Chapter Fifty - Daniel
CHAPTER FIFTY
Daniel
MARCUS WOULD BE an idiot if he didn’t offer her the position. And Hannah would leave, she would go to Denver.
Daniel wanted to be happy for her.
Marcus had texted him late: She aced it. Just wanted you to know.
Daniel had stared at the screen for a long time, thumb hovering over the keyboard, before locking the phone without replying.
She’d stay the night in Denver. That made sense. No reason to fly back the same day after something that big. She deserved to rest, to take her time.
So that morning, he was driving back to the house.
Her house.
The side gate still stuck. He should have fixed it before he gave her the house. Had told himself it didn’t matter. That she’d call someone, or leave it, or do whatever she wanted. But the hinge had been bothering him. If he couldn’t undo the damage he’d done, he could at least make the gate stop dragging.
It was the only way he allowed himself to love her now—fixing things when she wasn't looking, making her path smoother without recognition.
His love had become something he expressed in her absence, a devotion that required nothing in return, not even awareness. It felt right that way. Pure. Undemanding.
He parked at the curb, grabbed his tools from the backseat, and let himself into the yard.
The hinge was rusted worse than he remembered. He crouched, unscrewing the panel. He would fix it and leave. That was the deal now. Quiet service. Invisible penance.
A soft thud echoed from inside the house.
He froze.
Then—a laugh.
A man’s laugh.
Daniel went still, every nerve in his body snapping tight.
He turned, slowly, automatically sliding into the narrow space between the house and the fence. It was instinct—cowardly and immediate. Like prey. Like guilt.
He stood there, half-concealed by the climbing vines she’d planted their second summer there.
The back door creaked open.
Tristan .
Shirtless. Hair tousled. Coffee mug in hand like he fucking belonged there.
A jolt of heat that surged up from his spine, roared through his chest, and nearly knocked him off balance.
Rage .
Ugly. Primal. All-consuming.
Tristan laughed again—sleep-heavy, familiar—and turned back toward the kitchen. A moment later, Hannah’s voice followed. Quiet. Casual.
She was in there. With him.
And Daniel couldn’t breathe.
He stood there, crouched like a goddamn coward, watching Tristan step barefoot onto the porch, stretching in the sun like he’d just had the best night of his life.
The image was already there, seared into the backs of his eyes—Tristan’s hands on her, Tristan in her bed, her laughing in a way Daniel hadn’t heard in months. And not because of him. Never again because of him.
He wanted to punch something. Break something. Drive his fist through the fence or Tristan’s face or his own fucking reflection.
He wanted to scream. To claw the sound out of his throat and let it echo until it stripped him clean.
How dare he be here?
How dare he be allowed this—this softness, this closeness, this body, this laugh?
Daniel’s lungs burned. His teeth were clenched so hard his jaw ached.
And then—
The rage collapsed.
Fell in on itself like a wave hitting a wall of stone, breaking, falling back into the sea.
All at once, there was only grief.
Raw. Staggering.
She’d moved on. She was allowed to. She had every right to fuck whoever she wanted, to laugh with someone younger, someone new, someone who hadn’t betrayed her in the worst possible way.
He stood, slowly, forcing his limbs to move. Set the screwdriver back in the box. Closed the lid.
His limbs didn’t feel like his. Every movement was delayed, like he was a second behind his own body.
He didn’t finish fixing the gate.
Didn’t even try.
The air around him felt too still. Like the world had stopped moving and no one had told his body.
He just turned, walked out the way he came, and got into his car. His hands shook on the steering wheel. He didn’t start the engine.
He just sat there, staring at the house he used to call home, and let the silence hollow him out.
There was nothing under his skin now—just static and empty space where a heart used to live.
Because this wasn’t jealousy.
This was the cost.
And he’d paid for it in full.
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Daniel didn’t remember driving back to the motel.
One second, he was gripping the wheel so tightly his fingernails had dug into his palms, humiliation writhing like acid beneath his skin. The next, he was parked, the engine still running.
His hands wouldn’t move.
His body wouldn’t move.
He just sat there, motionless, staring through the windshield, the sound of his own breath too shallow, too unsteady.
His mind was blank. Or maybe it was too full.
Too full of Hannah .
Hannah.
His wife.
His wife, who had let another man touch her.
His wife, who had let another man press his lips to her skin.
His wife…who wasn’t his anymore.
She wasn’t waiting for him. She wasn’t home, curled up in bed, waiting for him to get his shit together and fix this.
She was moving on.
A sharp, gasping sound tore from his throat before he could stop it.
His vision blurred. Something broke loose inside him, fast and violent, shattering through the wall of fury and ego and fucking delusion he’d been holding onto.
She’s gone.
His chest caved in, his breath coming too quick, too ragged, his ribs tight like a vice. His hands were trembling, his fingers curling around the steering wheel, gripping nothing.
She was supposed to be his forever .
They were supposed to be unbreakable.
A sound ripped from his throat, something raw and guttural, something that wasn’t even a word.
His forehead slammed against the steering wheel. His body folded in on itself.
His stomach twisted.
His knuckles went white against the wheel.
I love her. I love her, I love her, I love her—the words pounded through his skull, useless now. Too late. Too fucking late.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Hannah was supposed to be hurting like he was.
But she wasn’t.
She was fine.
She was moving forward.
And Daniel wasn’t even a thought in her head.
She was supposed to be mine. Not anyone else’s. Mine.
His vision blurred.
His breath stuttered.
He squeezed the wheel tighter, gripping it so hard his arms locked up, so hard his knuckles ached, so hard he thought he might break something—
And then—
Something did break. Something inside him.
A sob ripped out of him.
He barely had time to react before the next one came—a violent, full-body tremor that cracked him open from the inside out.
And then another.
And another.
He gasped for air, but the sobs kept coming, shaking him apart, knocking the breath out of his lungs.
His chest burned. His throat ached. His face was wet, his shoulders heaving, his body curling in on itself.
He let out a strangled, guttural sound, pressing his forehead to the steering wheel, gripping it like it was the only thing keeping him from completely dissolving.
He had lost her.
Not just in theory.
Not just as some distant possibility.
But fully. Completely. Irrevocably.
Hannah was gone.