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I made my way through the crowd to the elevator bank, hitting the button and waiting as I noted a podcast studio with busted glass on the window. A banshee, I would assume. No one had even bothered to sweep up the glass yet.

The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open.

Then a honking goose came running out, his feet slapping on the ground as he rushed around frantically, trying to find his owner.

I moved into the elevator, glad when no one joined me, appreciating the moment of silence.

It was too short of a ride, however, and the doors opened to the top floor with all its floor-to-ceiling windows, waiting room, offices, and an oversized conference room.

I made my way in that direction but couldn’t see inside since they had the frost on the glass, likely to keep even people at the office from taking pictures or videos of this meeting.

I lifted my nose, sniffing the air, trying to detect her cinnamon sugar scent—all the while attempting to convince myself it was for preparation, not longing.

But I didn’t smell her.

Good.

That was good.

It would give me a moment to sit down and prepare for whatever carefully spun story she was about to try to convince me was true.

I realized my miscalculation the second I stepped into the doorway.

Because Maggie was there.

Seated in the middle of the table with her back to the windows.

She was dressed more blandly than usual in a pair of jeans and a lumpy oatmeal-colored sweater.

She was angled toward Mr. Lane at the front of her table, her head ducked, limp hair falling like a curtain to hide her face from me.

There was a tug in my stomach, something that had my step hesitating, not sure what it was.

“Oh, finally. Silas,” Mr. Lane said. He stood with his arms spread, and one look at him said he’d already set his heart on one way to handle this situation. And that was to capitalize on it.

I hated that I noticed how Maggie stiffened at my name, at how helpless I seemed to be at trying to avoid looking at her.

She didn’t look up at me like I expected, didn’t immediately launch into her useless excuses.

Her shoulders caved slightly.

Her hand clenched white on the arm of her chair.

“Mr. Lane,” I said, nodding at him, noting the way Maggie flinched.

I stepped forward toward the only available chair—the one directly across from Maggie.

The room was painfully quiet. Silent enough that I heard things I didn’t want to. Things I only noticed because the blood had sharpened my senses.

Maggie’s breath, for example. Uneven. Stuttering, pausing, stuttering again.

Her heartbeat, too.

Frantic, fluttering.

My head angled. That wasn’t the heartbeat of someone who got what they’d been working toward. It didn’t sound like excitement. It sounded like distress.

I shook that thought away as I turned my chair in Mr. Lane’s direction.