“I can make pancakes.”
“They won’t be round.”
“No,” I agreed. “Mine usually look like countries.”
That earned a small smile.
We made them together. One resembled a boot, another a cloud, and one collapsed when I tried to flip it. For twenty minutes, we laughed. The sound felt almost disloyal, as though happiness should have waited until every problem was solved.
Then someone knocked.
Evelyn checked the security camera before opening the door.
A woman stood on the porch wearing a beige raincoat. Her dark hair was tied loosely at her neck. She looked nothing like the polished photographs on Mercer Development’s website.
Vanessa Cole held a small velvet jewelry box.
“Please,” she said through the intercom. “I need to speak to Claire.”
Every instinct told me to send her away.
Instead, I asked James to take Noah upstairs.
Vanessa entered without perfume, diamonds, or the confidence I had resented for six months. Rain clung to her shoulders. She placed the velvet box on the coffee table but did not sit.
