When the music resumed, Dennis Vale approached Bradley near the far end of the bar. Loretta was standing only a few steps away, holding an empty glass and waiting for Julian to return. The two men spoke without lowering their voices at first, evidently assuming that someone in her position would not understand the conversation or remember it afterward. Loretta stood still and looked toward the city while she listened.
"Brad, it's Friday," Dennis said. "We need a decision before the accounts lock for Monday's audit."
"Then submit it now. Tonight. The new owners will sign it before their coffee Monday."
"One hundred and eighty thousand is above the new approval threshold. It goes straight to Harbor Gate."
"You keep saying that like it matters. Submit it."
Dennis took a tablet from his briefcase and scrolled through the payment request. "The system lists you as the business requester," he said. "I'm the finance approver for the invoice file. It'll show both names."
"Good. It should show names. It should show we finished the contract."
"There's no acceptance certificate for the final deliverable."
Bradley looked annoyed. "Attach the usual strategy-completion summary. The contract calls for one point eight million and we've paid one point six two. I want the last one-eighty out of the way before the auditors arrive."
Loretta remembered the phrase precisely because he said it with no apparent hesitation: out of the way. As though a payment request were a box in a corridor that could simply be carried somewhere less visible. She had spent her life watching owners run out of money for obligations they treated as real, and now she was listening to a man describe a questionable obligation as something to remove from the auditors' path. Dennis's face was the color of candle wax beneath the terrace lights.
"Two smaller invoices would avoid the owner threshold," Dennis murmured. "But that would be obvious."
"Then don't split it. Use one. They won't read it."
Loretta turned the empty glass slowly in her hand. Its base caught the lights from the city and reflected them against the dark cloth of her sleeve. She was close enough to hear Dennis exhale when he pressed submit, and close enough to see Bradley glance at the screen without checking what was attached. The two men had mistaken a woman holding a glass for a woman who had no business listening.
"Done," Dennis said. "One hundred and eighty thousand. Requester: Bradley Kincaid. Finance approval: Dennis Vale. Pending owner authorization."
"See?" Bradley said. "Nobody reads."
"The glass goes to the bar," Bradley added when he finally noticed Loretta. He gestured toward the collection counter as though she were a member of the staff. "Since you're up here anyway, make yourself useful."
Loretta looked at him for a moment, then carried the glass to Julian, who thanked her. She did not argue about the assumption. A few years earlier she might have tried to prove that she belonged on the terrace, but now she was not interested in proving anything to a man who had mistaken obedience for respect. She had just heard the sentence she needed to hear, spoken in front of a witness who was also the person with the final approval authority.