Willow was gone.
And that was supposed to be the point.
For weeks Miles prayed for distance — space from the guilt, from her eyes, from the lie that had started to rot inside his chest. Now he finally had it. The silence he wanted. The closure he'd engineered.
Mission accomplished.
So why did it feel like panic was pressing a knife to his ribs?
The office around Miles was all glass and chrome, washed in late light and the low hum of the air conditioning. A view that used to calm him — the skyline like a pulse of money and order — now felt sterile. Dead. The desk was immaculate, the monitors asleep. The coffee beside him had gone cold hours ago.
Miles told himself it was relief misfiring. That this tightness in his chest was just adrenaline, the hangover of manipulation. That he should feel lighter now that the plan had worked: she believed him, believed Zane, believed the story he'd built so carefully.
That they had broken up before the accident.
That she had moved on.
