Three weeks after the site stress test at Emory, the Atlanta sun baked the pavement outside a small, independent real estate office in Virginia-Highland. The air smelled of honeysuckle and humid oak bark.
Maya sat at a rustic pine conference table, staring at a set of property disclosures. She wore a breezy cream linen jumpsuit, her dark hair pinned up with a few stray curls framing her caramel-gold skin. Her dark brown eyes—clear, calm, and free of their old hyper-vigilant edge—scanned the line-item inspection reports with effortless speed.
Beside her, Mario was leaning back in his chair, his six-foot-two frame relaxed. He wore a dark navy polo shirt that clung to his broad shoulders, his dark gray eyes tracking the slight movement of her hands as she flipped through the pages.
"The ro
