Chapter 5
DELANEY
The drive back across the floating bridge was a blur of gray rain and windshield wipers smearing the suburban Seattle skyline into jagged, weeping lines.
The heater in the SUV was blasting at full capacity, but the artificial warmth couldn’t penetrate the bone-deep chill radiating from my own skin.
My hands gripped the steering wheel with a numb, automated rigidity.
I operated on the absolute fumes of my endurance.
Seventy-two hours of bleach, parvo protocols, barking, and the lingering, devastating silence of Arthur’s final breath had hollowed me out completely.
The ruined velvet of the midnight-blue gown felt like a lead apron beneath the faded scrub top, the muddy, stiff fabric scraping against my calves with every subtle movement of the pedals.
I just wanted a hot shower. I wanted to stand under the scalding spray until my skin turned red and the smell of the isolation ward finally washed down the drain. Then, I wanted to crawl into a dark room and sleep for two days.
The heavy wrought-iron gates of the Medina property swung open, granting me entry into the sprawling, manicured grounds. I pulled the vehicle onto the circular driveway and killed the engine. The silence that instantly flooded the cabin was heavy and absolute.
I sat there for a long moment, staring up at the facade of the mansion. The exterior architectural lighting cast long, dramatic shadows against the imported stone and massive glass panes. It was a fortress of wealth, impenetrable and pristine.
I dragged myself out of the driver’s seat, slinging my battered leather tote bag over my shoulder, and trudged up the wide stone steps. My boots left wet, muddy footprints on the immaculate porch.
I pushed the heavy oak front door open and stepped into the grand foyer.
The entryway boasted soaring, twenty-foot ceilings and a sweeping curved staircase with a minimalist glass railing. A custom, tiered chandelier hung from the ceiling, its unlit bulbs catching the weak morning light filtering through the transom windows.
I dropped my keys onto the silver tray resting on the sleek console table. The metallic clatter echoed harshly in the cavernous space.
“You’re home.”
The voice came from the shadows of the adjacent formal living room. It was low, rough, and threaded with a sharp, dangerous current.
I flinched, my hand freezing over the console table. I turned my head slowly.
Hayes stepped out from the darkened archway.
He didn’t look like the untouchable, perfectly tailored executive who had commanded the dining room table a lifetime ago.
The bespoke suit jacket was gone. His tie had been discarded, the collar of his crisp white shirt unbuttoned and pulled askew.
The sleeves were rolled up past his elbows, revealing the tense, corded muscles of his forearms. In his right hand, he held a heavy crystal tumbler holding a finger of amber liquid.
He looked ragged. His dark hair was rumpled, as if he had been running his hands through it repeatedly, and the shadows beneath his striking gray eyes were stark and bruising against his pale skin.
He looked exactly like a man who hadn’t slept a single wink.
“Hayes,” I breathed, the sheer exhaustion in my voice making it come out as a raspy whisper.
I let my tote bag slide off my shoulder, hitting the hardwood floor with a dull thud.
“I can’t do this right now. I don’t have the energy to fight about Warren Carmichael or the dinner party. I’m too tired.”
“The dinner party,” Hayes repeated softly, the words tasting like poison in his mouth. He took a slow, measured step toward me, his leather shoes completely silent against the floorboards. “You think I’ve been sitting in the dark all night waiting to reprimand you over a dessert course?”
I frowned, my exhausted brain struggling to process the volatile, unpredictable energy radiating from him. “Then what is it? Did the European acquisition fall through?”
Hayes let out a short, harsh sound that was completely devoid of humor. He stopped a few feet away from me. Up close, the sharp scent of expensive scotch and raw adrenaline rolled off him in waves.
“I drove down there,” he said, his voice dropping to a lethal, vibrating hum.
My brow furrowed. “Down where?”
“To the clinic.” His gray eyes were entirely black, dilated with a cold, terrifying fury.
“After you walked out, I spent two hours doing damage control with my board. And then, like a fool, I got in my car and drove down to that filthy industrial park. I was going to apologize. I was going to offer to hire a private cleaning crew for the facility. I was going to bring my wife home.”
I stared at him, trying to align the image of Hayes Easton navigating the pothole-riddled streets of SoDo with the man standing in front of me. “I didn’t see you.”
“No,” Hayes agreed smoothly, though the muscle jumping in his jaw betrayed the violent restraint he was exercising. “You didn’t. You were a little too occupied in the loading dock alleyway to notice my headlights pulling up to the curb.”
The breath completely stalled in my lungs.
The loading dock. The freezing rain. The complete, total obliteration of my emotional defenses.
“You were there?” I whispered, my mind flashing to the memory of collapsing against the wet brick wall.
“I saw everything, Delaney,” Hayes said. He took a sip of his scotch, swallowing it as if it were broken glass. “I saw you walk out the back doors. I saw the veterinarian follow you. And I sat in my car and watched another man pull my wife into his arms.”
The accusation hung in the cold air of the foyer, suspended and toxic.
For a span of three seconds, my sleep-deprived brain simply rejected the data. It didn’t make sense. It was a mathematical error. He was taking a moment of pure, devastating grief and forcing it through a distorted, unrecognizable lens.
“Hayes, no,” I started, lifting my hands in a placating gesture, desperate to correct the terrifying narrative spinning in his head. “You don’t understand. You’re completely misinterpreting what you saw.”
“Am I?” he snapped. The facade of controlled calm fractured, revealing the raw, panicked desperation underneath.
He closed the remaining distance between us, looming over me, his presence suffocating and heavy.
“Did I misinterpret the way his hands were in your hair? Did I misinterpret the way you were clinging to his shirt like he was the only thing keeping you tethered to the earth?”
“I was crying!” I shouted, the volume of my own voice shocking me, bouncing violently off the high ceilings. “I was falling apart, Hayes!”
“Over what?” he demanded, slamming his crystal tumbler down onto the console table.
The violent clatter made me flinch. “Over a tough shift? Over the stress of the intake? Do you think I don’t experience stress?
Do you think I don’t feel the weight of an entire corporation on my shoulders?
I don’t cope by burying my face in the neck of my subordinates in the middle of the night! ”
“A dog died in my lap!”
The words ripped their way out of my throat, harsh and jagged, tearing through my vocal cords.
I stood there, my chest heaving beneath the damp, filthy scrub top, staring up at the man I had vowed to spend my life with.
“A ten-year-old golden retriever named Arthur went into multiple organ failure,” I gasped, the tears I thought I had completely exhausted suddenly burning hot and sharp behind my eyes.
“I sat on the linoleum floor of the isolation ward for an hour while he slowly stopped breathing. I watched the light go out of his eyes, Hayes. I felt his heart stop under my own hands. I walked out into that alleyway because I felt like I was suffocating, and my legs gave out. Brooks caught me. That’s it.
He held me because I was shattering into pieces, and he was the only one there. ”
I waited for the realization to hit him.
I waited for the fury to drain out of his face, for the awful, toxic jealousy to give way to horror and remorse.
I waited for my husband to look at my ruined clothes and my trembling hands and realize he had just accused a grieving woman of the ultimate betrayal.
Hayes stared down at me.
His eyes were narrow, calculating, and entirely unmoved.
“A dog died,” he repeated, his voice dangerously quiet.
“Yes,” I breathed, a desperate plea for him to finally hear me.
“And that,” Hayes said, leaning in closer, his breath warm and smelling of scotch against my cheek, “justifies you seeking out the veterinarian for comfort? It justifies you letting another man hold you?”
The floor beneath my boots seemed to tilt. The foundation of our entire marriage cracked, the fissure spreading rapidly outward.
“He is my colleague,” I whispered, utterly horrified. “He was my friend comforting me.”
“He wants to sleep with you.” The words were spat out with venomous, absolute certainty.
Hayes’s hands curled into fists at his sides.
“Don’t treat me like I’m an idiot, Delaney.
I see the way he looks at you. I see the way you look at him.
You light up when you talk about that clinic.
You give them all your passion, all your energy, all your time.
You come back to this house completely empty, and you expect me to believe that a dead animal is the only reason you were wrapped around him in the dark? ”
He didn’t believe me.
He looked me dead in the eye, listened to the most vulnerable, painful truth I possessed, and he actively chose to reject it. He chose to believe that my empathy was a lie. He chose to believe that my grief was nothing more than a convenient cover story for an illicit affair.
“You think I’m lying to you,” I said. It wasn’t a question. It was a terrifying, hollow statement of fact.