ACE
The meeting had already run ten minutes over when I stopped listening.
Numbers blurred on the screen in front of me, projections and margins stacking neatly into columns I had reviewed a hundred times before. My board members continued talking, confident in the illusion of my attention. I let them have it. My expression never changed.
All I could see was Alice’s face earlier that afternoon—her head tipped back in laughter, her hands sticky with chocolate, her voice bright in a way it rarely was.
And Lily.
That irritated me.
I adjusted my cufflinks slowly, grounding myself in the familiar ritual. Control was precision. Precision was comfort. Whatever unease crept in had no place here.
“Mr. Grant?” someone prompted.
I looked up. “Proceed.”
They did. I didn’t hear it.
I had not
