice tomorrow."

"We'll have the suite prepared," Dorian said.

"I haven't decided about the suite."

"Of course," he said again, in the same easy register that made it sound like he believed me.

The meeting ended. I stood. They stood. I shook their hands again – Callum's was still warm, Dorian's still lasted longer than it needed to – and then I was being ushered back through to the outer office by Mr. Fraser, who was saying something about the house in Cults and the estate's legal team and timelines I wasn't fully listening to.

I signed something. I took a folder. I thanked Mr. Fraser for his time.

Then I was outside.

Union Street was cold and bright and full of people who had no idea what had just happened. The wind came up the way it always did, and I pulled my coat tighter and started walking.

Two weeks. Six months. A guest suite in a building I'd never seen, owned by two men who already had my address and my CV and possibly a full psychological profile courtesy of my dead aunt.

I thought about calling Iona. I thought about going home and sitting at my illustration table and drawing something with teeth.

Instead I kept walking, past the Boots and the M&S and the stretch of pavement where I used to sit with a cardboard sign on the worst days after I'd left Gregor. The spot was taken now – a younger woman with a dog and a sleeping bag. I didn't stop.

I thought about Margaux. About the last time I'd seen her, in the hospice, when she'd been too tired to argue with me but not too tired to hold my hand and say, Don't waste it, Violet.

I hadn't known what she meant. I thought maybe I was about to find out.

The flat would need packing. The commissions would need deferring. My current boss would take the resignation poorly but not poorly enough to matter. I could do this. I could do six months of anything if it meant three million pounds and a house in Cults and the feeling that I had done what Margaux wanted, even if I didn't understand why she'd wanted it.

I reached the corner where the street split towards Spital. The light was grey and flat and perfect for drawing. I would go home. I would make tea. I would sit at my table and finish the foxglove study I'd started last week, and then I would start thinking about what it meant to spend six months working for two men who looked at me like they already knew something I didn't.

I turned the corner. The wind picked up. Somewhere behind me, in the solicitor's office, two men were still sitting in that conference room. I wanted to be a fly on the wall and hear what they were saying about me. About what they were planning.

I was already thinking about logistics.

That was my first mistake.