Chapter Twelve
Alexander
Three days later.
It was foolish, how often I found myself lingering in the places she'd been, touching things she’d touched.
Foolish how my hands remembered the curve of her waist, the softness of her skin, and ached to feel it again. I wasn’t going to call her. I had told myself a dozen times. I couldn’t give in. She needed space, and I needed to find my goddamn control.
Yet there I stood, in my office, staring at the phone like it held all the answers. I could fix this. I could make it better with a single call, a single word.
“Where are you?” “I shouldn’t have let you go.” “Tell me you’re okay.”
I nearly broke then. Nearly called. Nearly revealed how fucking miserable I was without her. My jaw clenched as I threw the phone back on the desk. This was better. This was right. This was killing me.
I had to let her go. She wasn’t made for my world, and I couldn’t keep pretending I was the man who could give her what she needed. Still, every goddamn moment without her felt like breathing white-hot fire into my lungs.
I dragged a hand through my hair, hating myself. Every room in the house was silent, too silent, and I swore I could still hear her voice echoing against the walls. The way she laughed, the way she filled the space with a warmth I hadn't realized was missing.
She was a drug, and I was the addict too far gone to save.
I stood there, drowning in it, fighting the urge to hear her voice, to take back everything I’d said and more.
My own words haunted me.
“You knew what this was.” The cold bastard I had to be, the asshole who pretended letting her go was just a business decision, when it was tearing me apart.
She had looked at me, those eyes burning with the kind of hurt that gutted a man, and all I did was stand there like the coward I was, convincing myself it was the right thing.
But was it? Was it really?
I didn’t know anymore.
All I knew was that without her, the house felt like a damn tomb.
The day she left replayed in my mind like a broken record.
Her things packed, her eyes searching mine for a sign that this meant more, that I was more than a man hiding behind a contract and a fear of anything real.
And all I did was watch her walk out, thinking she’d be better off without me.
Now, I wasn’t sure I’d survive the mess I’d made.
The memory of our first days together in the house played cruel tricks on my mind.
She’d been nervous, but determined, bringing her bright spirit into a space that had known only shadows and silence.
I’d told myself she was here to serve a purpose.
A strategic decision.
But watching her settle into my life, watching her change everything just by being there—it had scared the hell out of me.
More than losing her.
More than anything.
I picked up the phone again, hands shaking with the conflict raging inside.
I wanted to call. I wanted to hold out.
I wanted her to be here without having to ask.
The man I used to be wouldn’t have hesitated.
The man I was with her didn’t know how to do anything but hesitate.
I was breaking every rule I’d set for myself, and for what?
For someone I shouldn’t want, yet couldn’t imagine not having.
This was supposed to be simple.
I was stupid enough to believe it would be.
Contracts are all well and good, but not when feelings were involved.
It wasn’t just my ego that stopped me.
It was knowing I couldn’t keep hurting her.
I’d seen the disappointment on her face, heard it in her voice when she’d asked what we really were to each other.
And I’d told her, hadn’t I?
I’d told her something she didn’t want to hear.
Now I was the one stuck with the words, like glass shards cutting deeper every second.
But hell, I wanted her back.
Even if it meant admitting I was wrong.
Even if it meant becoming something other than what I was.
A few months ago, the thought would have been impossible.
Now, it was the only thing I could think about.
My feet moved before I had a chance to stop them, taking me through the house, past rooms still filled with memories of her.
Her laugh, her scent, the goddamn calm she brought with her that gave way to chaos in her absence.
My heart pounded like I was twenty again and falling for something that could never be mine.
I reached the study once more, and the phone glared at me, a harsh reminder of how close I’d come.
I could hear her voice, telling me to let go of my pride.
Telling me to just be the man she knew I could be.
I wanted to listen. I wanted to tell her she was right.
Instead, I was here, alone, with nothing but the sound of my own stubbornness to keep me company.
“Call her.” My conscience.
My heart. My shame. But I resisted, leaving the study and trying to escape her presence that still lingered, making the decision feel more wrong with each passing second.
I was twenty minutes late to dinner.
Late enough for my mother to lift a perfectly penciled brow, but not enough to ignore the fucking charade of it all.
Family was family, after all, and there was a damned expectation.
Show up, sit, and endure the company of those who could drive a man insane.
But tonight, their usual bullshit held an extra edge.
Because Claire wasn’t beside me, and everyone saw it.
Her absence at the table burned like a cigarette to the skin.
“Where’s Claire?” my mother asked, concern layered under politeness.
It hit harder than I wanted to admit.
I hadn't even sat down before the interrogation began.
With a glance at her, I swallowed words I wasn’t ready to say. “She’s not here.”
My mother’s eyes flickered with something I couldn’t quite decipher. Sympathy? Disappointment? I looked away before it could dig in too deep.
Of course, Allison chimed in. She never could resist a moment like this. “Oh, you haven’t heard?” she drawled, like she had rehearsed this exact line. “It seems the marriage fell apart.” She paused, savoring each word, her gaze flicking back to me as she spoke slowly. “What. A. Surprise.”
My grip tightened around the back of the chair. I kept my mouth shut. Responding would mean she’d gotten to me. And if I’d learned anything, it was to never give her the satisfaction.
“Shame, really,” Allison said, her eyes sparkling with toxic amusement. “But I’m sure she’ll bounce back without you—she’s good at that, after all.”
I finally sat, not trusting myself to speak. Allison’s words were the only sound in the room, and my family said nothing.
The reality was, everyone had expected this. They saw Claire as the girl who didn’t belong. The sweet, selfless woman who could never last in a world like mine. And here they were, jumping to conclusions that made my blood boil. But the truth—that I had let her go, that I was the one fucking miserable now—was something I wouldn’t give them.
I downed the whiskey in front of me, savoring the burn in my throat, a welcome distraction from the silence. Silence that was both a judgment and a relief.
“I really liked her,” my mother said finally, her voice quieter, as if that could soften the impact. “Are you okay?”
I was a statue at that table, hard and unyielding, because if I wasn’t, I might actually crack.
“She left him,” Allison said under her breath to my father, not bothering to lower her voice enough to not be heard by the whole table.
He grunted in reply, already moving on to a different conversation, the kind that didn’t involve the personal failures of his eldest son.
“No one has filed for divorce and all marriages hit rough patches. Pretending otherwise is foolish,” I said, the words biting as I forced them out. I needed this dinner to end. I needed the looks of pity and triumph and subtle glee to be over.
But I couldn’t ignore the way my mother watched me. Like she saw something in my eyes that I hadn’t said.
“You let her go?” she asked, probing deeper. Always probing.
“I let her—” I said, the words tangling in my throat. How the hell could I explain that this was the choice I had to make, that this was supposed to be the right decision? Instead, it felt like I’d ripped out my own heart and handed it to them on a silver fucking platter. “Of course, I let her go. She’s not a prisoner. She needs time and space, and I’ll respect that.”
My mother’s lips pressed into a thin line, her disapproval tempered by something else. Something that looked too much like care.
“I’m sure she’ll be just fine,” Allison said, twirling around one finger, basking in the moment she’d waited for since the day Claire first appeared at my side.
The conversation shifted after that, thank God. Moved on to safer topics like my brother’s latest business venture or who was screwing who in the city’s socialite circle. I nodded at the right times, refilled my glass with practiced ease, and let them believe whatever they wanted. Let them see me as the ruthless man they expected, not the one shattered by his own choices.
When dinner finally ended, and the last insincere goodbye was uttered, I left feeling hollow. They thought I was the same bastard who could let a woman like Claire go without a backward glance. Maybe I was. But it didn’t stop the dull, constant ache of missing her, and the damn truth that I was the reason she was gone.
The silence felt like an executioner.
It tortured me with everything I didn’t have. Everything I couldn’t admit I needed. And it crept in worse at night, suffocating me like a pillow over the face. The spaces she’d filled within me and in my home…
It ached. All of it. No matter how many times I washed my sheets, I could still smell her sweet scent. So, I moved into the guest room in an attempt to escape. But she was there, too, like a ghost tormenting me.
Damn it, it was as if she’d branded herself into every facet of my life. And Christ, she had.
The house was an empty expanse of too many rooms and not enough Claire. Every damn thing reminded me of her, from the plants she’d talked to daily to the books she’d stacked by her side of the bed.
I had tried to put it all away, hide it so I wouldn’t have to face how much it hurt to look at. But every effort made it worse. Made her absence all the more present.
And then, the things I couldn’t put away. The memories of her smile, the brightness she brought into my cold, calculated world. They clung to me like shadows, making my attempts to forget as futile as trying to hold water in my hands.
The silence should have been a comfort, a return to what I was used to. Instead, it was a constant reminder of Claire.
It was on the couch that I found it—a slip of paper, creased and worn, tucked between the cushions. A list of things she meant to do: pick up milk, call Michael, fix the loose button on Alexander’s favorite shirt. Mundane. Innocent. And so completely her that it broke me.
The ink was smudged, like she’d carried it around before losing it here. But she’d fixed the button. I sat with it, the simple damn piece of paper, and it told me more than any letter, any confession.
This woman I let go—she’d settled into my life like she belonged there. And the ache of missing her was worse than anything I could have imagined.
I wanted her.
More than the plans I had, more than the facade I’d spent years constructing. I wanted her more than I’d ever let myself want anything. And in my arrogance, my desperate need to stay in control, I’d pushed her away.
I hadn’t seen it before. How she’d crept in, lingering in my heart. Making me need her in ways I couldn’t begin to understand until it was too late.
But now? Now it was all I saw.
Her laugh, soft and sweet. Her touch, gentle enough to undo a man like me. All the things I’d thought I could live without, now the only things I could think about. I let it in, the mess of feelings I’d tried so hard to shut out, and it consumed me. The careful distance I kept, the excuses I made—they crumbled, leaving me raw and exposed to the brutal truth of it.
I’d made a ruthless choice. The kind of choice that once defined me. The kind I was starting to hate myself for.
I pressed the list to my forehead, feeling the cool, thin paper like it might somehow erase the stupid decisions I’d made.
Because this is who I was. The man who never looked back. The man who couldn’t let himself do forever.
And yet, I was looking back.
I’d made the biggest mistake.
Letting her go… I was a fool. A blind idiot.
And I had no one to blame but myself.