34. CHAPTER 31
Orion
I woke earlier than I had intended to—by force of habit.
It took me a second to register I was still in her bed.
The mattress was softer than mine. More comforting too. Léonie lay pressed to my chest, breathing softly while pins and needles crept through my arm wrapped around her body.
I angled myself enough to get a good look at her.
She was on her side, turned slightly toward me now, a hand tucked under her cheek.
Hair spilled in waves over the pillow, one strand stuck to the corner of her lips.
I slowly pulled it aside and took in how her lashes rested dark against her skin, how there was no tension in her jaw, no bite of worry between her brows. She looked peaceful.
I didn’t think I’d ever seen her like that. Even while I watched her on that grainy surveillance, or here in my own house, she always carried some kind of weight. Even when she laughed, there was a guard somewhere in the background.
Here, there was nothing. Just simply Léa. My Léa.
I’d held her all night, now my arm was dead, but I didn’t dare move. The faint light sneaking past the curtains told me it was barely six. I had a nine o’clock call with Singapore, a briefing with Legal, another meeting with the doctors in my father’s wing to discuss palliative care.
Dr Gérard words from yesterday still plaguing my mind. “we stop fighting the stroke and start managing the end.”
“Stop fighting.” meant giving up but I wondered the use of fighting now when at every turn it seemed my father’s body had surrendered to his illness.
The only comfort I felt was her body pressing against mine. Being around her had somehow filled part of the void created by my father’s absence.
I still felt the fear, but it wasn’t as brutal as before. It felt safe to have someone by my side who didn't expect me to have all the answers when my world was finally falling apart.
Safe. Not a word I was familiar with, or used before. But that’s how this feels.
I stayed exactly where I was for five more minutes.
Her breath fanned across my chest, evenly. Every rise and fall pressed her closer; every exhale softened a part of me I hadn’t dared to touch.
I could get used to this.
The thought came uninvited. Unwanted. Ruinous.
Slowly, I eased my arm from under her. She murmured something unintelligible and rolled onto her back, her hand splaying over the warm indentation where I’d been. I froze, waiting to see if she’d wake. She stilled again.
I sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, elbows on my knees, staring at the faint outline of her in the dim room. My pillow had never smelled like anyone but me. Hers already carried my cologne.
I like that it did.
Found myself hoping she’d like waking up to it. That the scent of me would be the first thing she'd notice when she realized I was here all night. My mouth slanted in a self-deprecating smile.
Leaning back over her, I brushed another stray strand away from her face. My fingers hovered tempted to touch her again, then I bent and pressed my mouth to her forehead in a lingering kiss that tasted peaceful and unnervingly close to reverence.
“Rest,” I whispered against her skin. “I’ll be back before dinner.”
She didn’t stir.
I straightened, grabbed my discarded shirt from the chair, and slipped it on as I left. My shoes waited outside her door where I’d left them; I slid into them and walked down the hall toward my own room, toward the day and the thousand demands that came with it.
By the time I got home that afternoon, I’d convinced myself the throbbing in my chest was work.
Singapore had gone long. Logistics had gone longer.
The call with my father’s doctors turned into a virtual debate over protocols and decline curves that all sounded the same as yesterday, last week and last month.
Except from the palliative care portion that had more depressive terms like “lucid but in pain” and “DNR”.
I tried to put it all behind me, even though most of it weighed heavy within me, and made my way home before 3:00PM.
I asked for her the moment I stepped through the door.
“Madame Kade is in her studio, sir,” Isabella said. “She’s been there most of the afternoon.”
Fleetingly, I was tempted to go to her. I wanted to see if the fire from last night was still in her eyes or if the morning light had brought back the familiar distance.
I held back. If she was in her studio, she was working.
At least she was busy. Busy meant content.
Content meant less time spiraling into the things I couldn’t fix—like the three to six-month timer the doctors had just placed on my father’s life.
I asked Isabella if my wife had eaten lunch; she said yes. It was a small relief. One less thing for me to monitor, one less piece of her to protect.
I took the rest of my calls from my home office. Numbers, contracts, one more conversation with Severin about a security issue that had nothing to do with her.
“Keep the Leuxmbourg file separate,” I said, pacing behind my desk. “I don’t want it anywhere near—”
The door opened without a knock.
I stopped mid-step, and saw my wife standing by the doorway, in a yellow floral dress, delicate fabric,her legs bare, hair pulled back in a low knot. Yellow is definitely her color.
But as I studied her face… it looked tired. Drained. Void of warmth. Her eyes had gone hard—the way they always did before she walked away from anything that hurt.
Severin’s voice buzzed in my ear. “Orion?”
“Brother, let’s talk later,” I said, cutting the call. I took the phone from my ear, set it down, my eyes never leaving her. “Léa—”
“Is it true,” she asked, her voice was so calm, it made the hair on my neck rise, “that you paid Yves and his family to leave the country?”
Everything changed. Fast.
My hand bit into the corner of the desk. “Where did you hear that?”
She stepped inside, closing the door behind her. She moved closer and laid it on my desk between us. Face up.
An email. An offer letter. Seven figures over three years, relocation package, The Tokyo office. The company name was one of ours, buried two shells deep. Only someone who knew what to look for would have traced it.
And I knew who it was.
I looked back up at her. “So you’ve been digging.”
Her mouth moved, almost trembling, then steadied. “Is it true?” she repeated. “Yes or no, Orion.”
I could have lied. It would have been easy, a clean denial, blame the board, blame anyone, say someone who works for me had overreaching.
But I don’t do lies. Not with my wife, or when it comes to the things I’m willing to own.
“Yes,” I said. “It’s true.”
She stared through me. The gentleness was gone. In its place was the look of a woman bricking up the windows I’d spent all night opening.
Watching her eyes go cold, made my chest constrict.
This morning, I’d called her my safe place; now, I was a man standing in the middle of a storm with no coat and no cover.
“So you had offered him a six-figure position in Tokyo,” she said sternly. “You paid him just to get him away from me.”
I smoothed my cuff, more to keep from punching something than for any real adjustment. “I had given him a choice,” I rectified. “Stay here, under a level of scrutiny and pressure he isn’t built for, or take a position that sets his family up for generations. He made the rational decision.”
The new role made his time at the ambassador’s office look like an internship. It came with more benefits and a payout that sent his salary skyrocketing to triple its previous size. I did him a huge favor instead of punishing him the way anyone else would have.
“That’s not what I asked,” she retorted.
I met her gaze head-on. “He took what wasn’t his, Léonie. You are the daughter of the family I needed an alliance with, and he tried to run with you. That has consequences.”
“So you paid him off,” she said. “Like a problem.”
“I gave him and his family an opportunity,” I replied. “Far away from the fallout of the mess he made. Far away from you. That’s more mercy than most men in my position would have shown.”
You should be grateful.
“He’s alive, employed, and understands that you are no longer his concern,” I finished. “You’re mine.”
Her eyes gleamed in anger, definitely. Fear, maybe. And underneath it, for one sliver of a second, a hint of relief. It twitched, then vanished.
“You’re ruthless,” she whispered.
“I protect what’s mine,” I emphasized, staking my claim as I should. “You’d do well to remember that.”
“I’m not yours.”
The words hit me with the force of a slap.
In that moment, all I could see was last night—her curled into me, breathing softly into my chest, my arm going numb from holding her because I refused to let go.
Her on her knees for me. Her taste still in my mouth from kissing her past the point of needing air, her body shaking around my hand, my name breaking on her lips.
Not mine?
A short, humorless laugh slipped out unsolicited.
“Ignore that at your leisure,” I said. “It doesn’t make it less true.”
She flinched, though she tried to hide it.
“Why did you hide it from me?” she asked, tilting her chin up to maintain her stance. “If you were so proud of what you did.”
“I didn’t hide it,” I said hoarsely. “I simply didn’t burden you with logistics that were already handled. It was trivial. Nothing you needed to concern yourself with.”
Her brows drew together as if I’d physically struck her. “Trivial,” she repeated. “You’re talking about my life. A man I cared about. You altered his entire future because of me, and you think that’s trivial?”
“You would rather he was dead?” I asked, my voice intensifying. “Because that is what your father would have done. What your brothers wanted. Between a bullet and a plane ticket, I chose the option that left him breathing.”
“That’s not the point,” she fired back. “You should have told me. At least mentioned it. You made a decision that involved me without ever speaking to me.”
“So did you,” I said, the edge in my tone dropping lower. “Many, in fact.”
She stilled.