Across the room, Viola said, “Cassian—”

He did not turn.

For once, she would wait.

Cassian Bellori was forty-four years old and accustomed to receiving information before anyone else.

His hotel managers knew which calls to interrupt.

His drivers knew which entrances to avoid.

Men who owed him money had learned that changing their telephone numbers rarely changed their circumstances.

In the parts of the city where people used his name quietly, being difficult to reach was a kind of protection.

At home, he had always claimed it would be different.

Poppy had a number that belonged to a small personal phone he kept separate from his work.

It was not a secret line or an expensive device.

It was simply the phone he answered as her father.

She knew the number by heart.

He taught it to her while they waited for pancakes one Sunday morning.

“If you need me, call.”

“What if you’re busy?”

“I’ll call back.”

“What if you’re very busy?”

“I’ll still call back.”

For years, he had.

Not perfectly.

Not always quickly.

But enough that Poppy trusted the promise.

Then three days earlier, he left for Boston before dawn and forgot the personal phone in his study.

He carried his work phone.

His assistant could reach him.

So could his sister, his security manager, and half a dozen people whose problems involved sums of money Poppy could not yet write correctly.

Viola found the forgotten phone after breakfast.

She sent him a message from her own.

You left this behind. I’ll arrange to send it.

He thanked her.

There was a replacement charger to find, a courier to organize, a meeting that ran late.

The phone never arrived.

Viola said she would keep it safe until he returned.

Cassian accepted the inconvenience.

He did not recognize the difference between being reachable by the household and being reachable by his daughter.

That distinction had been waiting inside his own home.

The dinner was supposed to celebrate his return.

Nothing formal, Viola said.

Just family.

Yet the table held twelve adults, and Poppy stood beside it as though she had been summoned to explain a mistake.

Cassian had not even removed his coat before Viola began.

Tell your father what you did.

He assumed a broken object.

A disagreement.

Something ordinary enough to discuss after a hug.

Instead, his daughter asked why he didn’t want her.

Now he held her hands while she fought to keep her face composed.