That night, the four of us had dinner at a small restaurant near the harbor.It was my first time meeting Claire properly. She was not what I expected. I had imagined someone polished, distant, and impossible to approach, but she was open, sharp, and surprisingly easy to talk to. She teased Ford for being boring outside work, complained about foundation dinners, and asked me about my research with genuine interest.That only made me feel worse.If Ford had not been standing between us, I might have liked her.Over dinner, I learned that she and Ford had been together for three years. Three years, public and steady, with both families involved. By comparison, my anonymous relationship suddenly felt like a dirty little mistake, even though I had never known I was being made into one.I told myself that as long as I stayed quiet, as long as Ford treated her properly from now on, I could bury the whole thing and walk away.Daniel noticed my silence.“You’ve barely touched your food,” he sa
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