The workplace went back to its normal routine behind them, happy, sure, and silently reshaping itself around a fact it thought it had always known.
Zana slept in the stroller, utterly committed to it, her small body folded into itself with the complete trust of a child who believed the world would wait, the canopy drawn low to shield her from the office lights and the steady hum of work moving beyond the glass walls. Willow adjusted the blanket once more before stepping back, not because it was necessary but because the act anchored her, her fingers lingering just long enough to acknowledge what she was leaving behind without allowing herself to hesitate.
Zane had already returned to work.
He sat at his desk with the deliberate focus of soone reclaiming rhythm, docunts aligned, screen active, posture neutral in a way that suggested intention rather than ease, yet his attention lifted imdiately when Willow and Lorrlyne turned toward the door. His eyes tracked them, registering movent without context, a faint crease forming between his brows that never deepened into concern. He did not ask a question. He did not interrupt. One hand rested on the desk, the other brushing briefly against the stroller as if confirming that Zana was still there, still asleep, still his responsibility.
Willow felt the weight of that look as she crossed the threshold.
Not suspicion.
Disorientation.
They did not hurry.
That was the part that mattered.
They moved through the office at an unremarkable pace, Lorrlyne half a step ahead, Willow beside her, their departure frad as ordinary, as lunch, as sothing unworthy of scrutiny. Conversations barely paused. Chairs shifted and settled again. The office absorbed the movent without protest, and the glass doors closed behind them, sealing Zane back into the controlled ecosystem of his work with a sleeping child nearby and no reason to question what had just been defined as routine.
Outside, the air felt softer.
The sound of the building dulled into distance, ambition muted, authority temporarily contained, and the city resud a rhythm that no longer demanded vigilance at every step. Late morning light ward the pavent without interrogating it, jackets hung open on passersby, conversations flowed instead of stopping, and the city appeared content to let ti stretch rather than compress.
Lorrlyne did not indulge that illusion.
"We don’t have much ti," she said as they walked toward the car, her voice low and exact, her stride steady and unbroken. "An hour if everything behaves. An hour and a half if we’re lucky."
Willow adjusted her coat automatically, the small movent grounding and insufficient all at once. "It’s a good thing it’s close."
"Yes," Lorrlyne replied without turning. "That was deliberate."
The driver already had the door open, the engine running, the route set, and Willow slid into the back seat with the clear awareness that this was not lunch in any aningful sense, but a narrow corridor carved into Zane’s workday while his attention was fixed elsewhere, a window that existed only because everyone involved had agreed not to examine it too closely.
As the car pulled away, Willow did not look back.
She did not need to.
She could already picture Zane glancing once more toward the door, then back to his screen, choosing work over inquiry not because he lacked curiosity, but because he trusted the framing. Trust, she knew, was the most efficient way to create space.
The city thinned as they moved, glass towers yielding to quieter streets edged with trees just beginning to green, and Willow watched familiar routes pass with only partial attention, her thoughts circling instead around the image of Zane at his desk, the faint confusion he would dismiss rather than interrogate.
Her phone vibrated once in her bag.
She did not reach for it imdiately.
When she did, she already knew what she would find.
Go enjoy yourselves. I’ll be at ho with Zana when I’m done here.
The ssage carried no doubt, no tracking, no expectation beyond safety and ti. He was not asking to be included. He was releasing them, anchoring himself exactly where he said he would be, trusting his mother and the woman he intended to marry to manage whatever they were doing without supervision.
Willow let the phone rest in her palm longer than necessary, feeling the weight of that trust settle more firmly, not as accusation but as gravity, and then slipped it back into her bag without replying, because replying would have required choosing between honesty and montum, and she was not ready to slow what had already begun to move.
Lorrlyne noticed the shift without looking. "He’s fine," she said, not asking.
"Yes," Willow replied. "He’s working."
"Good," Lorrlyne said. "That’s where he’s most comfortable."
The real estate agent was waiting when they arrived, chosen for discretion rather than charm, her posture precise, her attention trained to observe reaction before enthusiasm. She greeted them without flourish, unlocking the gate with practiced efficiency and allowing silence to stretch without filling it.
The first house announced itself aggressively.
Glass and chro rose from the street with unapologetic exposure, sunlight pouring into every surface as though containnt were an afterthought, reflections multiplying Willow’s image as she moved through the space, her shoulders tightening long before she reached the windows because nothing here suggested rcy for small bodies or forgiveness for mistakes.
"It’s highly sought after," the agent said carefully.
"It’s a showcase," Willow replied, pressing her palm briefly against the glass, feeling the cold certainty beneath it, imagining reflections where boundaries should have been, imagining Zana moving toward light instead of safety. "Not a ho."
Lorrlyne was already turning away.
The second house failed faster.
Minimalist, open, architectural, its elegance dependent on constant vigilance, staircases without rails, furniture selected for visual discipline rather than resilience. Willow felt the refusal register in her body the mont she crossed the threshold, tension settling across her shoulders with instinctive clarity.
"No," she said simply.
The agent closed her folder without argunt.
Back in the car, Willow exhaled deeply enough to feel it in her chest, the release coinciding with a familiar, uncomfortable awareness that ti was slipping faster now, not because it was being wasted, but because it was being used.
"There was a third," the agent said, checking her watch. "But the seller postponed. Tomorrow."
Relief and disappointnt braided together before Willow could separate them.
They were walking back toward the car when Willow stopped so abruptly that Lorrlyne turned sharply beside her, the reaction imdiate and unfiltered, her body responding before her thoughts aligned.
Across the street, set back behind a low stone wall and a line of mature trees that softened sound as much as sight, stood a house that did not announce itself.
Wide rather than tall, grounded rather than exposed, its pale stone ward by sunlight instead of reflecting it away, deep-set windows suggesting rooms ant to hold warmth and quiet rather than display them, a porch broad enough to imply waiting rather than performance. It was unmistakably a mansion, yet nothing about it felt aggressive or demanding, its presence composed, confident, and restrained in a way that suggested longevity rather than spectacle.
Willow felt the recognition strike with uncomfortable force, not as desire but as inevitability, as though sothing had answered a question she had not yet allowed herself to articulate.
"That one," she said, before caution could intervene.
Lorrlyne followed her gaze and remained silent.
The agent frowned slightly. "That isn’t listed."
"I know," Willow replied, already stepping closer, aware that justification sounded thin even to her own ears. "But it feels... contained."
The agent was already reaching for her phone. "Let see who’s holding it."
Lorrlyne studied the house with narrowed focus. "If it hasn’t moved, it ans soone didn’t need to sell."
Willow swallowed. "Is that worse."
"It’s more dangerous," Lorrlyne said calmly.
The agent made one call, then another, her tone shifting increntally with each connection, and Willow stood at the edge of the stone wall without crossing it, noticing how the noise of the street softened here, how the air felt held rather than open, how even ti seed less inclined to rush.
"They’ll consider a private showing," the agent said finally. "Tomorrow afternoon. Quietly."
Willow closed her eyes for a brief mont, not in relief, but in acknowledgnt.
Tomorrow.
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