3. Riley #2
His expression changed at that—not guilt, not anything Riley could name with certainty. Just a brief pause before he retreated behind his schedule.
Graham checked the time.
Yesterday had mattered enough to keep Riley awake. Tonight, it ranked beneath dinner.
“I am not triggering a massive PR headache on live television just to fix a meaningless media soundbite.” Graham shook his head. “We know the actual truth, so stop letting it upset you.”
“You don’t get to decide whether I’m allowed to—”
The suite door swung inward before Riley finished.
It struck the wall stopper, and Nicolle stepped through without knocking. She was already dressed for the sponsor dinner, every detail arranged for cameras Riley couldn’t see yet. Floral perfume followed her into the chilled room and cut through the chemical smell that had hung there all evening.
“Good, you’re still here.”
Graham turned from the windows. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. They moved us up.”
Riley stared past her at the open doorway.
Room service. That was why Graham had left the door cracked. A stupid, ordinary delivery he’d probably forgotten about by now, yet Nicolle had taken the opening as permission to walk straight into their suite.
Into their argument.
Nicolle barely paused before turning back to Graham. “Schedule change, Graham. The apparel executives bumped the dinner up to coordinate with the broadcast team, which means we have to move now.”
“How much time do we have?”
“The car is already being staged downstairs.”
Riley looked at Graham.
He had spent the last ten minutes telling her that yesterday’s humiliation was meaningless, but one sentence from Nicolle had shifted his whole attention toward the hallway.
There was no argument about whether the schedule could wait.
No request for five minutes. No suggestion that anyone downstairs could survive without him.
Of course.
Nicolle turned toward Riley as if noticing her for the first time.
“Sorry. I didn’t realize you two were in the middle of something.”
Riley let the quiet stretch for a moment.
Nicolle had walked into a hotel suite without knocking. Graham’s bag lay on the floor. Riley stood right beside him. Whatever signs Nicolle claimed to have missed would have required effort to avoid.
Then Nicolle offered a practiced smile.
“Riley, hello. I really hope you can forgive me for snatching him away for the press line yesterday. The board expects so much from us this week.”
Snatching him away.
As if yesterday had been a cute scheduling inconvenience. As if Riley had been waiting outside a fitting room while Nicolle borrowed a jacket.
“I have no doubt you manage those demands exactly the way you prefer, Nicolle.”
Nicolle’s smile never faltered, though her eyes rested on Riley for another moment before shifting back to Graham.
“We need to leave.”
Riley kept her eyes on Graham as he crossed back to the middle of the room and bent toward the floor.
He gripped the canvas handle.
That simple movement answered more than anything he’d said at the windows.
“Graham.”
He lifted the bag and adjusted his grip. “I’m good to go.”
Riley let out a hollow laugh. “You can’t be serious.”
Nicolle glanced toward the doorway. “We don’t have time to restart whatever this is.”
Riley turned her head. “Whatever this is?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then you might want to stop talking about my marriage like it’s an inconvenience between appointments.”
“Riley,” Graham said.
There it was again. Her name delivered as a warning to make things easier.
Nicolle shifted toward the hall. “The executives already rearranged the broadcast window for us. If we miss the car now, the press line backs up and everybody loses their slot.”
“Then everybody can survive a delay.”
Graham looked at Riley. “This isn’t optional.”
“Neither was this conversation.”
He glanced toward the corridor, then back to her. “Riley, kill that room service order for me. We need to get downstairs before the executives start hunting for us.”
For one moment, she couldn’t move.
He wasn’t just leaving.
He was handing her the abandoned pieces of his evening on the way out. Cancel the food. Clean up the loose end. Stay behind while he and Nicolle became us again.
Nicolle stepped backward into the doorway. “I’ll give you a second.”
How generous.
Graham shifted the bag higher and turned toward her.
Riley moved first.
She stepped directly into his path, forcing him to stop before he could reach the hallway.
Nicolle remained beyond her shoulder, framed by the open doorway, while Graham stood in front of Riley with the bag already packed for a night that apparently mattered more than finishing one honest conversation with his wife.
Riley held his gaze.
“Do not follow her into that hallway, Graham. We are not done with this conversation.”
For the first time since Nicolle walked through the door, Graham stopped. The bag hung from one hand at his side, the open hallway stretching out behind her. Riley held her place between them, unwilling to make this easy simply because somebody downstairs had moved a dinner reservation.
“I know.”
“Then stay.”
“I can’t miss this dinner.”
“You can. You just won’t.”
He kept his eyes on her. Riley searched his face for some sign that the distinction mattered, that he understood how different those two sentences were.
Years ago, he would have missed sleep, meals, anything, if she told him something between them was wrong.
Now an apparel executive could move a dinner and rearrange their marriage with it.
Graham leaned down.
For one stupid instant, Riley thought he might finally say something worth staying for.
He pressed his lips to her cheek.
The kiss lasted a moment, more punctuation than affection. Riley didn’t turn toward him. Her arms stayed at her sides while he straightened, leaving the faint trace of his mouth against skin gone cool from the air conditioning.
That’s it?
He shifted the bag and glanced at his watch.
Riley almost laughed.
“The board made this mandatory, Riley, so I don’t have a choice. I promise you, we are going to finish this exact conversation tonight.”
There it was again: later. The safest place in Graham’s vocabulary, because later never demanded anything from him now.
Later didn’t make him miss a dinner. Later didn’t inconvenience a sponsor.
Later asked Riley to absorb whatever had happened, carry it alone, and remain available when his calendar finally decided she deserved a slot.
“You always promise later. But you never actually make the time.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Neither is asking me to keep waiting.”
“I’m asking for three hours.”
“No. You’re asking me to believe three hours won’t turn into tomorrow morning, and tomorrow morning won’t turn into after the game.”
Graham adjusted his watch. “I’ll come back.”
“You said we’d talk after the media pen.”
“We are talking.”
“You’re leaving in the middle of it.”
They stood in silence while voices passed somewhere farther down the corridor. Nicolle had moved outside the suite, but she still lingered just beyond the open doorway. Riley could see the edge of her dress when she shifted near the wall.
Graham looked toward the hall.
Riley caught the movement.
“Don’t.”
His attention returned to her. “Riley.”
“If you say my name like that one more time, I’m going to assume you’ve forgotten what it means.”
He pressed his lips together. “I haven’t forgotten anything.”
“Then act like it.”
Nicolle’s voice carried in from the hallway. “Graham, the black car is running! If we don’t move right this second, we’re going to hit gridlock downtown!”
Riley closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them.
There it was. The answer.
Not in a speech. Not in an apology. Not even in the argument they’d spent the evening failing to finish. It was in the way Graham turned toward the doorway before Nicolle had finished speaking.
Riley stepped aside.
She didn’t try to hold him back. She didn’t touch the bag or reach for his arm. She had spent too long forcing him to stop, forcing him to look, forcing him to understand that his wife was standing right in front of him.
If he needed to be dragged into choosing her, then he wasn’t choosing her.
Graham hesitated when she cleared the way.
Riley looked at him and said nothing.
He moved past her.
The bag brushed his leg as he crossed the threshold. Nicolle turned toward him in the hallway, then glanced back at Riley. She gave a small smile before she followed him toward the elevators.
Riley stayed where she was.
Graham looked over his shoulder. “I’ll be back from the dinner in three hours.”
The door began to swing shut between them.
“Just wait for me.”