I placed the key in a drawer beside the engraved bracelet Sydney had never worn.

Chapter 11 — Honest Rooms

Almost two years after the wedding, I hosted a dinner in my apartment. It was not a gala — only twelve people around one long table. Terrence and Elena arrived early to help.

Elias brought bread from a bakery near his office. Clara, my first employee, carried a bottle of wine and complained that I had arranged the plates with unnecessary precision.

The windows stood open to the warm summer air. Someone played music from a phone beside the kitchen. No one discussed status. No one asked what anything cost.

Halfway through the meal, Elena stood and raised her glass. “To Harbor House,” she said. “And to the woman who understood that security is not the same thing as secrecy.”

Everyone looked toward me. I remembered the hallway outside Sydney’s living room. My wet coat. The velvet box. The voices arranging my future without understanding the woman I had become.