Chapter 2
The sound of their laughter cut through me, twisting something deep inside my stomach. I couldn’t move. I stood in the shadows of the hallway, staring into our foyer, every muscle locked as I watched them.
Cassian looked up, his eyes crashing into mine. Surprise flashed across his face, followed by a flicker of guilt that disappeared almost as quickly as it came.
“Alessia,” he said, his voice calm enough to make my skin prickle. “You’re still up.”
I tore my eyes away from him and settled on her.
Up close, I could see the faint flush across Cassandra’s cheeks, the loosened strands of hair framing her face, the lazy curve of her smile.
But it was the way she looked at Cassian that made my jaw tighten.
Her eyes lingered over him with open admiration, warm and unguarded, holding on to every second beside him.
She looked entirely too pleased to be there.
Cassian followed my gaze, his eyes dropping to Cassandra before returning to me. “Work ran late. We closed the Aethelstan deal, and the team went out to celebrate. She had too much to drink to drive home, so I brought her with me.”
My eyes remained on her. She was still watching him, that soft, drunken smile lingering on her lips. The sight scraped against every ounce of patience I had left.
“Liam?”
His name came out clipped, carrying enough accusation to make the question beneath it obvious.
Why isn’t her own brother dealing with this?
Cassian’s answer was immediate. “He’d left already.”
And you didn’t.
The words turned bitter on my tongue. My shoulders tightened as I held his gaze, letting him read the question I refused to ask aloud.
“One of us,” he said, his voice taking on the calm, controlled tone he used when defending a difficult business decision, “had to stay. After everything we’ve been through, they deserved a night to celebrate. I couldn’t just leave, Alessia.”
Did he really just use that tone with me?
With me?
The cool, analytical, conference room dismissal tone. I stared at him, and suddenly I could hear it in other conversations too. Other moments I had brushed aside, other times he’d spoken to me with the same polished detachment.
A memory came back with cruel clarity.
Last month, I found him in his study at two in the morning, his elbows braced against the desk, both hands buried in his hair.
He looked exhausted.
I stepped behind him and rested my hand against his shoulder, feeling the rigid muscle beneath my palm. He barely reacted, his attention fixed on the papers spread across the desk.
“Just take a day,” I pleaded, giving his shoulder a small squeeze.
“One day. We could go to the coast. Just get in the car and drive. You could leave your phone behind. We could stop whenever we see something interesting, take the long way everywhere, get lost on purpose. We could sleep until noon the next morning. You wouldn’t have to think about work for a few hours. It’ll help, I promise.”
He let out a slow breath, his shoulders rising beneath my hand.
“I can’t.”
The answer came so quickly that my fingers stilled against his shoulder. His hand had already reached for another file, his attention returning to the papers spread across the desk, the conversation already pushed aside for the work waiting in front of him.
“Just one day,” I tried again, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “The company will still be there when you get back. Whatever is happening tonight can wait until morning.”
His fingers paused on the edge of the file, and he finally looked back at me. The exhaustion in his face had deepened, his eyes carrying the weight of too many sleepless nights and too many decisions waiting for him in the morning.
“Alessia, you don’t understand the pressure I’m under.” His voice stayed calm, but strain pulled at every word. “There are too many things depending on me right now. I can’t afford to step away from this, even for a single day.”
His gaze dropped to the papers again, his fingers tracing the lines of text while the crease between his brows deepened. Even with me standing beside him, his mind seemed tangled in whatever problem was waiting on those pages.
My hand slipped from his shoulder.
I stood there for another moment, watching him read, wishing he would look at me and change his mind.
He never did.
So I left the study and closed the door behind me, carrying the first pieces of an idea that would eventually become his birthday party.
The past disappeared beneath the sight in front of me.
Cassandra stumbled.
The sway had just enough exaggeration to make me wonder whether the alcohol had anything to do with it. Cassian’s arm shot out before she could lose her balance, his hand closing around her waist to steady her.
My teeth pressed together until my jaw began to ache.
She leaned into him, her weight settling comfortably against his chest. “So sorry, Alessia. We got a little out of control.”
A giggle slipped out of her, scraping across my nerves. The sound seemed to linger between us, made worse by the lazy smile still resting on her face, completely untouched by the tension filling the room.
She smelled faintly of tequila and peppermint, the sugary scent clinging to her clothes and lingering between us.
“It’s just…” Cassandra drew out the words, her gaze drifting toward Cassian before returning to me.
“It’s been so long since we had a real reason to celebrate.
And then we remembered it was this one’s birthday…
” She reached up and pinched Cassian’s cheek.
He jerked his face away from her fingers, discomfort flickering across his features as his eyes immediately sought mine.
“…so we had to stay. It was a double celebration.”
A double celebration. His birthday. Their win.
And my utter humiliation.
I turned toward our bedroom, the hallway tilting slightly beneath my feet. Everything beyond the few steps ahead of me had blurred into shadows, the lights smearing at the edges of my vision.
“Alessia—”
Cassian’s voice followed me.
It reached me through the rush of blood in my ears, muffled beneath the buzzing that had started somewhere deep inside my head. Heat crawled up my neck and spread across my face. My hands hung stiffly at my sides as I kept walking.
And as I walked, the dam broke.
The past few months came rushing back with a clarity that made my stomach twist. Moments I’d filed away as harmless, forgivable, temporary suddenly carried a different weight.
The dinners I’d planned around his schedule, only to receive a message when the food had already gone cold.
The reservations I’d made weeks ahead, canceled hours before we were supposed to leave.
The mornings when I’d woken beside an empty pillow and found a message waiting on my phone instead of him.
The nights I’d fallen asleep with the bedroom light on because he’d promised he’d be home soon.
Conversations that had dwindled into practical exchanges.
“Did you eat?”
“Are you coming home?”
“What time will you be back?”
Questions that once opened doors into each other’s lives had become check-ins. Answers came hours later, reduced to a thumbs-up, a heart, a single word.
Sometimes there was nothing at all.
Then there were the dinners with his mother, where I sat across from her and smiled through every glowing speech about her son’s relentless dedication. I nodded while she praised the very thing that was slowly hollowing out our marriage.
There were friends asking when they could finally see me and Cassian together, and me laughing it off with some version of the same excuse. He was busy. Things were hectic. We would make plans soon.
Soon.
Always soon.
I stopped near the foot of our bed, one hand catching the bedpost as another wave of dizziness rolled through me. My breath came unevenly, catching high in my chest before spilling out in shaky bursts.
The curtains, the bedside lamps, the neatly made sheets—everything I knew by heart suddenly looked unfamiliar. The room seemed to belong to someone else, stripped of the warmth it had once held.
How many hours had I spent in this room waiting for him?
Waiting for the sound of the front door.
Waiting for his footsteps in the hallway.
Waiting for him to glance up from his phone and see that I was still there.
Waiting for a conversation that lasted longer than a few minutes, for a night when his attention belonged to me without having to compete with everything else.
My gaze moved across the room. His watch sat on the dresser. A shirt he’d left behind hung over the back of a chair. His side of the bed remained untouched.
And suddenly, I saw myself through his eyes.
Always there.
Always available.
A familiar presence woven so deeply into the background of his life that he could move through the room without really seeing me.
My fingers tightened around the bedpost.
What had I been doing these last few months?
What had I allowed myself to become?
Someone who waited.
Someone who made excuses.
Someone who kept the lights on for a man who had stopped coming home to her.
The bedroom door clicked shut behind me. I turned to see Cassian shrug off his jacket and drape it over the chaise. The wool slipped into a careless fold as his fingers went to his tie, loosening the knot with two quick tugs.
I watched him, waiting for his eyes to find mine.
They never did.
When was the last time he came home and looked for me?
“Aren’t you going to say something?”
The question came out rougher than I intended, my voice catching beneath the anger and hurt I’d been holding in for so long.
Cassian finally looked up. His face had already settled into that familiar exhaustion. His shoulders sagged, his eyes dull beneath the weight of another long night. “I already explained why I was late. What else do you want me to say?”
He exhaled, his head dipping as he dragged a hand down his face, fingers pressing briefly against his eyes.