The week crawled toward the engagement gala with the slow, inevitable pull of a riptide. Every day felt deceptively ordinary on the surface, yet beneath the routines the tension thickened like fog, creeping into the corners of conversations and clinging to every interaction between the four of them. No one said the words, but all of them felt it: something was coming.
In the office, Willow moved with a precision that bordered on clinical. Her voice in meetings was steady, her reports flawless, her decisions sharper than ever. If anyone looked closely, they would have seen the strain hiding beneath the polished surface—the subtle tremor in her left hand when she lifted a pen, the occasional wince when her wrist brushed the desk, the quiet way she excused herself from the room whenever her stomach gave a sharp, twisting protest.
She hid it well. She always had.
But Zane noticed.
