Elara's phone buzzed the moment the investor call ended. Not a work call. The caller ID flashed: MOM & DAD.
A cold, different kind of dread trickled down her spine. News traveled fast in Silvercity, but in the Vance family network, it moved at light speed. Someone had seen her walk into the building with a strange man. Someone had talked.
She ignored the call.
Leo was still looking at the now-glistening Dracaena. "The water made it happy," he stated.
"Plants don't feel happiness, Leo."
"They do," he replied simply. "It is a quiet happiness. A stretching." He mimicked a slow, unfurling motion with his hand.
Before she could unpack that, her office door flew open. Liam stood there, breathless, his hair even wilder than it had been that morning. He'd clearly run all the way from the penthouse.
"You didn't answer your phone!" he accused, pointing at Elara. Then he saw Leo and sagged in relief. "Oh thank God. He's still in one piece. I thought security might have tasered him by now."
"Why are you here?" Elara asked, her voice dangerously calm.
"Because Mom and Dad just called me, screaming! Well, Mom was screaming. Dad was using his 'deeply disappointed' voice. They said you've installed some… some male model in your office as a 'consultant' and that the whole building is talking! They demanded details. I panicked and said he was a feng shui expert from Nepal."
Elara closed her eyes. "You told them what?"
"I don't know! It was the first thing that came to mind! He's calm, he likes plants, it made sense!"
Leo listened to this exchange, looking from one sibling to the other. "Feng shui," he repeated, tasting the new phrase. "Is that my title now?"
"No, Leo, it is not," Elara said, pinching the bridge of her nose. The headache she'd kept at bay with coffee was now roaring to life.
"It's the art of arranging things to create harmony," Liam explained to Leo, gesturing wildly. "You know, energy flow."
Leo looked around the sterile, minimalist office. He walked to the massive steel desk, which was angled precisely to face the door—a power position Elara had chosen. He studied it, then looked at the flow of people he'd seen coming and going from the door.
"The energy comes in," he said, pointing to the door. "It hits the sharp corner of the desk. It becomes… agitated. Stuck." He walked to the large, forbidding chair behind the desk. "You sit here. The stuck energy pushes against you. It makes you tense." He said it not as a critique, but as a simple observation of cause and effect, like noting that water is wet.
Elara stared at him. Her neck was perpetually stiff in this office.
Liam's jaw dropped. "See?! He is a feng shui expert! It's perfect!"
"He is an amnesiac with a coincidental observation," Elara snapped, but her protest was weak. The accuracy was unnerving.
Her intercom buzzed. Ben's nervous voice came through. "Ms. Vance, your father is on line one. He says it's urgent."
Elara took a deep, steadying breath. The battlefield had shifted from corporate to familial. "Tell him I'm in a critical meeting and will call him back in thirty minutes." She released the intercom. "Liam. Take Leo. Get out of the building. Go to… go get lunch. Anywhere but here. Do not teach him anything stupid. Do not talk to anyone. I will handle this."
"You want me to take our Nepalese feng shui expert to lunch?" Liam whispered dramatically. "What's his cover story?"
"He doesn't talk. He's a silent sage. Now go!"
Five minutes later, Liam and Leo were seated in a bustling, noisy ramen shop three blocks from Vance Horizon. The air was thick with the smell of pork broth and garlic. It was sensory overload.
Leo sat perfectly straight on the wooden stool, his hands folded in his lap, taking it all in. The shouting cooks, the slurping customers, the steam, the clatter of bowls. His eyes were wide, but not with fear. With intense, total absorption.
"Okay, rule one," Liam said, leaning in. "When in doubt, just nod and look wise. You're Master Leo, spiritual guide from the Himalayas, here to balance the corporate energies of Vance Horizon. Got it?"
"I am from Nepal?" Leo asked.
"For today, yeah."
"I have never seen a mountain," Leo stated, looking at a poster of Mount Fuji on the wall. "But I will imagine one."
The waiter came. Liam ordered for them both—tonkotsu ramen. When the bowls arrived, steaming and massive, Leo looked at the chopsticks placed beside his bowl.
Liam demonstrated, picking his up. "You use these. Like… pincers."
Leo picked up his chopsticks. He held them wrong, awkwardly fumbling. He looked at Liam's hands, then adjusted his grip. It was still clumsy. He tried to pick up a slice of pork. It slipped. He tried again. Slipped. On the third attempt, he held the chopsticks not in the standard grip, but in a unique, cross-handed method that looked improbable. With that bizarre, impossible grip, he lifted the slice of pork with absolute, rock-steady precision and brought it to his mouth.
He chewed. His eyes lit up. "This is… incredible." The complexity of flavors—rich, salty, umami—seemed to overwhelm his system for a moment. "The energy of this is very strong. And good."
Liam was staring at his chopstick technique. "How are you doing that? That's not how you're supposed to hold them."
"The standard method was inefficient for my hands," Leo explained, already picking up a noodle bundle with the same impossible steadiness. "This method works. The goal is to move the food to the mouth. This achieves the goal."
Liam burst out laughing. "You know what? Fair enough. You're a problem-solver, Master Leo."
Back at Vance Horizon, Elara was on the phone, fighting a different battle.
"...simply unheard of, Elara," her father, Alistair Vance, boomed. His voice was a low rumble of authority. "A stranger in your office? Your personal life is your own, but the office is the heart of the company. It projects stability. Control."
"He is a consultant, father. Specialized. His presence is temporary and beneficial to operational harmony." She heard herself parroting Liam's ridiculous feng shui lie and wanted to cringe.
"What firm is he from? I'll have his credentials vetted immediately." This was her mother, Evelyn. The scalpel to her father's hammer.
"It's an… independent practice. Based in Nepal. The credentials are nontraditional. His results are what matter." Elara was sweating. She was the CEO, but in this arena, she was still their daughter.
"We are coming to the penthouse for dinner tonight," Evelyn announced. It was not an invitation. "We will meet this 'Master Leo.' We will assess his… benefits. 7 PM sharp. See that he is presentable."
The call ended.
Elara put her head in her hands. Dinner. With her parents. With Leo. It was a disaster scripted by a vengeful god of comedy.
She called Liam. "Change of plans. You're both coming back here. We have to go shopping. We have a dinner with Mom and Dad tonight."
From the ramen shop, Liam groaned loud enough for the microphone to distort. "Noooo. Elara, he thinks a traffic light is a 'colorful tree that tells stories.' We are not ready for the Vance Inquisition!"
"We have six hours. Get back here. Now."
The shopping trip was its own special hell. Elara took them to a high-end boutique where the staff knew her. Leo moved through the racks of suits like a ghost in a museum of strange artifacts. He felt the fabrics—wool, silk, cashmere—with the same focus he'd given the water from the tap.
"This is for the dinner ritual?" he asked, holding up a navy blue suit jacket.
"Yes. It's armor," Elara said, selecting a charcoal grey suit for him. "It tells my parents you are serious, respectable, and not a threat to their social standing."
"Clothing can say all that?" Leo asked, amazed.
"In my family, yes."
In the changing room, Leo emerged wearing the full suit. It fit him surprisingly well off-the-rack, hanging on his lean frame with a natural elegance. But he'd put it on over his t-shirt, and the tie was a tangled mess around his neck.
Elara, for the first time, stepped close to him. She reached up to fix his collar, her fingers brushing his neck. He went very still, watching her hands as she worked.
"This is a tie. It serves no practical purpose," she explained, her voice oddly soft in the quiet room. "Its only function is to look correct. It's a symbol."
"A symbol of what?"
"Of agreeing to play by the rules."
She looped and knotted the dark silk with practiced efficiency. When she was done, she stepped back.
Leo looked at himself in the mirror. He saw a stranger. A sharp, serious stranger. He touched the knot at his throat. "The rules are very complicated," he said.
Elara met his eyes in the reflection. For a second, the CEO was gone, and it was just a tired woman looking at a lost man in a suit. "You have no idea," she whispered.
That evening at 6:55 PM, the penthouse was tense. Leo stood by the window, wearing his new armor. Elara paced. Liam fiddled with the music system, trying to find something "soothing and non-confrontational."
The elevator dinged at 7:00 exactly.
Alistair and Evelyn Vance stepped out. They were elegance personified. Alistair, tall and silver-haired, with eyes that missed nothing. Evelyn, petite and poised, her smile a perfectly calibrated instrument.
Their eyes immediately landed on Leo.
He turned from the window and faced them. He did not smile. He did not frown. He simply observed them, as he observed everything. Then, remembering his instructions, he gave a slow, slight bow of his head—not a submissive bow, but a dignitary's acknowledgment.
"Mother. Father," Elara said, her voice tight. "This is Leo."
Alistair approached, his hand extended. "Mr. Leo. I understand you are consulting for my daughter."
Leo shook his hand. "I am here to help," he said. It was the truth, utterly unadorned.
"And your expertise is in… spatial energy?" Evelyn asked, her tone lightly skeptical.
Leo looked at the living room. He looked at the sharp-edged modern furniture, the cold placement. He looked back at Evelyn. "The energy in this room is waiting," he said. "It is not flowing. It is holding its breath." He gestured to a large, abstract metal sculpture in the corner. "That is very loud. It shouts at the quiet painting. They are arguing, and no one can hear it but the energy."
A stunned silence filled the penthouse.
Liam bit his lip to keep from laughing. Elara held her breath.
Evelyn Vance's perfectly shaped eyebrows rose. She looked at the sculpture, then at the painting. A slow, intrigued smile touched her lips. "How… fascinating," she said. It was the tone she used when she found a new, exotic investment.
Alistair studied Leo's face, his calm eyes, his impeccable (thanks to Elara) suit. "You speak very directly, young man."
"It is inefficient to do otherwise," Leo replied.
Alistair Vance, master of boardroom subtext, actually chuckled. "Indeed it is."
The dinner had not yet begun, and Master Leo from Nepal had already done the impossible.
He had not been immediately dismissed. He had sparked curiosity.
The real test was yet to come.