Chapter 1 #3
The rest of the reception lasted an hour.
I talked to the other finalists — the neurologist from Hopkins, the immunologist couple from Chicago who finished each other’s sentences and clearly had the kind of partnership that survived the professional pressure.
I laughed at the right moments. I asked smart questions.
I ate a crab cake that tasted like nothing.
Joanna found me again and we traded email addresses, and the normalcy of it — the simple human exchange of I like you, let’s stay in touch — almost made me feel like a real person instead of a woman performing one.
Liam stayed on the opposite side of the room.
I could feel him there the entire time — constant, low, sharp when I accidentally brushed against it.
Twice I caught myself tracking him in my peripheral vision.
Both times I stopped. He was talking to board members, to journalists, to the Hopkins neurologist who seemed thrilled to have the attention of a Buchanan. He didn’t look at me.
That should have been a relief. It wasn’t.
At eight-thirty, Priya took the small stage at the front of the room and pulled up a slide deck.
“I want to walk you through the timeline before we wrap up tonight,” she said, and the room quieted.
She clicked through the schedule: four board sessions over six weeks, each one a different format.
Session one, a formal presentation to the full panel.
Session two, a lab tour — the board would visit each finalist’s research facility.
Session three, a panel Q&A with the board and a group of external reviewers.
Session four, individual interviews. Then the ceremony on the Buchanan Biopharma campus, where the winner would be announced.
“Attendance is mandatory for all finalists and board members at every session,” she added, like it was a minor detail. “We find the process works best when everyone is present throughout.”
Six weeks. Four sessions plus the ceremony. Five days minimum in rooms with Liam Buchanan. Five days of professional smiles and civil handshakes while the image of his office played on a loop behind my eyes — the door open, the couch, the woman, his hands.
I did the math. I accepted the math. I’d survived worse.
I found my way out at nine. Said my goodbyes to Priya, to Hale, to Joanna. Collected my coat from the check. Walked out of the venue into the November air. Boston at night smelled like cold salt water and exhaust. The wind off the harbor cut through my blazer like it wasn’t there.
I crossed the parking garage on autopilot, my heels echoing off concrete, and found my car in the spot I’d memorized because I always memorized my parking spot now.
I memorized everything — every exit, every escape route, every way out of every room I walked into.
That was what he’d given me, along with the divorce papers and the settlement I’d refused to touch.
A woman who always knew where the door was.
I sat in the driver’s seat and closed the door and the silence hit me like a wall.
My hands were shaking. I hadn’t realized until I reached for the ignition and missed the button. I pulled them back and pressed them flat against my thighs, one and then the other, willing them to stop. They didn’t.
Fifteen months ago, I had walked into his office at six-thirty on a Wednesday because I’d left my laptop charger on his desk.
The door was open. The lights were on. The leather couch where we’d sat together on the day they moved in, drinking champagne from paper cups because the glasses were still boxed — that couch.
And Liam. And a woman I had never seen before in my life, whose face I would never forget.
He saw me first. She didn’t notice for another two seconds.
In those two seconds the entire future I thought I had — the house, the life, the children we’d talked about, the growing old, all of it — fell through the floor and kept falling.
I remember the specific quality of the light.
I remember the sound his breath made when he said my name.
I remember thinking, very clearly, that the champagne from paper cups had been the happiest day of my life and it was now the cruelest.
I had not let myself go there in weeks. I had built a life that didn’t require it. I had Fern. I had my lab. I had Kinsey and the apartment and the work and the quiet, ordinary days that had nothing to do with Liam Buchanan or his money or his empire or the sound the champagne cork made.
But seeing him tonight — the new gray in his hair, the quieter voice, the way he said my name like it still meant something to him — cracked the seal I’d spent fourteen months setting.
I sat in the car for seven minutes. I know because I watched the clock on the dashboard while I waited for my hands to stop shaking. At minute four, my phone buzzed. Kinsey: Fern’s down. She went easy tonight. I made pasta if you’re hungry.
I looked at the text for a long time. The two halves of my life, sealed apart.
In one, I was a researcher and a mother and I was building something real.
In the other, I was a woman sitting in a parking garage with shaking hands because her ex-husband said her name and she could still feel the warmth of his palm against hers from a one-second handshake.
I started the car. I drove home to my daughter. I didn’t cry. I was done crying over Liam Buchanan.
But my hands didn’t stop shaking until I was halfway across the bridge.