“I was told you’re very good at what you do,” she said. “Detail-oriented. Reliable.”
“I try to be,” I said carefully.
She nodded, as if ticking a box. “I’ll need a consultation. Something … private.”
A warning bell rang in my mind. Not loud. Just insistent.
“Of course,” I said, anyway, because that was who I was. “We can schedule?—”
“Now would be better,” she said. “If you have a moment.”
I hesitated.
Then nodded. “Britney?” I called. “Can you cover the floor for a few minutes?”
“Got it!”
I led the woman to the back workroom, the one with the scarred wooden table and shelves stacked with vases and ribbon spools. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was quieter. Less visible.
She didn’t sit when I gestured to the chair.
Instead, she folded her hands and said, “You’re seeing Micah Dane.”
The air left my lungs.
Not dramatically. Not all at once.
Just enough to make me very still.
BecauseDanelanded differently thanMicahever had.
I’d never asked for his last name.
The realization surprised me—not because it was careless, but because it hadn’t mattered. Micah had arrived in my life whole and immediate, like a presence instead of a résumé. He was Micah. That had been enough. Names beyond that felt like edges I hadn’t needed yet.
But now the surname echoed.
Dane.
I’d heard it before.
Portia.
Portia Dane.
The woman who had quiet authority in her eyes.
Dane.
The coincidence tugged at something in the back of my mind, but I resisted the urge to pull at the thread.
I could, if I wanted to, jump straight to conclusions.
I could wonder if Portia was his wife. His ex. His sister. Someone he belonged to in a way I didn’t yet understand. I could start mapping ownership and hierarchy and meaning onto a situation I barely grasped.
But I didn’t.
Not because the thought didn’t occur—it did—but because I refused to become that woman.
