Chapter Thirty-One-Remy
She’s so fucking beautiful it hurts.
Even with her hair a little mussed from the ride, her blouse wrinkled, her lips parted on a soft breath.
My eyes eat her up.
I’ve been starving for a glimpse of her, and now I can’t look away.
“She falls asleep every time we drive home from school,” Andy says softly, breaking the silence.
Her voice cracks something inside me.
Familiar yet different.
A little too careful.
Like she’s testing the air between us.
I nod, because I can’t speak yet. My throat is thick, choked up with everything I want to say—everything I need to—but I bite it back.
Now isn’t the time.
I shift my focus to Callie, curled against her like she was born there.
My daughter now.
Our daughter, if Andy wants it that way.
And thank fuck, I think she already does.
I move closer and slide my arms under Callie, careful not to wake her, careful not to break whatever fragile truce hangs in the air between me and my wife.
For one charged heartbeat, Andy resists.
Her fingers tighten around Callie’s little frame.
And I wonder—is she holding onto Callie because she doesn’t want to let her go?
Or because she doesn’t want to let me in?
Finally, she exhales and lets me take her.
Callie melts into me without stirring, her small hand curling against my chest like she knows she’s safe.
I glance back at Andy.
Her hazel eyes flick to mine, wide, shimmering, unreadable.
Relief?
Fear?
Why is she afraid?
Fuck.
We need to talk. We need to strip this down to bone and blood, because whatever shifted while I was gone—it’s written all over her.
But not now. Not while Callie’s tucked in my arms.
So, I nod toward the door.
“Let’s go inside.”
Then I dismiss the driver with a dip of my chin.
I wait for Andy to precede me, and I watch her go, her hips swaying, leather boots tapping against the stone like a drumbeat I can’t tune out.
And the whole time, one thought loops through my head like a curse.
Something changed.
And I’ll be damned if I don’t find out what it is.
I carry Callie upstairs, her little head lolling against my shoulder. She’s out cold, the kind of deep sleep only kids seem capable of.
Andy trails behind me, silent, her presence like a ghost brushing the back of my neck.
The house feels different.
Not hers. Not mine. Not ours.
Something in the air has shifted, and it’s making every muscle in my body coil tight.
I settle Callie into her bed, tucking the blankets under her chin, kissing her forehead the way she insists every time she naps.
She doesn’t stir, just sighs, clutching her stuffed owl like it’s her lifeline.
Andy lingers in the doorway, arms folded, watching.
Once, that look would have undone me.
Now? It makes me ache with something I can’t name.
I straighten and brush past her gently, needing to touch her even if it’s just the slope of her shoulder.
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t lean in either.
Fuck. I just stand there and watch her walk away from me, and it’s breaking my heart.
By the time I get downstairs, she’s already in the kitchen.
The kettle’s on the stove, water just starting to hum.
She’s moving with quiet precision, laying out a mug, setting her favorite little tin of loose tea leaves on the counter.
Like she doesn’t feel me there.
Like she doesn’t feel the weight of my stare boring into her spine.
I stand in the doorway, fists clenching and unclenching, every instinct in me screaming to close the distance.
To grab her, pull her into my arms, bury my face in her neck until she remembers who the hell I am and what we are.
But I don’t.
I wait.
And the silence stretches.
She doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t give me one flicker of hazel eyes or trembling lips. Just keeps waiting for her boiling water, measuring out her leaves, busying herself like I’m not in the room.
The kettle whistles.
The sound cuts through my chest like a knife.
I want to howl. To rage. To demand she stop pretending.
We were so close before I left—closer than I ever thought possible.
I saw it in her eyes, felt it in her touch, tasted it in her kiss.
She was mine. She is mine.
And now?
She’s slipping away.
I need her back.
I need her back in my arms, back in my bed, back in the center of my goddamn world where she belongs.
“Andy.”
Her name rips out of me like a growl, low and rough, meant to drag her gaze to mine.
I make a decision right then and there. I need to lay it on the line.
No more games. No more second guessing.