31. Nora
NORA
My mother takes June for the night because she says I look like a woman who might start a small fire and then forget why. Fair. I do not argue.
I pack June's overnight bag while she sits in the middle of my bed putting socks on both hands and yelling, "Hat!"
"That's not a hat," I tell her.
"Hat."
"Okay. Fashion is personal."
My mother watches from the doorway with her arms folded and her face doing that careful thing mothers do when they are trying not to look too worried because then you will become even more worried out of spite.
"You can come too," she says.
"I don't want to go home with you tonight," I say.
My mother hears what I do not say. Home is complicated. Home has a man in it now, even when he is not there. My mother nods.
"Then June sleeps at my house, and you sleep here."
She kisses June's cheek, then mine. She lingers half a second too long.
"Lock the door. Eat something. Do not read the comments."
"I'm not an amateur."
She gives me a look.
"Fine," I say. "I already read the comments."
"Lock the door," she repeats.
Then she takes my daughter, my overnight bag, and most of the oxygen in the room with her.
The apartment goes quiet after they leave. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that makes every thought louder than it needs to be.
Downstairs, the kitchen is scrubbed and dark. Bex left a container of pasta in my fridge with a sticky note that says EAT THIS OR I'LL KNOW. I eat three bites standing over the sink. That counts. Probably.
Then I shower. I wash gallery perfume and rain and public humiliation out of my hair.
I stand under the hot water until my skin turns pink and my brain still will not turn off.
Daniel's voice keeps playing in my head.
The voice message. The crack in it. The ugly truth that he wanted me so much it was making him lose his mind, and he was still trying to stand back.
That part of me has been a problem all day. For almost two years.
I get out of the shower and wrap myself in a towel.
I stare at myself in the fogged mirror and think about how ridiculous it is that I can be this tired and still want him.
My body does not care about press leaks.
My body remembers Daniel's hands. It remembers his mouth.
I do not want to remember that. I remember anyway.
Someone knocks. I freeze. For a second, all I hear is water dripping from my hair onto the tile. Then the knock comes again. Not loud. Not demanding. Two careful taps.
My heart already knows. I pull on the soft black robe hanging on the back of the door and tie it too tightly. Then I walk barefoot across the apartment. The peephole is useless because this building is old and apparently privacy was once more of a suggestion.
"Who is it?" I call.
"It's me."
Daniel. Of course. My whole body lights up in one stupid rush. I hate it. I open the door anyway.
He stands in the hall in dark slacks and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. No tie.
No jacket. His hair is still a little damp.
He looks tired. Not billionaire tired. Destroyed tired.
His mouth is tight until he sees me in the robe, and then it goes loose for one dangerous second before he drags his gaze back to my face.
Want moves through him so plainly I feel it in my own skin. Then guilt slams over it. That is Daniel now. Want, pain, restraint. All of it fighting in his face.
"June is at my parents'," I say, because apparently that is the first thing my brain chooses to offer.
His throat moves. "I know. Your mother told me before she agreed to give me the address. After a speech."
"How long?"
"Seven minutes. I may have dissociated."
I almost smile. Then he says, "I came to apologize for the message."
I keep one hand on the door. "You already apologized in text."
"I know." He looks down once, then back at me. "It wasn't enough. Nora."
That does something to me. My name in his mouth, low and careful, like he has to earn even the sound of it. I step back. Not much. Enough.
"You can come in," I say.
He does not move right away. "Are you sure?"
"Yes," I say. "I'm sure."
He comes in. I close the door behind him and lock it because my mother raised me right even if she did betray me with the address.
The apartment feels smaller with Daniel in it.
He takes in the room quickly. The couch with the blue throw.
The stack of bakery invoices under my laptop.
June's board book on the floor because she insists on bringing one everywhere and then immediately abandoning it.
His face changes when he sees the book. Soft. Hurt. I look away.
"Do you want coffee? Tea? Pasta Bex threatened me with?"
That gets half a laugh from him. It sounds rough, unused. "I'm okay."
"No, you are not."
His jaw works. "No," he says. "I'm not."
"What did you need to say?" I ask.
He came prepared. I can tell. He had a speech in his head, probably a good one, because Daniel can talk a board into setting itself on fire if he has enough numbers and a water glass. Then he looks at me, and the speech dies.
"I made that message about me," he says.
I do not move.
"I meant to tell you I would not punish you. That if you chose him, even for one night, it would be because of what I did." His jaw tightens. "But I said I'd take you back. Like you were the one who needed taking back. Like I would be generous enough to survive something I caused."
My chest squeezes. "You were upset."
"That's not an excuse."
"I didn't say it was."
"I know." He rubs a hand over his mouth. "I have spent years turning my first feeling into the only feeling in the room. My panic. My schedule. My deal. Then you had to build your life around whatever was left."
I hate how much I want to step closer. I stay where I am.
"I almost kissed him," I say. "I wanted to."
Pain cuts across his face. He does not hide it fast enough. Maybe he does not try. "I know."
"Does that make you angry?"
A humorless breath leaves him. "Yes."
The answer shocks me even though it shouldn't. He looks me straight in the eye.
"It makes me so angry I had to sit in my office for twenty minutes with my hands flat on the desk because I didn't trust myself to pick up my phone. I wanted to come here and make you remember you're my wife."
Heat rolls through me. Hard. Wrong time. Daniel sees it. His eyes go dark and hungry, and for one second the room loses air. Then he drags it back.
"But wanting that doesn't make it mine," he says. "You aren't mine to corner because I'm hurting. And if I ever make you feel that way again, tell me to leave."
"And you'll go?"
"Yes. Especially then."
I believe him, and I want him, and I am so tired of pretending those two things are not standing in the same room with me.
"Charlotte?" I ask, because I need another subject before I do something reckless.
His face goes hard. "Removed from Crane Street access pending formal review. I reported the conduct to compliance and legal."
"Welling won't like that."
"Welling can survive discomfort."
"Partnership?"
His mouth tightens. "At risk."
I meet his eyes. "Daniel. I didn't ask you to do that."
"I know."
"I don't want you making some grand sacrifice and then resenting me later."
"I won't." He steps closer, then stops like he remembers the rule before I have to say it. "I let the company become an excuse for leaving you. If partnership cannot survive me telling the truth about what happened to my wife, then it was never worth what I paid for it."
My throat tightens. "Don't say things like that. Because I don't know what to do with them."
"You don't have to do anything."
He almost smiles. Then the smile dies too, because we are both standing too close to the edge now. My robe feels too warm. Daniel's eyes drop again. Not far. The knot of the robe. My bare legs below the hem. He looks away like it costs him.
"I should go," he says.
Something inside me panics. Not because I think he is abandoning me. Because I do not want him to.
"Don't," I say.
The word is too soft. He hears it anyway. He turns back slowly.
"Don't go?" he asks.
I nod once. His face changes. Not triumph. He looks like a starving man who has been offered food and does not trust himself to touch the plate.
"Nora," he says carefully, "if you're asking me to stay because you're upset--"
"I'm asking you to stay because I want you."
There. Said. The words drop between us, hot and irreversible. Daniel goes completely still.
"Be very sure," he says.
"I am."
"Because if I touch you, I don't know how I'm going to survive stopping."
My pulse jumps. "I didn't ask you to stop."
His eyes close. "This isn't forgiveness," he says.
"I know."
"I will not make sex another thing you have to clean up emotionally tomorrow. I did not come here to take from you. I came to apologize."
"Then apologize after."
His breath leaves him. Then he crosses the room. Not fast. Every step controlled, his eyes on mine, asking even before his hands do. He stops in front of me, close enough that I have to tip my head back.
"Can I kiss you?" he asks.
The question hurts more than it should. Because he used to take my mouth like coming home. Because asking is right now, and right still aches when you remember what easy used to feel like.
"Yes," I whisper.