Victoria left at ten fifteen. I knew because I heard her heels cross the dining room floor, the particular rhythm of a woman who had gotten exactly what she came for and was leaving at precisely the moment that served her best. She said goodbye to Daniel warmly. She said goodbye to me with a pause before it that lasted one second too long. She said goodbye to Noah last. I couldn’t see what passed between them. I heard it. The slight shift of her voice, lower, something meant only for him, and then his response, quiet and even, and then her heels again and the elevator and silence. I had tracked Noah through the entire dinner by sound. The particular way he set his glass down when he was thinking. The almost imperceptible change in his breathing when Victoria slid that envelope across the table. The quality of his silence when he picked it up, read it, and put it back down. He had put it back down. I had not expected that. “Well,” Daniel said. “Don’t,” I said. “I have
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