Chapter 19
Audrey
The heavy, diesel rumble of the yellow school bus faded down the wet asphalt, taking the last protective shield Audrey possessed with it.
She stood on the concrete walkway, her hand gripping the strap of her briefcase. Slowly, she turned to face the man who had once been the absolute center of her gravity.
Simon looked entirely hollowed out. The man who had spent a decade meticulously curating his bespoke suits, his charming smile, and his effortless corporate dominance was completely gone.
In his place stood a ruin. The dark, bruised circles under his eyes spoke of weeks without sleep.
His jaw was heavily shadowed with stubble, and his hands, stuffed deeply into the pockets of a jacket he hadn't bothered to zip against the cold, were visibly shaking.
He was a monument to a collapsed empire, standing on the edge of the lawn of the home he was no longer allowed to enter.
He took a hesitant, desperate step forward, the damp gravel crunching beneath his shoes.
"I got the papers yesterday," Simon rasped. His voice was a jagged, ruined thing, scraping against the quiet morning air. "Audrey, please. I started therapy. I went to a doctor, and I am finally doing the work. I know why I did it now. I was a coward, I was terrified of failing you—"
"Stop."
Audrey’s voice wasn't a cold, detached sheet of ice.
It was a live wire, sparking with a raw, bleeding fury that she could no longer contain.
She closed the distance between them, stopping just at the edge of the porch steps, her eyes blazing with the agonizing, unadulterated pain of a woman whose world had been slaughtered.
"Do you honestly think I care about your epiphanies, Simon?" she demanded, her voice shaking with the sheer force of her heartbreak. "Do you think a breakthrough in a therapist's chair erases what you did to me?"
Simon flinched as if she had struck him across the face, his shoulders curling inward.
"I am in agony," Audrey choked out, the tears she refused to shed burning the back of her throat like acid.
"I can barely breathe in my own house. I look at our daughter and my heart physically rips in half because you decided that your ego, your exhaustion, or whatever pathetic excuse you're clinging to today was more important than our family.
You chose to lie to me. Every single day for two weeks, you looked me in the eye and you lied. "
"Audrey, I'm so sorry, I swear to God I'll spend the rest of my life—"
"You let that girl take a picture of you in her bed!
" Audrey shouted, the pure, visceral devastation finally tearing out of her chest. "You bought me diamonds with the same hands you used to touch her!
You didn't make a mistake, Simon. You made a hundred deliberate, selfish choices that destroyed me.
I am so angry I can't see straight, and I am in so much pain I feel like I am bleeding to death.
I don't want your apologies. I don't want your rebuilt character. I just want you to leave me alone."
Simon stood frozen on the walkway. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. He closed it, his dark eyes wide and swimming with helpless, suffocating tears. He opened his mouth again, a pathetic, silent gasp for air in the wreckage he had caused.
Audrey didn't wait for him to find the words. She turned her back on him, walked up the porch steps, and slammed the heavy oak door directly in his face.
The deadbolt clicked with the finality of a gunshot.
Audrey dropped her briefcase on the entryway floor.
Her legs immediately gave out. She stumbled into the living room and slumped heavily onto the sofa, pulling her knees tightly to her chest. Her entire body was shaking, violent tremors wracking her frame as the adrenaline crashed, leaving behind a vast, echoing emptiness.
She reached blindly into her trench coat pocket and pulled out her phone. Her thumb hit the speed dial before her analytical mind could even process the action.
He answered on the second ring.
"Audrey?" Nate’s voice was a low, immediate anchor, instantly detecting the ragged, uneven sound of her breathing. "What's wrong? Where are you?"
"I'm at home," Audrey gasped, pressing the heel of her free hand against her forehead, trying to ground herself. "He was here, Nate. He was standing in the driveway. And it just... it hurts so much. I needed to hear the voice of someone who actually understands."
"I've got you," Nate murmured fiercely, the deep, resonant timber of his voice acting as a tourniquet on her bleeding panic. "I am right here. You are completely safe, Audie. Breathe for me."
She closed her eyes, letting his voice pull her slowly out of the dark, suffocating water.
By two o'clock that afternoon, Audrey was locked inside her glass-walled office at the analytics firm. The dual monitors on her desk displayed lines of complex code, but she had barely typed a single character. Her mind was a bruised, exhausted landscape.
A soft knock on the heavy glass door startled her.
Audrey looked up. Standing in the hallway, looking entirely out of place in the sterile, corporate environment, was Nathaniel. He was wearing a dark, tailored suit that fit the broad lines of his shoulders perfectly, holding a cardboard drink carrier and a small, grease-spotted white paper bag.
Audrey’s heart gave a sudden, violent kick against her ribs. She stood up, walked to the door, and clicked the lock open.
Nate stepped inside, his hazel eyes immediately sweeping over her face, cataloging the pale exhaustion and the red-rimmed edges of her eyes. He set the carrier on her sleek desk and handed her the paper bag.
"Dark roast coffee, and the macadamia nut cookies from that bakery near the university," Nate said softly, closing the door behind him and turning the silver lock. "I bribed the receptionist to let me up. I needed to know if you were doing any better."
Audrey took the warm paper bag. "I'm better now," she whispered, the absolute truth of the statement vibrating in the quiet office.
Nate didn't smile. The protective, burning intensity in his eyes deepened, turning the hazel to a dark, consuming shadow.
He stepped closer, invading her space, the familiar scent of bergamot and rain completely overriding the sterile ozone of the room.
But instead of pushing her against the desk, he gently placed his hand on the small of her back and guided her toward the plush leather sofa in the corner of her office.
"Sit," he murmured, pulling the blinds tight against the afternoon sun, casting the room in a heavy, insulated shadow.
They sat together on the leather cushions. Nate handed her a steaming cup of coffee and opened the paper bag, the sweet, buttery scent of baked macadamia nuts filling the air. It was an astonishingly domestic, tender gesture in the middle of a ruthless corporate building.
For a long time, the only sound was the low hum of the air conditioning.
Audrey took a sip of the dark roast, the heat sinking into her chest, slowly unspooling the tight, frantic knot of anxiety Simon had left there.
She took a bite of a cookie, the familiar taste bringing a rush of college memories, of late nights in the library when Nate used to bring her the exact same peace offering.
"You didn't have to drive all the way across town for this," she said softly, staring down at her cup.
"Yes, I did," Nate replied. He set his own coffee down on the low glass table. He turned to face her, his knee brushing against hers. "You sounded like you were shattering on the phone this morning, Audie. I couldn't just sit in a deposition and pretend I wasn't terrified for you."
Audrey looked up, her breath catching at the absolute, unguarded sincerity in his face. "I was so angry," she confessed, her voice trembling slightly. "I thought I was numb to him, but the second he started making excuses, the rage just blinded me."
"You have every right to be angry," Nate said, his voice a steady, grounding rumble. "He doesn't get to break you, Audrey. And he doesn't get to dictate your peace anymore."
He reached out, his long fingers incredibly gentle as he tucked a stray lock of dark hair behind her ear. His knuckles brushed against the sensitive skin of her cheek. The contact sent a hot, electric shiver straight down her spine.
Audrey’s breath hitched. Nate’s hand lingered on the side of her neck, his thumb resting just over her racing pulse. In the shadowed quiet of the locked office, the air between them grew impossibly thick, vibrating with a sudden, suffocating gravity.
Slowly, as if pulled by an undeniable magnetic force, Nate’s gaze dropped from her eyes down to her lips.
Audrey stared at his mouth, the memory of his taste from the weekend rushing back to completely short-circuit her analytical mind. The coffee cup trembled in her hands. She reached out and blindly set it on the glass table next to his.
"Make me forget the morning, Nate," Audrey whispered, her voice a raw, ragged plea. "Please."
A low, dark groan tore from the back of his throat.
Nate’s mouth crashed down onto hers, urgent and consuming.
Audrey’s hands flew up to grip the lapels of his suit jacket as he pulled her across the cushions, settling her squarely in his lap so she was straddling him.
The kiss was a collision of desperate need and blinding heat.
She tasted coffee, sweet macadamia, and the intoxicating flavor of a man who looked at her like she was the only oxygen left on earth.
Audrey tore at his tie, throwing it to the floor, her fingers frantic as she unbuttoned his crisp white shirt to find the blistering heat of the skin beneath. There was no hesitation. The agony of the morning demanded a violent, absolute erasure.
Nate’s hands pushed the fabric of her skirt up her thighs, his touch burning everywhere it landed. He unhooked her bra through her blouse, pushing the silk down her shoulders to expose her chest to the cool, air-conditioned room.
Audrey arched her back as his hands mapped the curve of her ribs, his thumbs brushing upward. Nate let out a ragged exhale, dipping his head. His mouth closed over her breast, his tongue swirling hot and wet against her skin before he took the hard, sensitive peak entirely into his mouth.
A sharp, shattered gasp tore from Audrey’s lips. She tangled her fingers in his dark hair, holding him against her as he devoured the peak with a deliberate, agonizing friction that sent shockwaves of pure, blinding pleasure straight to her core.
He pulled back just enough to look at her, his eyes dark and entirely blown.
His hands dropped to her waist, holding her steady as he reached into his trouser pocket with trembling fingers.
The sharp, metallic tear of a foil packet cut through the heavy sound of their frantic breathing as he quickly rolled the condom into place.
When he finally unfastened her and pushed inside, filling her completely, Audrey threw her head back, riding him with a desperate, heavy rhythm. The leather sofa creaked beneath them, the sound masked by the breathless gasps echoing in the locked room.
"Audrey," Nate choked out, his hands gripping her hips tightly to guide her movements, watching her ride him with a look of absolute worship.
She leaned down, capturing his lips in a bruising kiss, entirely consumed by the absolute, devastating perfection of the fire they were building in the ruins.