CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ISABELLA
I find Alexander in the kitchen at two in the morning.
He is standing by the sink, drinking water from a glass while the only light left on casts long shadows across the counter. I came downstairs for water too, so the fact that we happen to be here at the same time should be nothing more than domestic coincidence.
No symbolism. No suppressed desire.
A lie.
I am wearing an old T-shirt that reaches halfway down my thighs. Alexander is barefoot, dressed only in dark pajama bottoms that sit low enough on his hips to reveal the lines of his body.
He is shirtless.
This is entirely unnecessary.
He notices me before I can retreat and looks up, his hand pausing with the glass halfway to his mouth. For several seconds, neither of us speaks.
I spent five years trying to reduce Alexander to memories that could no longer reach me physically. I focused on his cruelty, his distrust, and the last night we saw each other, as though pain could erase everything that came before it.
It did not.
My body recognizes the man standing in front of me.
It recognizes his shoulders, his chest, and the small scar near his ribs from when he fell out of a tree at nine and tried to hide the injury from Edmund.
There are differences now: his muscles are more defined, a new scar cuts across part of his abdomen, and there are a few strands of gray hair on his chest.
He is looking at me too.
His gaze does not travel openly over my body, but his eyes drop briefly to my bare legs before returning to my face. The change in his breathing confirms that the oversized T-shirt does not make me invisible.
“Don’t you own pajamas?”
Alexander glances down at his trousers.
“I own half a set.”
“Impressive. Perhaps you could acquire the rest. I hear you have the resources.”
The corner of his mouth moves.
“I wasn’t expecting to encounter anyone at two in the morning.”
“We live with a five-year-old. There is always a possibility that someone will be awake.”
“In that case, I acknowledge the flaw in my planning.”
He sets the glass in the sink, and the movement tightens the muscles in his arm.
I look away too late.
Alexander notices. The satisfaction that appears on his face is minimal, but it is there.
“Don’t look so pleased with yourself.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your ego doesn’t require words.”
“You’ve seen me without a shirt many times.”
“In another life.”
The humor disappears.
The words change the air in the kitchen.
Alexander looks toward the T-shirt draped over the back of a chair. He reaches for it, then hesitates.
“Do you want me to put it on?”
The question should make things easier. Instead, it irritates me because it hands me a decision I do not want to admit exists.
“Do whatever you want.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I also didn’t ask you to come downstairs half naked.”
“Technically, I am wearing trousers.”
“A weak legal defense.”
He remains where he is, the shirt in his hand.
“Isabella, if seeing me like this makes you uncomfortable, I’ll put it on.”
Uncomfortable is not the right word.
It would be much easier if it were.
“Put it on.”
Alexander pulls the T-shirt over his head. The fabric catches around his shoulders for several seconds, and the attempt to cover himself only emphasizes the movement of his muscles. When he finally finds the right opening, the hem remains rolled above his abdomen.
I reach out without thinking.
“It’s caught.”
My fingers find the fabric before I understand what I am doing.
I tug the hem down. My fingertips brush his skin, sliding over a few inches of his abdomen before the shirt falls into place.
Alexander goes completely still.
The contact is brief, but the heat of his body remains in my hand. I am close enough to smell him, his familiar scent mixed with clean soap, and to see the sudden expansion of his chest.
I look up.
The desire on his face is undisguised.
Alexander does not touch me or treat my gesture as permission to move closer. His hands remain open at his sides, although the tension in his arms reveals the effort it costs him.
I pull my hand away.
“There.”
“Thank you.”
His voice is deeper.
I go to the cupboard, take out a glass, and fill it slowly, occupying myself with a task that does not require looking at him.
“Thank you for dinner too,” he adds.
“It was only pasta.”
“You still invited me.”
I drink, but my mouth remains dry.
Alexander does not leave. I do not ask why. His presence fills the kitchen with the same intensity it once brought to every room in our old life, except now neither of us knows which movements are allowed.
“Why are you awake?” he asks.
“Work.”
“You closed your laptop at ten.”
I look at him over the rim of my glass.
“Are you monitoring my schedule?”
“We were in the same room. You also announced that you would not answer another email because Helena threatened to change your password.”
“Traitor.”
“It seemed like a responsible measure.”
“Then it isn’t work,” I admit. “It’s thoughts.”
Alexander rests one hand on the counter.
“Do you want me to listen?”
“It isn’t a work problem.”
“I can still listen.”
Beyond the pool of light surrounding us, the kitchen is dark. The entire house is silent, and the intimacy of the hour makes it harder to pretend we are simply two people sharing an address for legal reasons.
I could go upstairs.
I do not.
“Lily is getting attached very quickly.”
Alexander does not answer immediately.
“I know.”
“It scares me.”
His expression becomes serious.
“Do you want me to spend less time with her?”
“No.”
The answer comes too quickly.
“I don’t want you to become distant or for her to interpret any change as abandonment. But I also don’t want her turning you into some perfect figure simply because you’re new.”
“To a child, a new father can seem like a new toy?”
“A slightly less offensive version of that, but yes.”
Alexander almost smiles.
“Then let her see me get things wrong. I’m providing plenty of material.”
“You are.”
“My last pancake could be entered into evidence.”
“The last one was edible.”
“That sounds suspiciously like praise.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
His smile appears fully, and mine answers before I can stop it.
Then both disappear.
“I still don’t know what to do with you,” I admit.
The words remain between us. I cannot take them back or pretend I was speaking only about Lily.
Alexander does not move closer.
“You don’t have to do anything with me.”
“That answer is irritating.”
“I know.”
“You used to have a solution for everything. You couldn’t stand being in front of something for five minutes without organizing it.”
He looks down at his glass.
“I used to confuse answers with control. If I could decide what something meant, I thought I could prevent it from hurting me.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m trying to tolerate the time between the question and the answer.”
I move away from the sink and rest my arms on the counter. Alexander stands on the opposite side, less than a meter between us.
“You’ve changed a great deal in a few weeks.”
“Some things have changed. Others have simply become more visible.”
“What does that mean?”
He runs his thumb around the rim of his glass.
“I spent five years angry.”
“With me.”
“For a long time, yes. With myself too, and with life, and with the belief that I’d been deceived. I built a routine where I never had to examine the anger because work occupied all the available space.”
“But you still believed I had betrayed you.”
“I did.”
The answer still hurts, despite everything I know now.
“And that wasn’t enough for you to be happy without me?”
Alexander raises his eyes.
“I was never able to be happy with that version of what happened.”
“What a shame.”
“I know.”
His honesty irritates me because it does not ask for pity, which is precisely why it manages to reach mine.
“I’m not telling you this because I think you should feel anything about what I went through,” he adds. “I know my pain came from choices I made.”
“Then why tell me?”
He takes a moment before answering.
“Because sometimes I think you imagine I walked away from that night, returned to my house, and carried on untouched.”
A humorless laugh escapes me.
“You had money, freedom, a house full of staff, and the moral certainty that you were punishing the woman who betrayed you. I had nausea, fear, bills, and a child growing inside me.”
“I know.”
The quick answer ignites my anger.
“No. You don’t.”
Alexander does not defend himself.
“Then tell me.”
The invitation stops me.
“Tell you what?”
“Everything I still don’t know. Not so I can compare it with what I felt or find another way to ask for forgiveness. I want to hear it because it happened to you, and I spent five years choosing not to look.”
The kitchen seems to grow smaller.
There are memories I kept hidden not to protect him but because I needed to survive them. Putting them into words means allowing Alexander into a place he forfeited the right to enter.
Still, I begin.
“For three weeks after I left, I waited for you to come.”
The color drains from his face.
“Every car that stopped outside Clara’s building made me go to the window. I answered unknown numbers because I thought one of them might be you.”
Alexander inhales but does not interrupt.
“I woke up imagining you would have realized. That you would repeat the tests, understand that you had done something terrible, and come to the door ready to fix it.”
Tears arrive, and I hate them for it.
“I kept waiting even after everything you said. Even after you called me a liar and asked who my baby belonged to.”
He closes his eyes briefly.
“I hated myself for still wanting you,” I continue. “I was ashamed that some part of me still believed the man who threw me out might turn back into the man I had planned a life with.”
My voice breaks.
“For weeks, I slept with my phone beside my pillow.”
Alexander remains silent. When he opens his eyes again, they are wet.
“I almost went.”
My entire body stiffens.
“What?”
“Many times.”
Anger comes so quickly that I have to set my glass down before I drop it.
“Do not tell me that as though it helps.”
“It doesn’t.”
“You were a car journey away.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t come.”
“No.”
“Then why tell me?”
Tears begin to move down his face, but Alexander makes no attempt to hide them.
“Because I need to stop choosing only the truths that make me look less cruel. I almost came, and every time, I chose not to.”
“Why?”
“Pride, fear, and the certainty I had decided to preserve. I believed that if I saw you, I might give in and go back to a woman I thought had betrayed me.”
“Cowardice.”
“Yes.”
No defense. No attempt to soften it.
“I thought I was punishing you,” he continues. “I convinced myself that refusing to look, refusing to listen, and refusing to come after you were ways of protecting myself. I didn’t understand that I was condemning myself too.”
“Do not make your suffering equal to mine.”
“It isn’t.”
The immediate answer makes me look at him.
Alexander keeps both hands on the counter, away from me.
“You suffered because of an injustice I caused. I suffered because of choices I made. There is no equivalence.”
The silence that follows seems to contain everything we failed to say for five years.
He cries without dignity, without control, and without using the tears as an argument. I should feel some satisfaction at seeing him finally understand the scale of what he did.
Instead, I am only tired.
I walk around the counter.
I do not know exactly why. Perhaps because he is crying, perhaps because I am too, or perhaps because the middle of the night has made it impossible to keep every defense where it belongs.
I stop in front of him.
Alexander does not move.
I raise my hand to his face and wipe away a tear with my thumb.
His skin is warm. The short stubble along his jaw brushes my fingers, and the contact awakens such a powerful physical memory that I have to hold my breath. For years, I touched this face in the dark, half asleep, knowing every line of it without needing to see.
Alexander closes his eyes.
He does not lean into my palm, take my wrist, or turn compassion into permission. He simply remains still and lets me decide where the gesture begins and where it ends.
That is what undoes me.
My thumb moves over his cheekbone again, this time with no tear left to justify it.
Alexander’s breathing changes.
So does mine.
When he opens his eyes, we are too close. I can see the desire he is trying to contain and the conflict moving through his expression. His gaze lowers slowly to my mouth but returns to my eyes before the movement can become a demand.
“Isabella,” he murmurs.
My name contains an entire question.
I do not answer.
The man in front of me is wearing the shirt I touched, and I can still feel the warmth of his abdomen on my fingertips. His scent, his nearness, and the familiarity of his breathing cross every year I tried to place between us.
My body leans toward him.
It is barely an inch, perhaps less, but Alexander notices. His lips part, and the hand at his side closes once as he resists the instinct to reach for my waist.
He does not close the distance.
He waits.
For one moment, I imagine the kiss.
I remember the feel of his mouth, the way he used to hold the back of my neck, and how my body found his without hesitation. Anticipation sends heat beneath my skin and accelerates my heart until its beat seems to fill the kitchen.
I could kiss him.
I want to kiss him.
Then the past enters the room.
The door of the old house. My suitcase beside me. The pregnancy test between my fingers. Alexander’s voice asking who the baby belonged to.
The memory does not erase the desire. It makes it painful.
I step back.
Alexander opens his hands and increases the distance too, even though he never moved toward me.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“I shouldn’t have—”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
The words surprise both of us.
He holds my gaze.
“I won’t interpret what happened as a promise.”
“Nothing happened.”
“I know.”
“And I don’t want tomorrow to be strange.”
“I’ll respect whatever you decide tomorrow.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“Then I’ll answer better. I won’t use this moment to pressure you, but I’m not going to pretend I didn’t want to kiss you.”
My heart beats even faster.
“That is dangerously honest.”
“I’m trying to determine the appropriate amount.”
“You haven’t found it yet.”
“Clearly.”
For a second, I almost smile.
I need to leave before that small moment of relief makes me cross the distance again.
“Good night, Alexander.”
“Good night, Isabella.”
I go upstairs without looking back. Once inside my bedroom, I close the door and lean against it, trying to catch my breath.
My hand still holds the warmth of his face. My mouth feels sensitive despite never having been touched, and my entire body protests against an interruption I chose myself.
For the first time since we married, I am not only afraid that Alexander might hurt me again.
I am afraid of the part of me that still wants him—and, more than that, of the part that may never have stopped loving him.