(Lena)
By the time I left work, I already knew I wasn’t ready to go back to the house.
I had spent the day doing what I always did, moving from one file to the next and making sure nothing slipped because my personal life had become impossible to ignore. The guest cottage proposal had been sent, two vendors had been corrected, and Simone had stopped asking if I was alright after the third time I gave her the same answer. I wasn’t alright, but that didn’t mean the work got to suffer for it.
My phone rang before I reached the elevator.
I looked down and saw Cole’s name on the screen. For one second, I stood there without answering, not because I didn’t want to, but because answering him felt like stepping into something I had been trying to keep under control. Then I accepted the call an
