ELARA'S POV
Four weeks before the wedding, my Portland gallery manager quit.
Not dramatically. Daniel had been with me two years, was methodical and reliable, and gave me three weeks notice with a typed letter explaining he'd accepted a position at a museum in Chicago. It was professional and completely inconvenient.
I spent the first day handling it calmly and the second day stress-cleaning the apartment at eleven PM.
Damien watched me scrub the kitchen counter for four minutes before saying, "Talk to me."
"I'm cleaning."
"You cleaned this morning."
"It needed doing again."
"Elara."
I put down the cloth. "Daniel leaving means I have to either promote someone internally who isn't ready or hire externally in four weeks while also planning a wedding and managing the Seattle gallery
