Page 124 of True Colors

“Wonderful. Oh…and Luther mentioned your friend, Finn. Maybe he’d like to join as well?”

My heart warms at the idea that Luther has told his family about me, about us. He’s not hiding me away as I feared because of my stutter. Not just that, he’s told them all how he screwed up with me, and they’re on my side.

“I…I’ll ask him.”

He puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “I look forward to getting to know you, Anouk.”

As he walks away, I lean against the wall for a second, breathing it all in.

Damn it! I’m going to forgive their idiot son, aren’t I?

CHAPTER 30

Luther

By the time we’re seated around the long dining table in my parents’ Nob Hill place, the air has shifted from polite to easy in that way families do when they decide—tacitly—that someone is already one of theirs.

Everyone is already half in love with Anouk.

She’s seated between Dot and Ria, across from me.

Mom did that on purpose to make Anouk feel safe.

The table is full—my parents, Ria and Theo, Dot and Neil, even Finn—and somehow it’s not crowded. It’s as if the room adjusted itself around Anouk instead of the other way around.

Dinner is family-style because that’s how my mother has always done it.

Roast chicken with lemon and thyme, blistered green beans, a farro salad with roasted vegetables, and crusty bread still warm from the oven.

Mom has no problem hiring a chef or eating a Michelin-star meal—but for family, she’ll cook, Ria will bake, I will chop vegetables, and Dad will open wine bottles. He’s useless in the kitchen.

“Anouk, Jacob tells me that you did an amazing job presenting the Novagene project.” Mom wants to tell Anouk that she knows how special she is, how good she is at what she does—to give back to her what I took away.

“I…I….” She glances at Finn, who is sitting next to me, and then at me.

“Say thank you, Annie,” Finn instructs indulgently.

She smiles shyly. “Th-thank you, H-Hannah.”

Dad picks up his wineglass and asks with genuine curiosity, “What made you choose that volatility threshold?”

In our home, we always talk about work. My mother is retired now, but she used to work in finance—so our conversations went from market cycles and balance sheets at the dinner table to leadership mistakes, people problems, and the ethics of power.

Her eyebrows lift in quiet surprise. She wasn’t expecting Dad to talk business at home.

“I l-looked at Novagene’s historical re-rejection points.” She puts her wine glass down and sets her hands on the mahogany table. She does this to ground herself, I know. I want to change the topic, protect her, but I also know that I shouldn’t. She can take care of herself.

“Anything above f-five percent variance created d-downstream in-instability. It wasn’t r-risk—it was pre-pre-predictability they c-cared about.”

Dad nods seriously. “That’s elegant.”

That is a word that comes up often when people describe Anouk’s models.

She glances over at me, a flicker of disbelief crossing her face.

“Anouk is elegant,” I remark, my eyes on her.

For a moment, she freezes, like a deer caught in headlights, and then she smiles like clouds parting after a storm, letting the sunlight through.