11. Talia
Talia
I wake with Declan’s warmth still beside me and the unsettling awareness that, for once, I slept without listening for every sound outside the room.
For a few seconds, I let myself stay exactly where I am.
The hotel room is unfamiliar in the soft gray morning light, but the steady rhythm of his breathing behind me feels dangerously easy to accept.
His hand rests near mine beneath the sheet, close enough that if I moved even an inch, our fingers would touch again.
I don’t move.
Last night happened. Not because I was confused, or lonely, or caught in the aftermath of a difficult day.
It happened because I wanted him. Because I kissed him first in the hallway.
Because when the door closed, and the rest of the world fell away, I chose not to rebuild the distance I’d spent the last week defending.
That truth is harder to face than regret would have been.
Regret would give me somewhere clean to stand.
I could call it a mistake, tuck it away, and move forward with the same careful discipline that has carried me through six years of motherhood, deadlines, school closures, fevers, and hard conversations with a little boy who asks questions I’m not always ready to answer.
But last night doesn’t feel like a mistake. It feels like the most honest thing I have done in years, which is exactly why I need to get out of this bed.
Carefully, I ease away from Declan and sit up. The sheet slips from my shoulder, and my body remembers him with a clarity my mind doesn’t appreciate. I close my eyes, take one slow breath, and remind myself that wanting something does not automatically make it wise.
Flynn is waiting at home.
That thought steadies me and hurts at the same time.
I dress quietly, gathering my clothes from the floor and trying not to notice the details my mind insists on keeping.
Declan’s shirt crumpled on the floor under the window, and my shoes are near the foot of the bed.
The faint scent of his cologne on my skin, with the city beyond the curtains, already awake, already moving on as if nothing about the world has shifted.
By the time I fasten the last button of my pants, Declan opens his eyes.
He doesn’t startle. He doesn’t look confused or embarrassed or too pleased with himself. He simply watches me for a moment with the kind of quiet attention that has become increasingly difficult to defend against.
“Morning,” he says, his voice rough with sleep.
“Morning.”
It should be awkward. Maybe part of me wants it to be, because awkward would be easier to manage than the soft way his gaze moves over my face, as though he’s trying to memorize me without making the act obvious.
“I was going to find coffee,” he says. “Do you want one?”
Something in my chest gives an inconvenient little pull. Coffee should not feel intimate. It should not sound like a beginning.
“No, thank you. I should get ready.”
His eyes flick briefly over my fully dressed body, but he does not call attention to the lie.
“Right.”
The room goes quiet, but not empty. It is crowded with everything neither of us is saying. I can feel him choosing not to reach for me. I can feel myself choosing not to let him.
Professional distance is easier when no one knows what it’s covering.
I pick up my bag from the chair and check my phone. There’s a message from Mrs. Smith waiting from twenty minutes ago, letting me know Flynn slept fine and woke up asking whether pilots ever get weekends off. My throat tightens so quickly I have to swallow before I can answer.
“Everything okay?” Declan asks.
“Yes. Flynn’s fine.”
Relief crosses his face before he can hide it. Not dramatic or overdone, but real enough that my armor cracks more than I would have liked.
“He asked about pilots,” I add, because apparently I have learned nothing about self-preservation.
Declan’s mouth curves faintly. “Important industry concern.”
“He has several.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
For one fragile second, I can almost imagine telling him the whole message. I can imagine the two of us standing in this hotel room, laughing quietly over our son’s strange and wonderful questions like parents who know how to belong in the same sentence.
The image is so dangerous that I reach for my overnight bag.
“I’ll meet you downstairs in twenty minutes,” I say.
His smile fades, though he doesn’t look surprised. “Talia.”
I stop with my hand on the door.
He doesn’t ask me to stay, and he doesn’t ask what last night meant. He doesn’t make this harder by demanding a conversation I’m not ready to have in a hotel room with my clothes back on and my life waiting a state away.
“I’m not going to push,” he says.
My fingers tighten around the strap of my bag.
“I know,” and that’s the problem.
Downstairs, we become professional again with the strange, practiced ease of people who know exactly how to hide behind work.
We check out separately, though our rooms are on the same reservation.
We discuss the client’s requested revisions over coffee in the lobby.
By the time the car arrives, I have my laptop open, and the revised notes pulled up, because nothing says emotional stability quite like color-coded comments on a contract schedule.
Declan plays along.
He reviews the language, suggests changes, and argues one point about the Foundation timeline with enough calm precision that anyone listening would assume we are nothing more than colleagues coming off a successful client meeting.
He doesn’t touch me, mention last night, or look wounded when I keep my attention on the screen.
That should make the drive easier.
It doesn’t. Because every respectful inch of space he gives me only makes me more aware of the fact that he’s giving it on purpose. He’s doing exactly what I asked, and instead of feeling relieved, I feel cornered by my own rules. So I spend the first hour pretending to read.
The highway slips past in stretches of trees and morning traffic. Declan takes calls from Marcus and Sloane, his voice shifting easily into business. I answer two emails from Rebecca and text Mrs. Smith that I’ll be home by dinner.
Flynn sends a voice message ten minutes later.
“Mom, Mrs. Smith says planes do not need weekends because they are machines, but I think pilots do because pilots have legs.”
Declan hears the message because the car is too quiet and Flynn is not exactly a subtle child. I expect him to smile, and he does, but it is softer than I’m prepared for.
“He makes a strong point.”
I lock the phone before I can replay the message. “He usually does.”
The conversation could continue. It wants to.
I can feel the opening there, small and ordinary and impossibly tempting.
Declan could ask what Flynn had for breakfast. I could tell him about the cereal phase we are currently in.
He could laugh, and I could let the morning become something warmer than it has any right to be.
Instead, I look back at the document.
Declan lets me.
By the time we reach Crossridge, the workday has already swallowed most of the morning.
We go upstairs together, meet briefly with Graham and Marcus, and present the client feedback like two people who didn’t wake up in the same bed.
If anyone notices the tension, no one says anything.
Sloane’s eyes linger on me for half a second longer than usual, but she’s merciful enough to look away.
Declan stays careful beside me; not cold, never cold, just careful. Somehow, that’s worse.
By late afternoon, I am counting the minutes until I can leave.
Not because the work is difficult, but because my concentration keeps slipping at the worst possible times.
I read the same clause three times and still cannot tell whether the wording changed from the previous version.
I reach for my coffee and remember his hand around mine beneath the hotel sheets.
I hear his voice, low and steady, telling me he won’t push.
For a man who promised not to make demands, Declan Ward has become very difficult to ignore.
When I finally get home, Flynn is waiting for me with the kind of energy only a six-year-old can store inside one small body.
“Mom!”
He launches himself at me before I have fully stepped through the door, and I drop my bag just in time to catch him. His arms go around my waist, his cheek pressing against my blazer, and the familiar weight of him breaks something open in me.
Home smells like laundry detergent, crayons, and the tomato sauce Mrs. Smith reheated for dinner. His sneakers are crooked by the door, and two paper airplanes sit on the kitchen counter. One of his socks is under the table for reasons I may never understand.
This is the life I built. It’s the life that matters most.
“I missed you,” I say into his hair.
“I know. I made a runway.”
“That sounds great.”
“It has a problem.”
“That sounds serious.”
“It is. The blue plane keeps crashing because the dinosaur is too close.”
I glance toward the kitchen table, where a plastic dinosaur appears to be threatening air traffic across three sheets of construction paper.
“That does seem like a safety concern.”
Flynn nods gravely, then pulls me by the hand toward the table. He begins explaining the runway, the dinosaur, and the complicated airport rules Mrs. Smith has apparently violated several times. I try to follow every word. I really do.
But halfway through his explanation, my phone lights up on the counter, and I glance at it before I can stop myself. Nothing important. It’s a promotional email, not Declan. Flynn notices anyway.
“Mom.”
I turn back quickly. “Sorry. Show me again.”
He does, but the brightness in his voice dims by a degree. It’s a tiny change, the kind most people would miss, but motherhood is mostly the art of noticing tiny changes and then wondering whether they mean something devastating.
Dinner is harder than it should be.