Fiona slipped through the service door, collar up, hat low. Claire's desk was a pale island; the receptionist's head bent over a tablet. Fiona kept her profile turned, moved with the practiced ease of someone who'd learned how to be invisible. The lift smelled of lemon; the ride gave her time to steady her voice.
Ethan rose before she reached his office, smoothing his tie as if the world could be ironed flat. He smiled when she stepped in, the old warmth flickering like a candle in a draft.
"You came," he said.
"I always come when I need you," she answered, folding into the chair as if it had been waiting for her. She watched him, not the way a client watches a lawyer but the way someone watches a man she once trusted with everything.
"Is everything all right?" he asked, cautious.
She let the question hang. "Where's Mira?" Her tone was casual; her eyes searched the doorway, the corridor beyond the glass.
"Not in today," he said. "She said she was with her aunt."
