For one suspended second, I forgot how to breathe.
The study seemed to narrow around the man standing near Damian’s desk, until there was only his face, his voice, and the way he had said my name like it belonged in his mouth.
Ania.
Not Nia.
Not Ms. Carter.
Not some awkward guess from a stranger who had read the wrong line on a file.
Ania.
A name no one used.
A name that lived only in old birthday cards, in the mouths of women from church who had known me when I was too small to correct them, in some soft buried corner of my mother that almost never made it to the surface anymore.
My skin went cold.
The man’s gaze rested on me with unsettling calm. Not warm. Not cruel either. Worse than both.
Familiar in a way he had not earned.
My mother stood rigid beside the sofa, one hand p
