Ivy barely slept.
She kept replaying the terrace, the way Ronan had said her name like it meant something, the way he'd stepped back the second Selena's voice cut through the night air. She told herself it didn't matter. She told herself a lot of things that week, and most of them weren't true.
At work the next morning, the strategy floor felt different, though nothing had actually changed. Priya still avoided her eyes. Marcus still made his easy jokes as he passed her desk. But Julian didn't stop by with coffee the way he usually did, and the empty space where his warmth should have been sat strange and uncomfortable in her chest.
She found him near the break room around ten, refilling his own cup instead of bringing her one.
"Hey," she said, testing the water.
"Hey." He offered a sm
