“Here’s $100—Can you be my mom today?” a billionaire boss’s son asked—until a shy woman replied, “Keep it. Billionaires pay in secrets.”

no performance of power. My apartment felt painfully small when he stepped inside, but he said nothing about the peeling paint or the thrift-store couch or the stack of medical forms beside the microwave. He only stood in the doorway as though he understood he had entered a place where money gave him no authority.