The city lights shimmered below them, a blur of gold and white, but Cecile barely noticed. Kevin’s offer still echoed in her ears, warm and unreal.“Chief editor,” she repeated softly, almost to herself, fingers tightening around the edge of the balcony railing. “You’re serious?”Kevin chuckled, leaning beside her. “Completely. I’ve been looking for someone with instinct—someone who understands people, emotions. After tonight?” His eyes softened. “You have that in spades.”Cecile swallowed, emotion rising unexpectedly in her chest. No one had ever taken her dreams so seriously—so casually, even—as if believing in her was the most natural thing in the world.“I won’t disappoint you,” she said, finally meeting his gaze.“I know,” Kevin replied, and for a split second, something unreadable flickered across his face.The next morningThe office buzzed with quiet efficiency when Cecile arrived—five minutes early. She stood in the lobby, clutching her bag, heart pounding. 8AM on the dot. Ch

The city never slept, but that night it seemed to hold its breath.Cecile remained on the balcony long after Kevin went inside, her thoughts circling like restless birds. The board meeting replayed in her mind—not Diana’s polished cruelty, but the moment when Cecile herself had spoken without fear. No apology. No hesitation. Just truth, laid bare.She hadn’t realized how long she’d been shrinking until she stopped.When she finally stepped back inside, the apartment lights were low. Kevin stood in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, staring at nothing in particular. He looked up when he heard her.“You okay?” he asked.“I will be,” she replied honestly.He nodded, accepting the answer for what it was. Progress.That night, they didn’t touch. They didn’t need to. Something more fragile—and more dangerous—had settled between them: clarity.Monday Morning: Lines Are DrawnThe newsroom felt different when Cecile walked in the next morning. Quieter. Watchful.Not hostile—but alert.She paused

The city had learned Cecile’s name.That was the first thing she noticed when the invitations started changing. Where once they had read Kevin Hale and Guest, they now arrived embossed, deliberate:Cecile Moreau, Chief Editor.Not wife.Not partner.Not accessory.Kevin pretended not to notice the shift, but Cecile saw it in the way his jaw tightened when someone addressed her before him at events, or when board members laughed just a beat too long at her comments. He wasn’t threatened—not exactly. But he was recalibrating.Power does that.It forces adjustment.At the magazine, Cecile’s days were relentless but precise. She cut meetings short, raised expectations, and dismantled inefficiencies with surgical calm. People stopped bringing her problems unless they had already thought through solutions.She didn’t soften.She didn’t need to.One Thursday afternoon, her assistant hovered nervously at the door.“There’s a Mr. Arman Lowell here to see you.”Cecile frowned. “I don’t have him

Cecile’s POVPatrick and Joyce’s WeddingThat was the thing about Patrick and Joyce—they didn’t need spectacle to make meaning.The wedding was small by design.Patrick had insisted on it, in that gentle, immovable way of his. Not stubborn. Not defensive. Just settled. No press. No donors. No colleagues angling for relevance or proximity. No invitations extended out of obligation instead of affection. Joyce had agreed almost immediately, relief softening her posture in a way I’d come to recognize. After a lifetime of being visible in ways that never quite belonged to her—wife, hostess, symbol, liability—she wanted this moment to be unmistakably theirs.They chose late spring.The kind that smelled like rain and new beginnings. Damp earth. Fresh leaves. Blossoms that hadn’t yet learned fear. The garden venue sat slightly outside the city, understated, privately owned by a friend of Patrick’s who believed land should be shared rather than monetized. Folding chairs replaced pews. White f

Got it. I’ll be there soon” Cecile said standing up and walking slowly to the bathroom Cecile’s POVThe water steamed almost aggressively, falling on her skin in a rhythm heat fogging the bathroom mirror until her reflection dissolved into a pale blur. Cecile stared at it anyway, fingers gripping the edge of the sink as if it were the only solid thing in the room.She wasn’t wrong.Her head still felt heavy, as though sleep hadn’t released her cleanly—like she’d been dragged back into wakefulness by force, by knocking fists and Kevin’s voice cutting through layers of something softer, older, unreal.A dream, she reminded herself again.Just a dream.But dreams didn’t leave this kind of residue. They didn’t sit in your chest like grief you hadn’t earned yet.Patrick and Joyce.A wedding.Mia scattering petals like it was the most natural thing in the world.And herself—older, quieter, standing apart, watching a life that no longer bent around Kevin Hale.Her stomach twisted again, th