"Properly," I add. "We say what we did and what it cost her, and we do not follow it immediately with a justification."
Santos nods once. There is no humor in it, which tells me how seriously he means it.
"I suppose we could have agreed on what was in the note. We all hurried out of that suite because we were cowards. We could have done it differently. Leaving matters of the heart to you was a mistake. We knew that and we still did it," Santos admits.
"Before the Japanese arrive," Tomas says. "Before lunch. She'll be in the kitchen by five in the morning and service ends around two. We find a moment in there and we do it."
"Together," Santos says.
"Yes," I confirm.
Before we have a chance to say anything else, there's a knock at the door. I know it's Carmen. Usually, she's here around this time to discuss any details that are outstanding.
"Yes, come in," I say, getting ready to greet her.
The door opens.
Carmen steps in with her clipboard and greets us all. "Good morning. The Nakamura email."
"Confirmed," I say. "One additional day."
"Good. I'll adjust the linen rotation and the welcome arrangement." She makes a note. Then she looks up. "One other thing. Daniel called this morning."
I look at her.
"He would like to be considered for a return. He said the terms he walked over were, and I'm quoting directly, a misunderstanding he would like to revisit."
The three of us are quiet.
"How is Jennifer doing?" Santos says.
Carmen considers it for a brief second. "She is doing very well," she says. "The guests had no complaints from day one. Last night's dinner got the Italian couple asking about the olive oil, which means they were paying attention to more than just the food, which is the best kind of compliment. She reorganized the compost system, identified a better position for threepieces of equipment, and her handover notes are already more thorough than Daniel's were after a full season." A pause. "She also fixed the knife strip so the handles face the same direction. I didn't ask her to do that. She just did it."
Santos looks at me.
I look at Tomas.
"Tell Daniel no," I say.
Carmen nods and makes another note. "I'll let him know the position is filled." She tucks the clipboard under her arm. "Anything else?"
"Yes. Tell Jennifer we would like to see her before lunch," I say. "Thank you, Carmen."
She hesitates before she leaves, then nods. She's probably happy we don't want Daniel back. It wasn't a secret that they didn't get along.
Once we're sure Carmen can't hear this conversation, we say what's on our minds.
"We need to keep our heads in the game," Tomas says.
"That's why we swore off omegas," Santos says. As a statement of what used to be true.
"Yes," I say.
"After Chiara. She was messing with our heads. One minute she wanted to be part of the pack and the next, she was running around with the Drownstone Pack. How many deals did we mess up during that time?"
No one answers. We know we let her ride us for five years. We agreed to never let that happen again.
Santos is looking at the window now, the same window Tomas stared at twenty minutes ago, and I understand the appeal of it. It shows the garden. The garden shows the path. The path goes around the hill to the kitchen, where Jennifer Sullivan is forty meters away doing her job with more care than the situation asks for, smelling of strawberry and soft rose, carrying a baby she hasn't told us about, sleeping with her curtains drawn against men she has every reason to keep on the other side of them.