Chapter 02
Birds of a feather
Colin
“Colin? The door’s open. I’m coming in.”
I don't move. I stay where I am. Collapsed on the floor, eyes shut, head resting against the wall, the weight of a half-empty brandy glass hanging loosely in my hand.
"Colin?"
A sigh escapes me, part breath, part groan. "Here."
He steps into the room, and the second his eyes land on me, his face twists into a grimace.
“What the hell are you doing down there like that? Did someone die and no one bothered to tell me?”
He really needs to stop with the jokes.
“I didn’t call you here for stand-up,” I say, my voice flat, parched from the burn of liquor and the ache that’s been sitting in my chest since the moment Ceci walked out the door. “I need your help.”
Oliver lifts his hands in mock surrender. “Easy. I’m just trying to make sense of the melodrama. You’re sitting on the floor, drinking alone.”
His gaze sweeps the room, searching. “Where’s Cecily? And the kids?”
“I cheated on her.” The words scrape out of me like gravel. “Ceci found out, and now she thinks she wants a divorce. I need you to tell me what you did to make Felicity forgive you that time… so I can fix this. I want to be here. With her. With our children. In our home.”
Every word feels like another nail driven into the coffin of my denial. A confirmation that this isn’t a nightmare I’ll wake up from.
Oliver staggers back a step, like I’ve just hit him. “Man, tell me you’re joking. Tell me you didn’t screw up like that. Not after all this time.”
I press my fingers to the bridge of my nose. The pressure does nothing to dull the pounding in my skull. “Are you going to help me or not?”
He studies me for a long moment, hands on his hips, jaw tightening. Then he turns toward the liquor cabinet. “I’m going to need at least one strong drink before we start.”
He pours three fingers of whiskey and drops into the armchair across from me. His voice softens—his eyes don’t. “How is she?”
I stare at him, incredulous. “Devastated. How do you think she is?”
“You look like hell yourself, so I can only imagine it was worse for her… especially since it must have been a shock when she found out.”
I fall silent, my gaze drifting to the spot where she’d been sitting earlier. My chest tightens at the memory, the sound of her voice, the way her face twisted into an expression I’ll never be able to erase.
I press my fingers hard against my eyes, as if I could blot the image from my mind, as if pressure alone could undo the past.
“How did this even happen, Colin?” Oliver asks, not with judgment this time, but with genuine confusion, almost disbelief.
I open my eyes and glare at him, irritation flaring. “Does it matter? It happened. Nothing changes that. What matters now is making Ceci listen to me… making her understand. And forgive.”
I know she will. She has to. She's hurt, blindsided. She never expected this from me. I tried to protect her from it, to keep it separate, away from us. I never wanted her to find out. And now she's convinced it's something it isn't.
Oliver exhales, swirling the amber liquid in his glass before pointing it slightly in my direction. "Well, if I'm going to help you," he says slowly, "I need to know what kind of damage we're actually talking about."
Against my will, my gaze drifts to the binder. It sits on the console table. Still. Accusatory. Heavy with the weight of my ruin. Waiting for the final blow.
Oliver follows the shift in my eyes, and before I can react, it's already in his hands.
"Don't touch that!" The words tear out of me, harsh and desperate, but too late. He's already flipping through the pages.
Every nerve in my body screams for me to move. To lunge forward. To rip it from his hands, shred it until nothing recognizable remains, or burn it until only ashes are left and the proof is gone.
But my body won’t obey. It feels leaden, locked in pain, longing, and desperation.
“Cecily put this together?” Oliver’s voice softens, almost reverent.
“No wonder she nearly won the Pulitzer last year.”
He goes quiet after that. The only sound in the room is the slow, damning rustle of pages turning.
My throat burns. Acid crawls up the back of it. It feels like she’s here again… like her calm, steady hands are methodically arranging the proof of my betrayal, one page at a time.
Then a strangled laugh escapes him, broken, disbelieving.
“Jesus Christ, Colin… how long were you with this woman to go through this many condoms and—holy shit.”
He tilts one of the pages toward the light, his voice faltering. He doesn’t need to say it. His lack of words alone tells me which receipt he’s staring at.
Heat rushes up my neck, flooding my face. I squeeze my eyes shut, wishing I could disappear. Anywhere but here, anywhere beyond the crushing weight of my own guilt and shame.
I swallow hard as the memory cuts through me, mercilessly. The night I unlocked the drawer in my home office and pulled out that box.
The set.
Small. Medium. Large.
I remember the brief, reckless flicker of excitement when I lifted the medium one from its velvet lining.
I swallow again.
I’d bought it more than two years ago and never once brought it up to Ceci, leaving it forgotten in that drawer. Experience had already taught me—back in my reckless youth—that anal sex was, for most women, more pain than pleasure.
And Ceci… she’s soft. Gentle. She never refused me anything, never set limits when it was just us. But I could never ask her to endure something I knew might hurt her. I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing that pain on her face.
And yet… that's all I saw today.
Pain. Pain carved into her by my own hands.
I should’ve thrown that set away a dozen times. Every time I remembered it existed. Every time the thought of using it with Ceci surfaced. But I didn’t.
The euphoria I'd felt that day in Miami, buying the lube and numbing cream, feels unreal now… like I'm watching a stranger through glass. A version of myself too blind, too arrogant to realize that you can't have both—pleasure and control—without losing everything you love.
What use is there in dwelling on what ifs and choices I never made? What matters now is finding a way around this, fixing what I broke. Ceci loves me. We've built a life together, a home, a family. I love her… and she knows it. She's always known. I never hid it.
Once the anger burns itself out, she'll see that again. She'll understand. She has to.
"Christ," Oliver mutters, shaking his head, flipping through another page. "I don't think I've ever seen anything like this in my life."
His voice startles me, I’d almost forgotten he was in the room. I snap my gaze toward him. “Get off your damn high horse,” I bite out. “You cheated on Felicity too. At least I didn’t do it in our own house—with a newborn on the next floor.”
Oliver’s head jerks up, fury flaring in his eyes. I know how much he hates it when I bring that up. And yet, here he is, acting as if his hands are clean.
“Go to hell,” he spits. “It happened once. In our home. Once. And at least I didn’t carry on a full-blown affair.” He jabs a finger toward the binder. “A designer dress, shoes, work trips, hotel stays, dinners, flowers, expensive chocolates for your mistress—are you serious?”
My jaw locks. “It was her birthday. She wouldn’t stop talking about it for weeks. It didn’t mean anything.” I exhale sharply, forcing my voice steady. “I was fucking her for months, yes—but all of that?” I gesture dismissively. “Pocket change. Money that means nothing to me.”
Then a crooked smirk slips out. “At least I didn’t buy her a diamond necklace and hide it in a sock drawer for my wife to find—with a little note tucked inside.” I shrug one shoulder. “Maybe the saying’s right. Birds of a feather…”
His face hardens, the anger setting into his jaw before the words even come. “You damn well know I only bought that to shut her up. I was trying to end it, to make it go away without blowing up my life.” He turns away, drags a hand through his hair, then spins back around, his jaw tight with anger.
“And you know what? The one with the real problem here is you. I screwed the nanny a few times over a month—years ago. One month. It happened once, in our house. My wife forgave me. I love her. We’re happy.
I will never make a stupid, selfish choice like that again.
I’ve chosen my wife and my family every single day since. Every fucking day.”
He jabs a finger toward me. “You should’ve learned from my mess, not doubled down and raised the stakes”
That shuts me up. Neither of us says a word.
Oliver pours himself another shot of whiskey and sinks back into the chair, the binder resting open in his hand. I don't even care anymore. He's already seen it all. Every receipt, every timestamp, every goddamn piece of evidence.
“How do I make Ceci forgive me?” The words break on my tongue, rough, pleading. “How did you make Felicity forgive you?”
Oliver shakes his head, avoiding my eyes. “It’s not the same thing, Colin. It happened early in our marriage. I didn’t take it as far as you did. And I didn’t make her do anything… she chose. She chose to forgive me. To give us another chance. That was her choice.”
He weighs his next words, then adds quietly, “I mean… Cecily’s a sweetheart. But I don’t think even she’s going to forgive you after this.”
The words hit like a punch. My pulse spikes, and I’m on my feet before I even realize it, pacing the room.
“Of course she’ll forgive me. She’s said it herself, again and again, that she can’t imagine living without me. And I can’t imagine living without her either.”
“I bet she said that before she saw all this.”
His voice is low, almost gentle, but it cuts straight through me. Every word finds its mark. I can’t let us end like this.