Chapter 10
Saturday morning dawns gray over Manchester. Through the large windows of the Chapman residence, the sky displays the same ashen hue as the coffee slowly cooling on the glass table, forgotten among papers and silence.
Seraphina has been awake since five. She has barely slept. Every time she closed her eyes, the memory of Nerissa’s mouth returned with searing clarity, along with the overwhelming desire she’d felt for her.
In the home office adjacent to the main living room, Elliot is reviewing legal documents while seated beside Adrian Beckett.
The two men discuss figures related to the firm with that matter-of-fact ease that, under normal circumstances, would have been comforting.
For Seraphina, however, the scene takes on an almost cruel undertone, because with every passing hour and day, she feels more and more as though she’s sitting on a ticking time bomb whose countdown only she can hear.
“We need to rethink the protection clause,” Elliot says, tracing a line through the contract with the tip of his pen. “If the Leeds investors try to pull out before the end of the quarter, we’re going to need more flexibility.”
Adrian nods. He’s wearing an impeccable navy-blue shirt that complements his relaxed posture, though his calm expression always seems to conceal something deeper and more calculating.
“I agree,” he replies. “People become unpredictable when they sense they can gain an advantage.”
Seraphina holds a folder in her lap and tries to keep her hands still. Ever since Adrian arrived an hour ago, she’s had the feeling that something has changed—a subtle shift in the way he looks at her.
“Though you know how these things are, Elliot,” Adrian continues as he accepts the cup of coffee his host hands him. “Sometimes you think you have a partner you can trust completely, and suddenly you discover they’re doing business where they shouldn’t.”
Elliot lets out a brief, gravelly laugh.
“That’s why I pay you obscene amounts of money. So you can track down those bastards before they cost me millions.”
“Believe me, I’m keeping my eyes wide open,” Adrian replies deliberately.
When Adrian looks up at Seraphina, her heart skips a beat.
“Respectable people are often the most interesting, actually,” he adds calmly, without taking his eyes off her. “Impeccable suits, perfect smiles... only to discover they have a surprising taste for forbidden things.”
The air leaves Seraphina’s lungs in a silent breath. Elliot, completely oblivious to the tension his wife is feeling, snorts with amusement.
“That sounded suspiciously specific.”
“Human nature usually is,” Adrian replies before taking a sip of coffee and shrugging.
A chill runs down Seraphina’s spine, and suddenly she has the feeling that the man sitting across from her is capable of tearing her life in half.
“You know a lot about risk management, Seraphina,” Adrian says then, leaning forward. “Tell me something. What happens when you discover that someone has been violating an important contract behind everyone’s back?”
Elliot continues flipping through documents, oblivious to the subtext. Meanwhile, Seraphina digs her nails into her palms until she feels a sharp sting.
“The contract gets terminated. End of story,” Seraphina replies with all the coldness she can muster. “No second chances.”
Adrian smiles slowly, completely satisfied.
“Exactly. No second chances.”
The rest of the morning becomes an exhausting exercise in restraint.
Adrian continues making seemingly innocent comments.
Elliot laughs, responds with his usual jokes, and keeps working.
But Seraphina can barely participate. She feels as though Adrian is studying her, waiting for the precise moment her facade cracks.
He can’t know. It’s impossible.
And finally, around one o’clock in the afternoon, when Adrian leaves, Seraphina feels such intense relief that her legs nearly give out beneath her. Elliot locks the front door and returns to the living room, loosening his tie, tired but satisfied.
“I swear that man enjoys terrorizing clients just for the fun of it,” Elliot remarks with a smile.
Seraphina nods, once again adopting a completely neutral demeanor.
“Yes, he’s very intense.”
“But brilliant,” Elliot admits. He steps closer and absentmindedly kisses her temple while gathering papers from the table.
The gesture—so ordinary and full of affection—fills her with such overwhelming guilt that Seraphina has to look away.
Especially after the distance between them these past few days.
As her husband touches her tenderly, she can only remember another woman pressing her against a dark wall just hours earlier, with demanding hands and ragged breaths.
And that feeling of anxiety clings to Seraphina throughout the entire weekend.
*
The building seems colder than usual. Or perhaps she is the one carrying the cold inside her.
Seraphina walks through the executive floor hallways, sipping her coffee slowly, burdened by the paranoia that has lived beneath her skin since Saturday.
That’s why, the moment she reaches the sports medicine wing, she goes looking for Nerissa.
She finds her in one of the auxiliary labs, reviewing medical records on a digital screen. When Seraphina enters, she closes the door behind her, immediately drawing the surgeon’s attention.
“So early in the morning and you already miss me?” Nerissa says jokingly.
“We have a problem,” Seraphina blurts out, stepping forward until she stands in front of the table.
“Good morning to you too.”
“I think Adrian saw us at the hotel,” Seraphina says bluntly.
That immediately captures Nerissa’s full attention. She stares at her in silence for several seconds before exhaling slowly.
“So?”
“What do you mean, ‘so’?” Seraphina asks, stunned by her disbelief.
Nerissa leans back in her chair without showing the slightest sign of alarm, though her fingers tap lightly against the armrest.
“The truth? I doubt he saw us. The whole clinic would’ve heard about it by now if he had.”
“You can’t know that for sure.”
“Neither can you,” the surgeon replies with a calmness that infuriates Seraphina.
“It’s just... you don’t understand what’s happening,” Seraphina insists, lowering her voice in case anyone might overhear.
“He was at the house on Saturday, and he spent half the morning making the strangest comments in front of Elliot. About double lives, broken contracts... and he looked at me like—”
“Like the lawyer he is, enjoying the chance to make people uncomfortable,” Nerissa cuts in, without the slightest trace of panic.
Seraphina feels like screaming.
She takes two steps toward the window and then turns back again, unable to remain still.
“Nerissa, please, stop minimizing this.”
The surgeon stands and watches her with her arms crossed.
“The thing is, you turn every little detail into the end of the world because you’re terrified of losing your perfect facade.”
Seraphina stands motionless, her throat burning.
“That’s not fair.”
“No?” Nerissa takes a step toward her. “Because I’m pretty sure you spent the entire weekend obsessing over the fact that some guy—who, by the way, is a complete asshole—threw out a couple of metaphors in front of your husband.
You know what amazes me? How quickly you panic the moment you think your perfect bubble might burst.”
The tension is thick enough to cut with a knife.
“I don’t need you to judge me,” Seraphina murmurs, with no intention of arguing.
Because Seraphina Chapman knows all too well how those arguments always end.
Nerissa holds her gaze. For a fleeting second, something more vulnerable peeks through the coldness she’s projecting: exhaustion, pain... and in that moment, Seraphina knows exactly what she means.
“What you need... is to finally decide what the hell you want.”
A knock on the door interrupts the moment. Both women instinctively step back, their expressions changing just as Daphne Mercer enters the room.
“Sorry,” Daphne says, looking first at Nerissa and then at Seraphina. “Helena wants to review the transition budgets before the executive lunch.”
Seraphina immediately puts her mask back on, even though her heart is racing.
“Of course.”
Daphne hands her the folder, though the easy familiarity between her and Nerissa is impossible to miss.
“I’ve also reorganized the surgical department’s budget items,” she explains as she approaches the table. “Nerissa insisted on keeping the biomechanical recovery budget intact.”
“Because cutting it would be stupid and incredibly detrimental to future patients,” the surgeon replies without taking her eyes off Seraphina, her tone carrying more than one layer of meaning.
Daphne smiles, like someone accustomed to those mood swings.
That small detail triggers an immediate discomfort in Seraphina, a twinge that pierces her chest.
But at that moment, she isn’t in the mood to dwell on it.
Two hours later, the executive dining room is bustling during the Mercer & Associates lunch. Seraphina sits at one end of the long table, reviewing various documents while trying to ignore what’s happening several seats away.
But she fails miserably.
As if what she saw in the lab hadn’t been enough, watching Daphne and Nerissa work together is devastating. The knowing glances, the way Daphne absentmindedly offers Nerissa something to eat before she even asks. The body language between the two women... Seraphina should focus on work.
But the truth is, she can’t.
“It seems to me you still have the bad habit of not eating when you’re stressed,” Daphne remarks to Nerissa.
Several executives smile automatically at the familiarity.
Daphne brushes a dark strand of hair from Nerissa’s forehead with a gesture that is completely natural, intimate, and devastating.
“Come on, have some,” she insists, offering her plate. “I know you, and you’re going to end up with a migraine if you don’t eat something.”
“Wasn’t their relationship supposed to have ended badly?”
But then Nerissa smiles.
And Seraphina feels something horrible stir inside her.
Because that smile isn’t the same one she usually gives her in bed, amid rumpled sheets and promises Seraphina never quite manages to keep.
“Thanks,” Nerissa murmurs.
The laughter around the table makes the scene seem completely normal.
And that’s what hurts Seraphina the most: the normality of it.
No one looks at Daphne strangely. No one questions that closeness. No one treats it as something shameful.
While she has spent years hiding like a criminal.
Rage rises in her throat, mixed with jealousy so intense it almost embarrasses her.
She has no right, she knows that.
Even so, she feels an irrational urge to pull Daphne’s hand away from Nerissa’s arm, to wipe that damn smile off her face, to claim something she has never wanted to claim in public.
“How unfair you are.”
Then she clears her throat sharply and speaks.
“Dr. Ashcombe. Ms. Mercer.”
The conversations gradually die down, and Nerissa looks up at her.
“If you’ve finished reviewing your eating habits,” Seraphina continues, “I’d like to return to the numbers on page four. This clinic pays the consulting firm to optimize its resources, not to reminisce about old times.”
Lunch officially comes to a halt.
Daphne blinks in surprise, and several executives immediately lower their eyes to their documents.
And Nerissa...
Nerissa smiles.
It’s a smile full of defiance.
Something dark flickers in her eyes as she holds Seraphina’s gaze from across the table, as if she’s just realized exactly how much it hurts her to see her with another woman.