Ch. 2: The Offer

Rain traced long silver lines down the window, and somewhere a clock counted the hours.

For a heartbeat the careful distance between them thinned to nothing at all. She remembered the first time, and the last, and all the ordinary days in between that had somehow mattered more.

Sophia crossed the room slowly, aware of every step, of the way he was watching without seeming to. The conversation turned, the way conversations do, from the easy things to the ones that mattered.

For a heartbeat the careful distance between them thinned to nothing at all. For a heartbeat the careful distance between them thinned to nothing at all.

Money could buy a great many things, he had learned, but never the one thing that was wanted most. Money could buy a great many things, he had learned, but never the one thing that was wanted most.

He had built his whole life on being certain. She had a way of making certainty feel like a cage.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me," Sophia said. "I'm asking you to listen." "You shouldn't have come," he said, and the words landed softer than they were meant to. "You shouldn't have come," he said, and the words landed softer than they were meant to.

He watched her go and understood, too late, that he had already made his choice.