Chapter 16 #2
“Did Willa know the proposal was for you specifically?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Did Nolan say she claimed you had authorized her to respond?”
“He said she told him she was managing my portfolio.”
“That was true.”
Miranda closed her eyes briefly. The answer had arrived before Garrett could hear how it sounded.
He caught himself and leaned forward. “I mean she was managing the accounts at the time. That does not mean she had the right to tell him you were unavailable indefinitely.”
“No. It does not.”
Garrett read the letter again, slower now. “She may have assumed you could not take outside work while employed by Halcyon.”
“She offered herself for it.”
His jaw tightened.
For once, Miranda did not help him complete the conclusion. She let the facts sit in front of him while the house continued around them: Owen fussing faintly upstairs, Claire opening a dresser drawer, the refrigerator cycling on behind the kitchen wall.
Garrett placed both palms on the table. “I need to speak to Dennis.”
“You do not need to do anything for me.”
“This concerns company communications and your account access.”
“It concerns my work.”
“It concerns both.” His frustration returned, sharpened now by the need to become useful. “If Willa deleted emails or answered messages directed to you without authorization, Dennis needs to know.”
“My attorney will ask for the records.”
Something moved through Garrett’s face—not quite surprise, but the expression of a man who had hoped the word *attorney* would not appear until he had finished speaking. “You are treating this like litigation already.”
Miranda picked up the leave agreement and set it back down. “Halcyon gave me a non-managerial role and asked me to sign it.”
“I know, but calling lawyers and preserving records changes the temperature.” He spread one hand open on the table between them, a gesture that wanted to look like reason.
“The temperature changed before I arrived.” She said it to the proposal rather than to him, which was worse.
Garrett pushed away from the table and stood. “I am trying to keep you from burning every bridge before you know whether you want to cross it.”
Miranda looked up at him. “Nolan offered me a bridge six weeks ago. Halcyon hid it in a pile of mail.”
He stared at her, and the silence between them no longer belonged to the basket or Willa alone. Miranda had somewhere else to go now, professionally at least, and Garrett could not reduce that possibility to an argument they might outlast.
Upstairs, Owen began to cry. Claire’s voice followed, soothing him while she finished whatever she was doing.
Garrett looked toward the ceiling, then back at the proposal. “Do you want the project?”
The question came late enough that Miranda almost refused to answer.
“Yes,” she said. “I think I do.”
Garrett sat again, though he had only just stood. He looked at the proposal with the expression of a man reading the first page of a future no one had asked him to approve.
The attorney called at two-thirty, after Claire had taken Owen for a walk and Garrett had gone upstairs under the pretense of changing out of his work clothes.
Miranda sat at the dining table with the leave agreement, Halcyon’s proposal, Nolan’s letter, and Claire’s timeline arranged in four precise stacks, though the woman on the phone needed only the electronic copies Miranda had already sent.
Her name was Andrea Pierce, and she spoke without drama.
The proposed consultant role might preserve salary on paper while materially reducing authority, bonus eligibility, direct reports, and client ownership.
The timing of the title change, the assumptions about Miranda’s availability, and Willa’s interception of a business opportunity were all relevant, but none required Miranda to decide that afternoon whether she wanted to return, resign, or fight.
“Do not sign anything,” Andrea said. “Do not send more internal correspondence to yourself. Forward me whatever is already in your possession, and let the company put its position in writing.”
Miranda looked toward the staircase. Garrett had stopped moving several minutes earlier, which meant he was listening from somewhere above the landing or standing in the bedroom pretending not to.
“What happens next?” she asked.
“I send a preservation letter and request the records used to create the proposed role. You review Nolan Sanders’s offer separately and make a business decision based on what you want, not on what frightens Halcyon.”
The simplicity of the distinction steadied her. By the time the call ended, the legal problem had edges. It would continue through letters, records, and deadlines that did not need to consume every room of the house.
Garrett came down a few minutes later in jeans and a dark T-shirt. He had changed, shaved the edge of his jaw where he had missed a patch that morning, and apparently decided not to ask how much the attorney would cost.
“What did she say?” he asked.
She told him.
Garrett pulled out the chair opposite her. “Does she think Halcyon broke the law?”
“She thinks the facts are worth preserving.”
“That is a careful answer.”
“She’s a lawyer.”
He nodded, accepting the evasion because there was no useful way to challenge it. His gaze moved to Nolan’s proposal, still open near Miranda’s hand.
“Did she review that too?”
“She’s checking the outside-work clause now.”
“And if it’s permitted?”
Miranda folded the leave agreement and slid it back into the blue folder. “I’ll accept.”
Garrett looked down at the table. The answer no longer surprised him, but hearing it stated as a decision altered the room.
“We need childcare before you start,” he said. “Not just Claire covering meetings. Something dependable.”
“I know. We’ve gone over this several times.”
“And the overnight travel.”
“There are two trips. Nolan said the dates can be agreed in advance.”
Garrett’s mouth tightened at Nolan’s name, though he kept his attention on the practical details. “I can take Owen when you travel.”
Miranda looked at him. “You work full-time.”
“So did you when we planned to have a baby.”
The sentence came without calculation, and Garrett seemed to hear it only after it had crossed the table. He looked away, but Miranda did not rescue him from the comparison.
“I can use vacation days,” he continued. “Or work remotely if Dennis allows it.”
“You should not ask Dennis for anything today.”
“I am not talking about today.”
“You are talking as though this project belongs to the version of our marriage we had last week.”
Garrett’s expression changed. He sat back slowly, the chair creaking beneath him.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m not making plans that depend on you being available until I know where we stand.”
For once, he did not ask what she wanted him to do. The question would have sounded too much like another task he could complete.
The garage door opened before either of them spoke again. Claire returned carrying Owen in the front carrier, his hat pushed crooked over one eye and one fist closed around the strap near her shoulder.
“He slept through the loudest motorcycle in the county and woke because I stopped walking,” she said. She unfastened the carrier while studying both their faces. “I assume civilization remains fragile.”
Miranda stood and took Owen. The weight of him settled against her with the same relief it always did, but the afternoon no longer seemed suspended around his needs.
Nolan’s proposal remained on the table, the attorney had begun her work, and Halcyon’s version of Miranda’s future was no longer the only one available.