22. Benedict
— ? —
Benedict
The car is silent. Neither of us has moved since I killed the engine.
Her street is dark. Quiet. The kind of block where windows go black early and everyone minds their own business. I sit for a moment, hand still wrapped around hers over the console, trying to remember how to be a person who isn’t desperate.
Christine’s lips are swollen. Her hair is a mess - my fault. Her dress is wrinkled in places that make me want to wrinkle it more.
“We should go inside,” she whispers.
“We should.”
Neither of us moves.
I lift her hand to my mouth. Kiss her knuckles. Feel her shiver.
“If your mother is awake-”
“She won’t be.” Christine checks the dashboard clock. “She goes to bed early. Isabella’s been asleep for hours. We just have to be quiet.”
Quiet.
The word does something to me. Reminds me of the parking lot. Of her biting my shoulder to muffle the sound. Of what I promised her on the drive over.
“Then let’s be quiet,” I say.
We slip out of the car like teenagers sneaking past curfew.
I close my door with exaggerated care - a soft click instead of a slam. She does the same, pressing her lips together to keep from laughing, and the sight of her trying not to giggle on her own front step makes my chest ache with how much I love her.
Focus.
We climb the three flights in the dark, her heels in her hand now, bare feet silent on the stairs. I follow close behind, my hand finding her hip like it belongs there, steadying her - or myself - I’m not sure anymore. On the second landing the broken light flickers once and doesn’t come back.
At the door, she fumbles with her keys.
“Shh,” she whispers, even though neither of us has said anything.
“I didn’t-”
“Shh.”
I bite back a smile. Crowd closer. My chest against her back, my mouth near her ear. “You’re the one making noise.”
“Because you’re distracting me-”
The key slides in. The lock turns with a soft click.
She eases the door open inch by inch, peering into the dark hallway like she’s checking for guards. The house is silent. No lights. No movement. Just the faint hum of the refrigerator somewhere in the back and the soft tick of a clock on the wall.
“See?” she breathes, barely audible. “Asleep.”
She steps inside. I follow, pulling the door shut behind us with painstaking care. The latch catches. Holds.
Safe.
I exhale.
And then she’s turning in the dark hallway, finding my shirt, pulling me down to her.
Her mouth meets mine and the careful quiet shatters into something urgent.
I walk her backward, two steps, three, until her shoulders hit the wall and I’m pressed against her the way I was in the parking lot - except now there’s no windshield.
No witnesses. Just the dark and the silence and the way she’s already arching into me like she’s been waiting the whole drive home.
“Benedict-”
“I know.” I kiss her jaw. Her neck. The spot that made her gasp earlier. “I know. Bedroom. Just - one second-”
“Now.”
“Demanding.” I’m smiling against her throat. “I like it.”
Her fingers find my belt.
I stop breathing.
“Christine-”
“You promised,” she whispers. “In the car. You promised.”
“I remember.”
“Then-”
“Ahem.”
We freeze.
The sound comes from deeper in the house. The living room. A deliberate clearing of a throat that cuts through the dark like a blade.
My hands are still on her waist. Her fingers are still hooked in my belt. Neither of us moves. Neither of us breathes.
A lamp clicks on.
Soft yellow light spills into the hallway, and there - sitting in the armchair in the corner of the living room like she’s been waiting for hours, because she probably has - is Clara.
Arms crossed. Expression unreadable. A cup of tea on the side table beside her, long gone cold.
She looks at Christine.
Then at me.
Then at my hands, still on her daughter’s hips.
Then back at my face.
“Good evening,” she says. Pleasant. Terrifying.
Christine makes a sound like a deflating balloon. “Mom. You’re - you’re awake.”
“I am.”
“It’s late.”
“I know what time it is.”
I step back. My hands drop to my sides. I feel seventeen and caught and absolutely certain I am about to die in this woman’s living room.
“Clara.” I clear my throat. “Good evening.”
“Mm.” She studies me the way she might study a stain on good fabric. “You have lipstick on your collar.”
I resist the urge to check.
Christine is smoothing her dress, fixing her hair, doing all the things that make it incredibly obvious what we were just doing. “We were just - I mean, dinner ran late, and-”
“I’m not asking about dinner.” Clara stands. She’s small. She’s wearing a housecoat and slippers. She is the most intimidating person I have ever met. “Benedict. Come. Sit.”
It’s not a request.
“Mom-” Christine starts.
“You.” Clara points at her daughter without looking. “Go check on Isabella. She was fussy earlier. I want to speak with him alone.”
“But-”
“Christine.”
A beat. Two.
Christine looks at me. I see the apology in her eyes, the I’m so sorry, the she’s going to eat you alive. I try to look reassuring. I probably look terrified.
“It’s fine,” I say quietly. “Go. I’ll be fine.”
She hesitates. Squeezes my hand once, quickly, where her mother can’t see.
Then she’s gone, footsteps retreating down the hallway, and I am alone with the woman who raised the love of my life and who is currently looking at me like she’s deciding where to hide the body.
Clara gestures to the couch. “Sit.”
I sit.
She settles back into her armchair. Crosses her legs. Takes her time. Lets the silence stretch until I want to crawl out of my skin.
“You broke her once,” she says finally. No preamble. No warmth.
I swallow. “I know.”
“Do you? Do you know what she was like after? Do you know how many nights I sat with her while she cried? How many times I watched her pretend to be okay for the baby when she was falling apart inside?”
“No.” My voice is rough. “I don’t. I wasn’t there. That’s - that’s the point, isn’t it? I wasn’t there.”
Clara’s eyes narrow. “And now you’re back.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I love her.” It comes out simple. True. “Because I never stopped. Because leaving her was the worst decision I ever made, and I’ve spent months learning that regretting it isn’t the same as repairing it. I can’t pretend I don’t want this. Her. Isabella. A life. All of it.”
“Pretty words.”
“I know.”
“Words are easy.”
“I know that too.”
She studies me. The silence stretches. Somewhere in the house, I hear Christine’s voice, soft and muffled, probably soothing Isabella back to sleep. The sound does something to my chest. Cracks it open.
“She loves you,” Clara says finally. “Still. Despite everything. Despite what you did to her. She loves you in that stupid, stubborn way she loves everything - completely. Without reservation.” She leans forward. “You do not deserve this.”
“No.” I meet her eyes. “I don’t.”
“Then how are you going to make sure she doesn’t regret trusting you again?”
“By telling her things before she has to ask. Every time.” I take a breath. Steady myself. “Not with money. Not with gifts. With time. With presence. I stepped down as CEO.”
Clara blinks. The first crack in her armor. “What?”
“I named Grayson interim. The board approved the transition this afternoon and the announcement goes out tomorrow morning - I wanted Christine to hear it from me before she read it. I’m moving to chairman.
Quarterly meetings only. I’ll work a few hours a day at most. Maybe less.
” I swallow hard. “My father built that company. He gave his whole life to it. And I was about to do the same thing. I almost did. I let it take everything - my health, my time, my family. I let it take her.”
I shake my head.
“I’m not doing that again. The company will survive without me running it day to day.
It’s been surviving. I have good people.
But Christine-” My voice catches. “Christine won’t wait forever.
And neither will Isabella. She’s growing so fast. Every day I miss is a day I don’t get back. And I’ve already missed too many.”
Clara is quiet for a long moment.
Then, slowly, she rises from her chair.
I tense, unsure what’s coming.
She walks to the kitchen. I hear cabinets opening. The coffee maker gurgling to life. When she returns, she’s carrying two cups.
She sets one in front of me.
“You can call me Mom,” she says.
The words hit me like a fist.
I stare at the coffee. At her. At the careful, deliberate offering of it. My throat closes. My eyes burn.
“I-” I can’t finish.
Clara settles back into her chair. Sips her own coffee. Watches me with an expression that might, possibly, in the right light, be the beginning of warmth.
“Drink,” she says. “It’s getting cold.”
I lift the cup. My hand is shaking. The first sip scalds my tongue and I don’t care, because something is cracking open inside me, something I’ve been holding together with willpower and denial, and this small woman in her housecoat just broke it with four words.
A tear slides down my cheek.
I wipe it away quickly. Embarrassed.
Clara pretends not to notice.
We sit in silence, drinking our coffee, and it feels like something has shifted. Something has settled. An understanding, maybe. Or a beginning.
Footsteps in the hallway.
Christine appears in the doorway, Isabella drowsy and warm against her shoulder. The baby’s eyes are half-closed, thumb in her mouth, dark curls pressed flat on one side from sleep.
Christine takes in the scene.
The coffee cups. The quiet. The tear track still visible on my cheek that I didn’t quite manage to hide.
Her mother’s almost-smile.
“Did I miss something?”
I stand.
Cross to her.
I cup her face in my hands - gently, so gently, because Isabella is right there and Clara is watching and this moment feels sacred somehow - and I kiss her forehead. Let my lips linger. Breathe her in.
“I’ll tell you everything,” I promise. Quiet. Just for her. “For the rest of our lives, I’ll tell you everything.”
Christine’s eyes search my face. Find something there that makes her breath catch.
“Okay,” she whispers.
Isabella stirs against her shoulder. Makes a small, sleepy sound.
And in the armchair, Clara lifts her coffee cup to hide her smile.
***
The night has gone quiet in a different way now.
Mom retreated to her bedroom with a pointed look that said behave yourselves and an expression that suggested she knew perfectly well we wouldn’t.
Isabella is back in her bassinet, sleeping the deep, untroubled sleep of the very young.
And Christine and I are standing in the kitchen, two feet apart, the silence between us thick with everything we haven’t finished.
“You stepped down as CEO.”
It’s not a question. She heard. Of course she heard - the walls in this apartment are thin, and I wasn’t trying to be quiet.
“I did.”
“When?”
“This afternoon. Officially.” I lean against the counter, suddenly exhausted. “I’ve been transitioning for weeks. Delegating. Teaching Grayson to handle things without me. I didn’t want to tell you until it was done. Until it was real.”
She’s staring at me like I’ve grown a second head. “You love that company.”
“I love you more.” Simple. True. The truest thing I’ve ever said. “I love Isabella more. I love the life we could have more than I ever loved balance sheets and board meetings. I just forgot for a while.”
“That’s-” She shakes her head. “That’s a lot to give up.”
“It’s nothing.” I close the distance between us, stopping just short of touching her.
“Christine, I would give up everything. Every dollar, every building, every piece of the empire my father built. If it meant you would look at me the way you used to. If it meant I could wake up next to you again. If it meant-”
“Stop.” Her voice is thick. “You’re going to make me cry.”
“Would that be so bad?”
“I’ve cried enough for one lifetime.”
“Then let me give you reasons to laugh instead.” I take her hands. Feel them tremble in mine. “Let me spend every day trying to make you happy. Not with money. Not with things. With time. With presence. With being the man I should have been from the start.”
“You’re different.”
“I’m trying to be.”
“No.” She shakes her head, something soft entering her expression. “You’re already different. You have been for weeks. I just - I didn’t want to see it.”
“And now?”
“Now I see it.” Her fingers tighten around mine. “I see you.”
The words land somewhere deep. Somewhere I’ve been afraid to look.
“That’s all I ever wanted.” My voice breaks on it, and I don’t try to hide it. “Just to be seen by you.”
She rises on her toes. Kisses me softly, sweetly, nothing like the desperate heat of the car. This is something else. Something gentler. A promise.
“Stay,” she whispers against my lips. “Not - not for that. Just. Stay. Hold me. Let me fall asleep knowing you’re there.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.” She laughs, watery. “I’m not sure about anything. But I want to try. I want to try being sure.”
I pull her into my arms. Hold her the way I should have held her a thousand nights before. Feel her melt into me like coming home.
“I’ll stay,” I promise. “As long as you’ll have me.”
“That might be forever.”
“I’m counting on it.”
We stand there in Clara’s tiny kitchen, wrapped around each other, and somewhere outside the city keeps moving and the world keeps turning and none of it matters. None of it has ever mattered.
Just this. Just her. Just the impossible, miraculous second chance I never thought I’d get.
I’m not going to waste it.
Not this time or ever again.