The conference room at Vanguard Architecture occupied the forty-second floor of a glass-and-steel monolith in the financial district, a building that Julian had once lost a bid to design. The irony of sitting inside it, looking out over the sprawling city skyline, was not lost on me.

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The rain drummed a steady, rhythmic beat against the floor-to-ceiling windows of our penthouse. It was a Tuesday evening, exactly seventy-six hours before my scheduled departure, and I was sitting on the Italian leather sofa, calmly scrolling through the virtual tour of a fully furnished

The next morning, the penthouse was suffocatingly bright, the storm having broken to reveal a harsh, unforgiving sunlight that illuminated every corner of our shared life. It was Wednesday. Seventy-two hours until my flight to Heathrow.

Usually, Julian was out the door by 7:30 AM, a wh