The thing about Maya was that she knew exactly how to get what she wanted. She didn’t demand or manipulate. She just looked at you with those wide brown eyes and asked, very sweetly, for a favor, and suddenly you were agreeing to things you’d sworn you’d never do.

Which was how I found myself sitting across from Lucas Stanley at 9:00 AM on a Saturday morning, both of us nursing coffee at a corner table in the resort’s breakfast room while Maya outlined her vision for our cooperation.

“I just need you two to get along,” she said, spreading jam on her toast with the careful precision of someone...