43. CHAPTER 40
Orion
Turns out groveling isn’t a single act of penance. It’s living with the fear that she’d never forgive me, and loving her enough to keep trying anyway.
It’s the grueling, daily process of making yourself smaller in a hundred different unspoken ways and hoping she notices, even when she pretends she doesn’t.
It’s practically showing up, and meaning it.
Every morning, I was at the breakfast table before her.
I’d banned early meetings from my schedule—my staff, and the board could learn to adjust. I’ve worked hard to sustain Ironshore; they could tolerate waiting an extra thirty minutes so I could hear the specific clink of a spoon against my wife’s coffee cup.
“Morning,” I’d say when she walked in.
Sometimes she’d nod. Sometimes she wouldn’t even acknowledge the air between us. By week six, the longest sentence she’d given me was “Pass the jam.” It was a start. Or it was a death sentence. I couldn't tell anymore.
I made a point of not touching her. Not even a brush of fingers when passing anything to her at the dinner table.
I didn’t want her to ever think I was manipulating her body into forgiving me, or using the heat between us to bypass the wreckage I’d caused.
My hands stayed firmly on my own side of the table, even when every nerve ending I owned was screaming to reach across and tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
Instead, I spent time memorizing the small things. They kept me sane…and present.
I watched the way she stirred her coffee when she was distracted: slow, rhythmic circles, the spoon tapping the rim twice at the end.
I watched the way she cut her fruit into perfect, little cubes instead of slices when she was stressed.
Sometimes she made them into tiny, geometric shapes and ended up eating half of the bowl, before switching to dessert.
My wife never skipped her morning sweets but these days it has gotten excessive.
Most mornings she had dessert before breakfast and then after. I didn’t ask why. I just observed.
I’d also noticed she’d started wearing more color. Normally, she switched between color and neutrals. These days, she skipped neutrals entirely. I couldn’t tell if she was still being rebellious or if this was something she planned to keep doing.
One morning, she wore a soft pink blouse that made her eyes look like molten gold. And a green skirt that drew every gaze in the room. It made me want to burn the city down just to make sure no one else looked at her.
“I like the outfit,” I’d said, my voice sounding too rough to my own ears.
She didn’t look up from her tablet. “Mmm.”
I nodded like that one syllable was enough and let my gaze drop to the fabric instead of her face.
The pink was the exact shade of the dress she’d worn the night I broke my rules and let her keep my heart.
The memory of it—the color, her scent, the way she’d looked at me before the world went to hell, weighted heavy in my chest. I bit back a comment and took the crumbs of conversation she gave me.
Every minute of every day was a refined version of hell.
I realised quickly that I couldn't leave.
The thought of being in a different time zone, of not being in the house when she woke up, or not seeing her shadow pass under my office door at 10AM or my bedroom door at 3AM felt wrong.
If I left, I was giving her the chance to grow accustomed to my absence.
I wasn't giving her that opening. I was going to anchor myself to her orbit, even if all I was allowed to do was circle at a distance.
At the office, my assistants were forced to learn a new phrase: no non-essential travel.
“I’ll dial in,” I told Jenn when she proposed a two-day trip to Geneva. “We have the tech. Use it.”
She stared at me las if I’d grown another head. “You hate anything virtual.”
“I hate sloppy virtual,” I said sternly. “Get the tech set up right. No pixelated presentations, or sound delays. If we can’t host a decent call, fire whoever’s in charge of the system and find someone who can.”
“What about the Tokyo investor roadshow?” she asked, her voice treading carefully.
I thought of Léa walking the halls at night, thinking I was in another city, or in another woman’s bed, while I was ten doors away staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about how she’d looked spread out on my sheets.
“We shorten everything,” I said. “In and out. No wasted time. If they want me badly enough, they’ll all adjust.”
She blinked, clearly questioning whether she'd heard me correctly. “As you wish.”
Normally I wouldn’t compromise on anything work related. Now I had new priorities.
At home, I rerouted every spare minute toward being present. If she was in her studio, I made sure my calls happened in the office on the same floor. Not right next to her, or so close it became an intrusion, but positioned where my presence couldn't be mistaken for absence.
Once, on a break between calls, I stepped into the hall at the same time she stepped out. We both froze, caught three meters apart in the narrow corridor.
Her eyes moved over me—shirt sleeves rolled to my forearms, tie loosened, the top button of my shirt undone.
I felt exposed under her gaze, more than if I’d been naked.
My own eyes did a frantic inventory of her: the red lipstick that made me want to kiss her until she was breathless, the stray strand of hair tickling her cheek, and a pencil shoved through her bun to hold it up.
She looked like chaos. Beautiful, brilliant chaos.
“Hi,” she said, her voice wary, as she approached cautiously.
“Hi,” I managed, my own voice sounding like it had been scraped out of my chest with a dull knife.
We hovered there, caught on the edge of a precipice. It would’ve been so easy to close the space. To reach out, tuck that hair behind her ear, and see if she’d still melt into my hands. The air between us was thick, charged, and torturous.
I could see the faint rise and fall of her chest, and I wondered if her heart was racing as fast as the one currently trying to beat its way out of my chest.
I love you so much my heart is bleeding out by the second.
The thought was so loud I was certain she could hear it. I was certain it was written in the dilated pupils of my eyes and the way my hands were trembling at my sides.
Say something, Orion. Anything.
But my throat was a desert. I was terrified that if I opened my mouth, I wouldn’t just say I loved her—I’d beg her to take me back. I’d collapse. I’d shatter the very stability I was trying to prove I could provide.
Instead, I nodded painfully, and stepped back, pressing my shoulders against the wall to give her the right of way. I gave her the hallway. I gave her the power. I gave her everything except the one thing I was dying to take—her.
The frustration in my bloodstream felt like splinters. A thousand sharp, stinging reminders of every time I’d chosen everything else but a conversation.
She walked past, her shoulder brushing mine for a brief, electric second.
It was a quick touch, but it sent a current travelling through me that made my vision blur.
I pushed my back against the wall and stayed pinned there for a long minute after she disappeared, feeling the warmth she left behind for the rest of the day.
By week seven, I knew I was losing my mind. I was totally fucked, reduced to a man who walked to her studio door and stood there, waiting, unable to find the words that didn’t expose how much I missed her.
I stood at her bedroom door at 4AM just to hear the rhythm of her breathing, still waiting for a courage that never came.
Though I'd dismantled the surveillance on her, I still had Severin monitor her business logistics. It was prying, yes, but I needed to back her in every way I could, even if she never knew it was me. I needed to be the wind at her back, even if she never felt the breeze.
It was fall, the release of her collaboration with the House of Vassier—her first independent stake in the world. Severin informed me the original venue had been sniped last minute by the Mayor for his daughter’s debutante ball. Léa and Céleste were going to settle for a smaller, secondary space.
“We need the original venue back,” I told Severin. “I don't care who the leasing went to. My wife gets whatever she wants.”
Within hours, the Mayor’s daughter was persuaded to move her party. There was nothing a Kade name couldn’t displace. I felt a flicker of the man I used to be—the one who would eventually remind her that she could use me to move mountains. But for now, I just wanted her to have her stage.
The next day, I stopped outside her studio when I heard a happy, high-pitched squeal. I placed my forehead on the wall, a smile breaking across my face that felt unfamiliar.
“How is it still available?” I heard her ask, likely to Céleste. Then, silence. I peeked through the glass, keeping my shadow out of sight. She was standing there, hand over her heart, her lips pressed together in a look of profound, dawning realisation.
“You’re so stubborn,” she whispered to the empty room, pressing her lips together and blinking rapidly. “And you won’t stop, will you?”
No, I answered silently, staring at her through the glass. Not when it comes to you. My heart ached badly at the sight of her.
“Thank you,” she whispered, a little smile touching her lips that couldn’t quite hide the sadness etched on her face.
I pulled back, wrecked. I swallowed hard and kept my head on the wall. Every part of me wanted to go to her. I stopped myself.
“You’re welcome,” I whispered back instead, turning toward my office before I did something unhinged, like break down her door and prove exactly how out of character she makes me.
By week eight, entering my father’s wing felt like trespassing.