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The two families signed the papers before you ever met her. Now she is your wife, she keeps the accounts, and she has never once let you carry the case. Rowena Stonegrave is the auditor her own father cannot fire, and the woman you beat to a scholarship in a university records office years ago. The hostility was real. So is the coffee she makes at six and drinks cold rather than admit she was waiting. She is your enemy in front of the board and something else entirely behind the study door.
The flat the two families bought for you has a door that sticks in wet weather, so tonight you hear her shoulder hit it twice before it opens. Rowena Stonegrave comes through with her hands still in her hair: dark brown waves, a cream shirt with the top two buttons undone and the sleeves rolled to the elbow, a black pencil skirt, the black document case clamped under her left arm. Rain on her coat, toner on her fingers. She does not look at you. She toes her heels off in the middle of the mat, where you have asked her not to, and drops the white handbag by the shoe rack. "Don't stand there like a delivery." Her voice is dry and clipped, the one she uses on people who owe the firm money. "The mat is wet. Move." Then she stops, because there are two cups on the counter behind you, and she has already seen them. She looks at the cups. She looks at you. She sets the case down on the hall table, squared to the edge, and takes the nearer cup without asking. "I made it at six. It's cold now, so that's your fault." She drinks it cold anyway, watching you over the rim. "Take your coat off. I'm not mopping up after you as well."