Miller had been gone for twenty-five days. Astoria had counted every one of them.
She sat on the kitchen floor until the light faded completely and the wine dried to a dark stain she'd have to explain to the cleaning staff. Then she pulled herself up, cleaned up the glass with no emotion, and went to bed without dinner.
The next day, the conference room smelled like stale coffee and expensive cologne, the particular scent of negotiations that had gone on too long. Astoria sat at Gerald's right, her posture perfect, her face composed, and her hands folded on the mahogany table in front of her. The ice queen, exactly as expected.
Across the table, Rachel Hartwell was making her case for the third time this afternoon.
“My client's contributions to the marriage extended far beyond the formal COO role,” Rachel said, her voice measured and professional. “The social capital, the networking, the public-facing responsibilities that allowed Ms. Shepry to focus on business development?—”
“None of which entitles her to fifty percent of a company she didn't build.” Gerald's interruption was smooth, almost bored. They'd been over this ground before. “Shepry Global existed for eight years before Ms. Dane joined. The valuation at the time of marriage was already?—”
Astoria stopped listening. She’d heard these arguments a hundred times and could recite them in her sleep, if she were sleeping, which she wasn't. Twenty-six days of fragmented rest, food that tasted like cardboard, and work that filled every waking hour because the alternative was feeling something, and she couldn't afford to feel anything.
Miller was sitting behind Rachel in the second row, against the wall, a legal pad balanced on her knee.
She wasn't on the case anymore, and Astoria knew that. Miller had recused herself months ago, before everything fell apart. But she still worked at the firm, still got pulled into meetings like this one, still existed in the same professional orbit that Astoria couldn't escape.
It’d been four weeks since Miller had stood in her living room and saidI have to end this. Four weeks of walls and numbness and surviving, and now Miller was twenty feet away, close enough that Astoria could see the shadows under her eyes.
She looked worn. Thinner than before, her cheekbones sharper, her blazer sitting differently on her shoulders. The warmth that usually animated her features had dimmed to something contained.
She’d been suffering too.
The observation landed somewhere in Astoria's chest and lodged there, uncomfortable and unwanted. She didn't want Miller to be suffering. But she didn't want to feel the pull of sympathy, of longing, of the desperate urge to cross the room and touch her.
“Ms. Shepry?”
Gerald’s voice cut through, and Astoria blinked, refocusing.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice steady. “Could you repeat the question?”
Rachel was watching her with sharp eyes. Valerie, seated at Rachel's left, was watching her, too, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth. She'd noticed Astoria's distraction. Of course she had. Valerie noticed everything, catalogued every weakness, and saved them for later use.
“The proposed division of the Harbor Point property,” Gerald said smoothly, covering for her. “Rachel is suggesting a sixty-forty split.”
“No.” Astoria didn’t hesitate. “Harbor Point was acquired three years before the marriage with funds from my personal trust. It's not a marital asset.”
The negotiation continued. Astoria participated when required, her responses crisp and precise, her ice queen armor firmly in place. But her awareness kept drifting across the table, catching on Miller like a hangnail catching on silk.
Miller wasn’t looking at her. Her attention stayed fixed on her legal pad, her pen moving occasionally, her expression giving nothing away. But Astoria knew her well enough to recognize the tightness at the corners of her eyes and the rigid set of her shoulders. She knew that blankness was a mask, the same way Astoria's composure was a mask.
They were both performing and pretending like they were fine.
The afternoon dragged on. Valerie's demands escalated rather than diminished—more money, more properties, a larger stake in the company she'd contributed nothing material to. Rachel presented each demand professionally, but even she seemed to recognize the unreasonableness of it. Her arguments grew more perfunctory, her glances at Valerie more frequent.
It was clear that Valerie didn’t want a settlement; she was out for blood.
At four-fifteen, Gerald called for a break. “Fifteen minutes,” he said. “I think we could all use some air.”
Everyone stood, stretched, and reached for their phones. The court reporter stepped out. Rachel leaned over to confer with Valerie in low tones, her face giving nothing away.
Astoria walked to the window. The view looked out over downtown Phoenix Ridge, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows between the buildings. She pressed her palm against the glass, feeling the warmth of it, grounding herself in something physical because everything else felt like it was floating away.
She sensed Miller before she heard her—a shift in the air, a presence approaching from the left, stopping only three feet away. Close enough to speak quietly, but far enough to maintain propriety.
They stood side by side, both facing the window, neither looking at the other. Astoria could feel her pulse in her throat.
“How are you?” Miller’s voice was quiet, almost tentative.
