24. Hannah
HANNAH
The waiting room chairs were uncomfortable.
Julia sat beside me, flipping through a magazine she wasn't reading. I could tell because she hadn't turned a page in five minutes. My prenatal appointment was in twenty minutes. I shifted in the chair, trying to find a position that didn't make my back ache, and failed.
The baby had been active all morning. Little flutters against my ribs that made me press my hand to my stomach without thinking. I wondered if it was a girl or a boy. I wondered if they'd have Pierce's eyes or mine.
The door opened.
Pierce walked in.
I went completely still. Everything in me froze — my breath, my heart, the words I'd been about to say to Julia. She must have felt it, because her magazine rustled as she looked up, and I felt her go tense beside me.
Nobody had asked him to come.
I certainly hadn't. We hadn't spoken in sixty-seven days, not since I'd walked out of our house and asked him for a divorce.
He saw me immediately. His gaze locked on mine across the waiting room, and my pulse kicked up without my permission. God, I hated that my body still did that. I hated that after everything, after all the months of being invisible to him, my stupid heart still beat faster when he looked at me.
He crossed the waiting room. He looked tired — shadows under his eyes I'd never seen before, his hair not quite as perfectly neat as it usually was, his tie loose at his throat. He stopped a few feet away from where I sat, like he wasn't sure how close he was allowed to get.
Like he thought I might run.
"Hannah," he said quietly.
I had to swallow twice before I could answer. My throat felt tight, and my hands were shaking where I'd fisted them in my lap. "What are you doing here?"
"I knew about the appointment." He shifted his weight, and I saw his hands were in his pockets, like he didn't know what else to do with them. "You asked me to come. Before you left. I had the office and the date written down."
Something in my chest twisted so painfully I had to look away.
He'd remembered. All this time, he'd remembered.
He'd written it down in whatever calendar or planner he used, and then he'd shown up two months too late, after I'd already asked for a divorce and moved out of his house and stopped expecting anything from him at all.
"Hannah." Julia's voice was soft. She touched my shoulder briefly. "I'll give you two a minute."
"Julia, you don't have to?—"
"It's fine." She picked up her purse and stood, giving Pierce a look I couldn't quite read. "I'll be right over there if you need me."
She walked toward the hallway where the restrooms were, leaving me alone with my husband.
Ex-husband, I reminded myself. Nearly ex-husband. The papers were signed.
Pierce sat down in the chair Julia had left. Not right next to me — he left one seat between us. Like he was trying to be careful.
I braced myself to be hurt.
That's what I'd been doing for months, wasn't it?
Bracing myself every time he chose work over me, every time he waved off what I said like I was making a mountain out of an anthill, every time Sienna smiled at me like she'd already won.
I was so used to it that sitting here next to him, I could feel the old instinct rising up, that urge to protect myself before he could dismiss me again.
"What have you been doing?" The question came out with more edge than I'd planned.
He looked at me. Really looked at me, not the distracted glance he'd given me for the last year, not the absent nod while his mind was still on a conference call. He looked at me the way he used to, back when we were first married and I still believed he saw me.
"I handed my work to Carter," he said.
I blinked. "I know. I saw it on the news."
Something flickered across his face. Surprise, maybe. "You've been watching the news about me?"
Like an idiot, I flushed. "It was on. Julia had the TV on, and they mentioned your name, and I . . ." I trailed off. Ugh. I sounded ridiculous. "What else have you been doing?"
"I've been running the home myself." His voice was steady, but there was something underneath it I couldn't name.
Something raw. "All of it. The cleaning, the cooking, the laundry.
The social calendar. Every dinner party, every fundraiser, every charity event you used to handle for me. Everything you did."
My throat went tight. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
"I didn't realize how much there was," he continued, and there was a kind of wonder in his voice. "I didn't realize how much you were carrying. How much I'd just left to you and never thanked you for. I'm sorry, Hannah. I should have seen it."
Don't cry. Do not cry in this waiting room.
"I fired Sienna."
That one hit me like whiplash. My head snapped up. "You what?"
"I fired her." He said it simply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "She doesn't work for me anymore. She's gone."
I sat there, trying to process that. Sienna was gone. Pierce had actually fired her. The woman who'd joked about being his work wife, who'd smiled at me like I was in her way, who'd touched his arm and laughed at his jokes and made me feel invisible in my own marriage — he'd let her go.
"When?" I asked. My voice came out smaller than I wanted.
"Twelve days after you left." He looked down at his hands, then back at me. "I should have done it years ago. You told me she was a problem, and I didn't listen. I waved you off. I'm sorry."
I stared at him. He wasn't asking me to come back. He wasn't making promises or telling me it would be different this time. He was just telling me what he'd done, like it was a fact. Like it was already decided, whether I came back or not.
"Why?" The word came out broken. "Why did you do all of it?"
He looked at me for a long moment. His jaw was tight, and I could see a muscle working there. "Because it's what you wanted."
My heart twisted in my chest.
"You asked me to come to your appointments," he said quietly.
"You asked me to listen to you. You asked me to see Sienna for what she was.
You asked me to be there. And I didn't do any of it, Hannah.
I just kept working. I kept telling myself the marriage was fine, that you were fine, that I could keep everything running without actually being present for any of it. "
He shifted in his chair, leaning forward slightly, and I caught the scent of him — the same cologne he'd always worn, the one that used to cling to his shirts when I did the laundry. My chest ached.
"Hannah." He said my name carefully, like he was afraid I'd bolt if he said it too loud. "I'm sorry."
God, I wanted to believe him. I wanted it so badly my hands were shaking in my lap, and I had to press them flat against my thighs to make them stop.
"I'm sorry I didn't listen to you," he said, and the words came out rough, like they hurt to say. "I'm sorry I put work ahead of you, every single time. I'm sorry I didn't see what was right in front of me. You told me what you needed, and I didn't hear you. I made you invisible. That's on me."
I bit my lip hard enough to hurt. Don't cry. Do not cry.
"I'm not asking you for anything," he added quietly. "I'm not here to beg you to come back, or to ask you to forgive me, or to stop the divorce. I just wanted you to know that I heard you. Finally. I heard you, and I'm sorry it took losing you for me to listen."
The baby moved. A little flutter against my ribs, stronger this time, like they were reminding me they were there. I put my hand over my stomach automatically, and Pierce's gaze dropped to the movement.
Something crossed his face — grief, maybe, or longing. It was gone before I could be sure, but it left something raw in his expression that made my throat close up.
"I don't forgive you," I said. The words felt cruel, but they were true. "Not yet."
"I know."
"I don't know if I will."
"I know," he said again. He didn't argue. He didn't try to talk me out of it or wave me off like my feelings didn't matter. He just sat there, looking at me like I was something precious he'd lost and knew he didn't deserve to get back.
"The divorce is still happening," I said.
"I know."
"Pierce." I had to say it. I had to be absolutely clear, because if I wasn't, I'd spend the next month turning it over in my mind and wondering if he'd understood. "The divorce is still going ahead. You signing the papers and sending them back — that's still happening. You know that, right?"
"Yeah." His voice was low and rough. "I know, Hannah. I'm not here to stop it."
We sat there in silence. The receptionist called someone else's name, and a woman with a toddler stood up and walked toward the hallway. The air conditioning hummed. My heart was beating too fast, and I couldn't seem to get it to slow down.
I looked at him.
Really looked at him, the way I hadn't let myself do since I'd walked out of our house. The shadows under his eyes that made him look like he hadn't been sleeping. The way his shoulders were tight, like he was holding himself together by sheer force of will. The ring still on his left hand.
I wanted him.
God, I wanted him. I wanted to lean into him and let him put his arms around me and pretend the last three months hadn't happened. I wanted to believe he'd changed. I wanted to believe it would last this time. I wanted to stop being afraid.
"Hannah," he said softly.
I didn't mean to move. I swear I didn't. But somehow I was leaning toward him, and he was leaning toward me, and then his mouth was on mine and I forgot how to think.
The kiss was intense.
His hand came up to cup my jaw, his palm warm against my skin, his touch so careful it made my chest ache.
Like I might break. I fisted my hand in his shirt and pulled him closer, and he made a sound low in his throat that sent heat flooding through me.
God, I'd missed this. I'd missed him — the feel of him, the smell of him, the way my whole body came alive when he touched me.
His other hand settled on my waist, warm and solid through my sweater, his thumb brushing against my ribs.
I pressed closer, and his mouth moved against mine, and for a moment I let myself forget everything.
The divorce. The months of being dismissed.
The way Sienna had smiled at me. All of it dissolved, and there was just this — his hand on my face, his mouth on mine, the way he was holding me like he'd been starving for it.
I pulled back.
My breath came too fast. His hand was still on my face, his thumb against my cheekbone, and I could see my own want reflected in his eyes. They were darker than usual, and his breathing was as rough as mine.
"I'm afraid," I said. The words came out broken. "I'm afraid it won't last."
He went still. His hand didn't move from my face. "Hannah?—"
"You did this before." My voice shook. "You paid attention for a little while, and then work pulled you back in, and I disappeared again. I was invisible. I can't do that, Pierce. I can't go through that again. I can't."
"I know." He didn't move his hand. He stayed right there, close enough that I could feel the warmth of him. "I know you're afraid. You have every right to be."
I closed my eyes. God, what was I thinking? I'd asked for a divorce. I'd signed the papers. I'd moved in with Julia and started building a life that didn't revolve around him and his work and his world. And now here I was, in a doctor's office waiting room, kissing him like nothing had changed.
But something had changed.
He was here. He'd shown up. He'd remembered.
I opened my eyes. Pierce was watching me, his hand still warm against my face, his expression open in a way I hadn't seen in years.
I wanted to stay right there. I wanted it more than I wanted to be sensible. But wanting him had never kept me safe before.
I took his hand from my face and set it down between us, gently, the way you put down something you aren't ready to drop. He let me. He didn't reach for me again.
Julia appeared from the hallway, took one look at the two of us, and gave me a tiny nod.
I could see the question in her eyes — Are you okay?
Do you need me? — but she didn't ask it out loud.
She just picked up her magazine again and settled back into her chair, and I knew she'd be there if I needed her.
Pierce didn't leave. He sat in the waiting room with his hands open on his knees, and I sat with mine pressed flat against my thighs, still afraid, still wanting him, and neither of us said a word while we waited for my name to be called.