1. Hannah
— ? —
Hannah
Six Years Later
I’ve been awake for forty-seven minutes, and I’ve already handled three crises that aren’t mine.
Griffin’s 8 a.m. got rescheduled because the other party had a family emergency and no one bothered to tell us until I checked my email at 5:15 a.m. His dry cleaning got rerouted because the usual place lost his favorite charcoal suit and I had to sweet-talk a backup option into opening early.
His coffee order got modified because the new assistant doesn’t know he switches to cold brew when the weather breaks sixty degrees and it’s sixty-three this morning.
I also answered fourteen emails that were addressed to him but required my expertise to handle.
I confirmed the catering for Thursday’s investor lunch.
I rescheduled his dentist appointment for the third time because he keeps “forgetting” he has one.
I ordered replacement ink for his favorite pen, the one he claims he can’t sign contracts without, because he mentioned offhandedly last week that it was running low and I knew he’d never remember to do it himself.
By the time Griffin wakes up, the day is already running smoothly on tracks I’ve laid.
This is my life. It’s what I do. I make his world seamless so he can focus on conquering it.
The coffee maker beeps, and I pour two cups, black for me, oat milk and one sugar for him, and set his on the island where he’ll find it when he stumbles out of the bedroom.
I’ve been his wife for five years and his partner in everything for seven, and sometimes I can’t tell where one role ends and the other begins.
Where Hannah-the-wife stops and Hannah-the-woman-who-keeps-his-entire-life-from-imploding begins.
I used to think that was romantic. Two people so intertwined they couldn’t exist without each other. Now I’m starting to wonder if I’ve just made myself so essential that he’s forgotten I’m also a person with wants and needs and dreams that don’t revolve around his calendar.
My tablet pings with a notification. Another email, this one from Julie Myer’s assistant, the third this week, each somehow needing my attention before it needs anyone else’s.
I delete the notification and pull up his schedule instead, making sure everything is in order for the day ahead.
“Morning, beautiful.”
His voice is rough with sleep, and he wraps his arms around me from behind, pressing a kiss to the curve of my neck. His stubble scrapes against my skin, and it still makes me shiver, even now. Even when I’m annoyed with him, my body responds to his touch like it’s been programmed to.
“You’re up early,” he murmurs against my shoulder.
“Your 8 a.m. moved to Thursday. Your 10 a.m. is now your 9 a.m., and you have a twenty-minute gap before lunch with the marketing team.”
He laughs against my skin. “I meant good morning, Hannah. How did you sleep? What do you want for breakfast? Wife things.”
I set the tablet down and turn in his arms. He’s wearing those low-slung gray sweatpants that should be illegal, no shirt, his dark hair mussed from the pillow.
Even after all these years, Griffin Bloom looks at me like I’m something worth looking at.
It’s just that lately, looking is all he does.
The lingering gazes that used to lead somewhere now just…
linger. And then fade. Replaced by whatever’s waiting on his phone screen.
“I slept fine,” I say. “And I want to talk about something.”
His eyes flicker. It’s barely a tell, just a slight tension at the corners and a microsecond delay in his smile, but I’ve been reading this man’s expressions since I was nineteen years old.
I know what bracing looks like on him. I’ve seen it a thousand times, right before he pivots away from a conversation he doesn’t want to have.
“Okay,” he says carefully. “Talk.”
I take a breath. I’ve rehearsed this. Not out loud, but in my head, in the shower, in the car, in all the quiet moments when I let myself think about what I actually want instead of what the company needs.
“The Myer project launches in three months. After that, your schedule opens up. I checked, and you don’t have another major initiative on the books until Q4.”
“Hannah…”
“I want to start trying for a baby.”
The silence that follows is a living thing. I watch it move across his face, a flash of calculation quickly smoothed over by the easy charm that closes every deal. Griffin Bloom, master negotiator, facing a conversation he can’t delegate.
“Babe.” He cups my face in his hands, thumbs stroking my cheekbones. “You know I want that too. I do. But the Myer thing is huge. If we nail this collaboration, it opens doors we’ve been trying to crack for years. Once that’s done…”
“You said that after the Austin expansion. And the rebrand last spring. And the product launch before that.”
“I know.” He presses his forehead to mine. “I know I keep saying later. But this time is different. This is Richard Myer we’re talking about. The man I’ve been trying to impress since we started the company. Three more months, Hannah. That’s all I’m asking. Then we can try. I promise.”
I want to push. I want to tell him that I’m twenty-seven and I’ve been hearing “after this project” for two years. That I’ve given him everything, my time, my career, my body, my whole adult life, and I’m asking for one thing, just one thing, and he keeps moving the goalpost.
But his eyes are so earnest. And his hands are so warm on my face. And I love him. God help me, I love him so much I’ll set myself on fire to keep him warm.
“Okay,” I say quietly. “After the Myer project.”
“After the Myer project.” He kisses me, soft and sweet, and the tension in his shoulders dissolves. Crisis averted, conversation successfully redirected, another win for Griffin Bloom. “Thank you for understanding. You always understand.”
That’s the problem, I think. I always do.
He pulls back, and his smile changes, goes darker and hungrier. I recognize this look. It’s the one he gets right before he closes a deal. Right before he gets what he wants.
“Now,” he says, his voice dropping an octave, “I believe I owe you an apology for being a shit husband who keeps putting you off.”
“Griffin…”
He’s already steering me backward, toward the hallway. “I was thinking the shower. Hot water. Lots of steam. You, pinned against the tile while I make it up to you properly.”
I respond before my brain can catch up. Heat pools low in my belly, my nipples tightening under my thin sleep shirt.
This is Griffin’s move, the one he’s perfected over five years of marriage.
Whenever I push, whenever I need something he’s not ready to give, he redirects with his hands and his mouth and that devastating focus that makes me feel like the center of the universe.
It works every time. I hate that it works every time. I hate that I let it.
“I have calls to make,” I try, but my voice comes out breathy, already betraying me, and he grins like he knows exactly what he’s doing.
“They can wait.”
The bathroom is marble and glass, obscenely luxurious, a level of comfort we never could have imagined back at the beginning, when the whole company fit in one rented room.
Griffin turns the water to scalding, steam rising immediately, fogging the mirrors.
He turns back to me and his eyes rake down my body with open appreciation.
“Off,” he says, tugging at my shirt. “All of it. Now.”
I pull the shirt over my head, and he makes a sound in his throat, half groan and half growl, that goes straight to my core. His hands are on me immediately, palms skating over my breasts, thumbs brushing my nipples until they peak.
“So fucking beautiful.” He traces a line from my collarbone to the swell of my breast, watching goosebumps rise in his wake. “Every time. Every single time, Hannah. I look at you and I forget how to think.”
“You’re just saying that because you want me to stop being mad at you.”
He backs me into the shower, under the spray. Hot water sluices down my body, plastering my hair to my shoulders, running in rivulets between my breasts. He steps in after me, still in those goddamn sweatpants, the fabric going dark and heavy against his thighs.
“I’m saying it because it’s true.” He cages me against the tile, one hand braced by my head, the other tracing down my stomach, lower, lower. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. And I’m an asshole who doesn’t deserve you. Let me make it up to you.”
His fingers slide between my thighs, and I gasp. He finds me already wet, embarrassingly wet, traitorously wet, and his grin turns smug.
“Fuck, Hannah. Already this ready for me?”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late.” He circles my clit with his thumb, and my hips jerk. “It’s already there. Along with about a dozen things I want to do to you right now.”
“Griffin…”
“Just let me.” He drops to his knees, and oh God, the sight of him looking up at me through the steam, water streaming down his face, his black eyes burning with intent. “Let me worship you, baby. It’s all I want to do.”
He hooks my leg over his shoulder and presses his mouth to me, and I stop thinking entirely.
Griffin eats pussy like it’s a competitive sport and he’s gunning for the gold.
His tongue finds my clit with devastating accuracy, flicking and circling, building pressure exactly where I need it.
When he slides two fingers inside me, crooking them against that spot that makes me see stars, I have to grab his hair to keep from collapsing.
“Fuck…” The word rips out of me, echoing off the tile. “Griffin, oh fuck…”
He groans against me, the vibration shooting straight to my core. His free hand grips my thigh hard enough to bruise, holding me open for his mouth, and I’m already climbing, already shaking, already there…
The orgasm hits like a wave, crashing through me, and I cry out his name as my vision whites out. He works me through it, relentless, licking and sucking until every aftershock has faded, until I’m trembling and oversensitive and pushing weakly at his head.
“Good girl.” He presses a kiss to my inner thigh and rises to his feet, shoving his soaked sweatpants down. His cock springs free, hard and flushed and leaking at the tip, and my mouth waters despite myself. “Now I need to be inside you. Right fucking now.”
He lifts me like I weigh nothing, hands under my thighs, my back pressed against the cool tile, and notches himself at my entrance. For a moment he just holds there, forehead against mine, his breath ragged.
“I love you,” he says. “You know that, right? I love you so much it scares me.”
“I know.” I wrap my arms around his neck. “I love you too.”
He pushes inside, one long deep stroke that makes us both groan. The stretch is perfect, the fullness overwhelming, and for a moment neither of us moves. We just breathe, foreheads pressed together, bodies connected.
And then he starts to move, and I forget everything else.
He fucks me like he’s trying to prove a point, hard and thorough, hitting spots that make me claw at his shoulders, his mouth on my throat, my jaw, my lips. The tile is cold against my back but his body is hot against my front, and the contrast makes everything sharper, more intense.
“This,” he grinds out between thrusts. “This is all that matters, Hannah. You and me. Always you and me.”
I want to wrap myself in those words and never let go.
“Harder,” I gasp, because I can’t say what I really want to say, so I’ll settle for this instead. “Griffin, please…”
He adjusts his grip, tilts his hips, and the new angle makes me scream. He’s hitting my g-spot with every thrust now, relentless, and I can feel the pressure building again, coiling tighter and tighter.
“That’s it.” His voice is rough in my ear. “Take it, baby. Take everything I give you.”
I come again with his name on my lips, my whole body clenching around him, and he follows a moment later, spilling inside me with a groan that sounds like surrender.
His hips stutter, his arms shake, and then we just stay there, tangled together under the spray, breathing hard until the water starts to cool.
His hand strokes up and down my spine. I press my face into his neck and let myself feel held.
Then his phone buzzes from the counter where he left it.
He tenses. I feel it, the shift of his attention, how his body angles toward the sound even while he’s holding me.
“Ignore it,” I whisper.
Another buzz. Another.
He pulls out, sets me down gently, kisses my forehead. “Let me just check. It might be urgent…”
He’s out of the shower before I can respond, grabbing a towel, reaching for his phone. I watch the water run down the drain and feel my chest go tight.
“Shit.” He’s scrolling, frowning. “It’s the Myer team. Julie’s moved tomorrow’s meeting to tonight. There’s a gala, apparently. Her dad’s going to be in town.”
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold despite the steam. “Tonight’s our anniversary dinner.”
His head snaps up. “What?”
“Five years, Griffin. We have reservations at Alinea. You made them six weeks ago.”
I watch the realization hit him. The guilt that flashes across his face. And then, and this is the part that makes my stomach turn, the calculation. The quick mental math of which thing matters more.
“I’ll make it up to you,” he says. “I’ll reschedule…”
“You can’t reschedule Richard Myer.”
“No.” He runs a hand through his wet hair, looking genuinely torn. “But Hannah, I’ll… I’ll do something special this weekend. I promise. A whole day, just us. Whatever you want.”
I should fight. I should scream. I should tell him that I’m his wife, not his secretary, and I’m sick of coming second to everyone and everything else.
Instead I nod. “Okay.”
Relief floods his features. “You’re amazing. Have I told you you’re amazing?”
“Go get ready.” I turn off the water. “I’ll handle the Alinea cancellation.”
He kisses me one more time, quick and distracted, and disappears into the closet.
I stand alone in the steam and let the silence settle around me. Then I step out, wrap myself in a towel, and reach for my phone to cancel our anniversary dinner.
The hostess at Alinea is apologetic but professional. She offers to reschedule for next week, next month, whenever works for us. I tell her I’ll call back and hang up without committing to anything.
There’s a text notification on my screen. A calendar reminder I set for myself weeks ago, back when I still thought tonight would matter:
5 YEARS ?? Wear the red dress. Tell him how much you love him.
I delete it.
From the bedroom, I hear Griffin’s voice. He’s already on a call, already somewhere else entirely. “Julie, hey. Yeah, tonight works great. No, no problem at all.” A pause, then a laugh that makes my stomach clench. “You know Hannah. She gets it.”
I grip the edge of the counter and stare at my reflection in the fogged mirror.
She gets it.
I always get it.
I’m starting to wonder what would happen if, just once, I didn’t.