Olivia made a small sound that might have been embarrassment. "Kwon—"

"It’s a fair question," said Sean, looking at Olivia briefly, then back at Kwon. "I’d want to know the same thing if I were in your position."

Kwon paused slightly, something in his assessment shifting. He hadn’t expected that response.

"My intentions with Olivia are honest," said Sean. "I’m not going to promise specifics about where things go between us, because I don’t think either of us knows yet. But I’m not someone who takes advantage of people I care about. That’s the most straightforward answer I can give you."

Kwon looked at him for a long moment. Then he looked at Olivia, who was watching Sean with an expression she probably didn’t realize was as transparent as it was.

Kwon set his coffee down and folded his hands on the table. "She missed rehearsal for the first time in two years the morning after your party," he said, looking back at Sean.

"I know," said Sean. "I didn’t plan for it to run that late."

"She’s twelve days from a major showcase," said Kwon. "The most important performance this group has had. If she’s distracted, it shows. On stage, distraction looks like every kind of failure at once."

"I understand," said Sean.

"Do you?" Kwon’s voice wasn’t threatening. It was the flat seriousness of someone who meant every word. "Because what I need, specifically, is for whatever this is between you two to not exist for the next twelve days until after the showcase. After that, it can be whatever it wants to be. But twelve days from now, I need her focused."

Sean looked at Olivia. She was watching him, something anxious moving behind her green eyes. Not wanting to ask him to agree to something. Not wanting to put that pressure on whatever was building between them.

"That’s a reasonable request," said Sean.

Olivia blinked, like she’d been bracing for something more complicated.

"I can stay in the background for twelve days," said Sean. "Text only if she initiates. No dinners, no late nights. She focuses on the showcase." He looked at Kwon. "After that, I’d like to take her to dinner. Properly. You can’t have that."

Kwon studied him for a moment. Then something happened in his expression that Sean recognized as the decision point of a pragmatic person landing on a conclusion.

"Fine," said Kwon. "Twelve days." He picked up his coffee again. "I also want tickets to the showcase."

"Done," said Sean.

"Two tickets," said Kwon.

"Also done," said Sean.

"Front row," said Kwon.

Olivia looked at the ceiling briefly with the expression of someone who had created a monster and was only now fully reckoning with it.

"Front row," said Sean, without hesitation.

Kwon drank his coffee and set it down. "You negotiate well," he said. "That’s either a good sign or a very bad one, I haven’t decided which."

"Let me know when you figure it out," said Sean.

For the first time since Sean had walked through the door, something that was unmistakably a smile crossed Kwon’s face, brief, controlled, gone almost before it arrived. But real.

"Two questions," said Kwon, pulling an actual folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket, which Sean recognized from Olivia’s earlier texts and had to actively not smile about. He opened it. "What are your long-term intentions regarding Olivia, professionally?"

"Professionally?" Sean repeated.

"She’s a public figure in development," said Kwon. "The people who enter her life become part of her professional story whether they intend to or not. A wealthy, young, unnamed investor attached to one of my artists can be an asset or a liability depending on the circumstances."

Sean thought about this. "I don’t intend to make her story about me," he said. "I’m interested in her. What she’s building. What she wants to become. I’d support that, not override it."

Kwon made a small note on his paper. Sean managed not to laugh.

"Second question," said Kwon. "The car. Is it always a Rolls Royce, or was that a special occasion?"

Olivia put her hand over her mouth.

"It’s my regular car," said Sean.

Kwon made another note.

"What are you writing?" said Olivia, finally unable to contain herself.

"Observations," said Kwon simply. He folded the paper back up and put it away with the same precision he’d taken it out with. Then he looked at Sean one more time, a long, final evaluation. "I don’t dislike you, Mr. Miller. That’s not nothing."

"High praise," said Sean.

"For me, it is," said Kwon, completely seriously.

========

A waiter came by. They ordered another round of drinks, the conversation easing into something less formal now that Kwon’s assessment had apparently reached a satisfactory conclusion. He talked about the showcase, about the group’s progression, about the industry with the kind of firsthand knowledge that made Sean actually pay attention.

And then Sean’s Business Insight skill did something it didn’t usually do in social situations.

It fired.

Not dramatically. Just a sudden, sharp clarity, like a light turning on in a corner of a room he hadn’t been looking at.

Kwon was describing the showcase venue, a mid-sized performance hall, and mentioned the name of the distribution company handling the event’s digital broadcast rights. Standard industry information, the kind of thing he dropped without thinking.

The company’s name hit Sean like a small electric current.

He’d heard that name before. Not from his future memories exactly. From Max’s documents. One of the corporate entities connected to Lockhart Holdings’ broader network, not a primary holding, but a contractor, something three layers deep in the structure Max had been mapping.

Sean sat very still, keeping his expression completely neutral while his mind moved fast.

Olivia’s showcase. Handled by a distribution company connected, however distantly, to Vivian Castellan’s network.

It might be nothing. Lockhart’s reach was broad enough that random overlap with legitimate businesses was entirely possible. But something about the timing, about the showcase being twelve days out, about the financial vulnerability Max had flagged in Olivia’s agency without Sean fully investigating it yet, made the coincidence feel less comfortable than he’d have liked.