The silence between them had teeth.

It was not the soft quiet of exhaustion or truce, it was sharp, deliberate, and dangerous. Every time Elena addressed him in the boardroom with her new choice of title, Mr. Moretti, Dante felt the sting like a cut across the skin. She had gathered every trace of warmth between them, locked it in a vault, and thrown away the key.

To the board, it looked like professionalism. To Dante, it was punishment.

That morning's meeting stretched longer than usual. ...