She stared at him for a long time, seeing the honesty and genuine concern there. He was upset—far more than she could ever have expected of him. She thought back to their moment together in that beautiful pub in London all those weeks ago, recognizing an echo between that moment and this. Ted cared for her, and not only as his employer. He cared about her as a person. Whatever he’d suggested, he meant it for her good.

Finally, she agreed. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

She stood up, ready to start gathering her things, and he stood with her, grabbing her arm and squeezing it, almost roughly.

“I mean it, Ryann. Think about things. Really think about them—don’t deflect, no matter how upsetting you find it. Promise me you’ll try.”

She hesitated. “I promise, Ted.”

Half an hour later, she greeted the doorman at her apartment building and got into the elevator. She stood there, brain fogged and dazed, staring at the buttons for a long time before remembering to push the one for her floor. The doors shut, closing off the view of the curious doorman, who had apparently watched her stand there as she did nothing. She saw his head whip forward again when she noticed him watching.

Her apartment was incredibly dark for this time of day, and it was on a high enough floor that the fog was starting to close off the world outside the windows. She stood by the door for a while, wondering what to do with herself, before finally remembering her dripping coat. She hung it in the closet, dropped her purse and keys onto the little seat by the door, and kicked off her heels, not caring, for once, if she ruined her stockings. She changed into a tracksuit, some of her only nonwork clothes, and made herself an espresso in her dark kitchen.

Like in her office building, she could usually see a little patch of the park from her floor-to-ceiling windows, but the fog made that impossible today. She sat down on her loveseat, looking around the darkened room, at a loss with what to do with herself. She remembered Ted’s edict—to let herself think about things with Maddie—but she was having a hard time letting herself do exactly that. She shied away from any thoughts of her, or Stuart, or Colorado, almost as if her mind had its own plans and agenda. She’d been training herself, after all, not to indulge during all these lonely weeks.