LOGINI showed Daxton the photograph the next morning, both of us standing in my kitchen while Rowan ate breakfast, oblivious to the tension building between the two adults feeding him."She's watching us," I said. "Actually watching us, outside your building. This isn't just cold silence at the office anymore."Daxton stared at the photo for a long moment, his jaw tight."I'll talk to her," he said."Talk to her how?""I don't know yet but I can't just let this keep happening. If she's following us, taking pictures, that's something....that's actually something I can bring to HR, maybe even to the police if it continues.""Do you think confronting her alone is a good idea?" I asked, an old unease rising. "After everything already between you two?""I'm not doing anything wrong by talking to her," he said, a slight edge creeping into his voice that I wasn't used to hearing directed at me. "I'm trying to protect us. Isn't that what you want?""I want us to be careful," I said. "That's differ
I didn't go back to the office for almost a week after that night, not because I was avoiding it exactly, just because there wasn't a reason to, most of my work still happening from my own apartment, contracts and calls that didn't require me to be anywhere near Vanessa Cole. Daxton told me about the changes gradually, in pieces, over phone calls and quiet evenings. "She's not doing anything I can point to," he said one evening, frustration clear in his voice. "She shows up on time. She does her job, does it well, actually, better than well. She's just... cold. Distant. Won't make eye contact in meetings anymore unless she has to." "That's not nothing," I said. "I know. It's just hard to act on nothing specific. I can't discipline someone for being quiet." I understood the bind he was in, and it didn't make the unease sitting in my chest any lighter. A woman who'd once dug through invoices and gone to a reporter and stood in front of a board with a carefully built case wasn't
Daxton had asked me to come by his place that evening, a quiet night in planned after the tense conversation about Vanessa a few days earlier, something normal to hold onto after all the unease.I got there a little later than I meant to, held up by a client call that ran long, and let myself in with the key he'd given me weeks ago, expecting to find him in the kitchen or on the couch, the way he usually was.I heard voices before I saw anything, low, and one of them wasn't his.I stopped in the hallway, my hand still on the door."You don't mean that," Vanessa was saying, her voice soft in a way I'd never once heard from her, nothing like the cold, clipped professionalism she usually wore like armor. "I've watched you for years, Daxton. I know you better than she does. I know what you actually want, even when you won't say it.""Vanessa, you need to leave.""Just think about it," she said, closer now, and I heard movement, the particular rustle of someone stepping into someone else's
Daxton called me on a Thursday evening, his voice strange in a way I couldn't immediately place."Can you come by the office," he said. "Now, if you can. I need to talk to you about something that just happened."I dropped Rowan at Dana's.....she'd come into town again for a follow-up visit and happened to still be around.....and got to the office a little after eight, the building nearly empty except for a security guard at the front desk who waved me through without asking questions anymore, used to seeing me by now.Daxton was in his office, the door open, sitting behind his desk with an expression I didn't recognize on him....not upset exactly....unsettled."What happened," I asked, closing the door behind me."Vanessa came in here about twenty minutes ago," he said. "Said she needed to talk. I thought it was work.""It wasn't work.""No." He rubbed a hand over his face. "She told me she's been in love with me for years. Since before the company even had a name, back when it was j
"Say it again," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "I want to make sure I heard you right."Daxton took a slow breath, his hand finding mine on the couch between us."Marry me," he said. "Not right now, I'm not asking you to answer today, or even this month. I just needed to say it out loud, finally, because I've been carrying it around for weeks and it felt wrong to keep waiting for some perfect moment that might never actually arrive. Marry me, eventually, whenever you're ready, that's all I'm asking. Just that you know it's what I want, so you can carry it around too, the same way I have."I sat there, stunned, the mess of wrapping paper still scattered across the floor, Rowan's soft breathing audible faintly from the next room, and felt something enormous and warm rise up in my chest all at once."Daxton....""You don't have to say anything right now," he said quickly, gently. "I mean that. I'm not trying to put you on the spot, I just wanted you to know where I stand, clear
The apartment looked nothing like itself by the time Daxton finished decorating, streamers looped across the ceiling in colors that didn't quite match, a banner that read HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY hung slightly crooked above the window because he'd insisted on doing it himself instead of letting me help.“You really did a lot,” I said, watching him climb down from the chair.“There’s no such thing as doing too much for a first birthday,” he said, completely unbothered as he looked around at his decorations with obvious pride. “You only get one first birthday.”Rowan, unaware of how special the day was, sat on the living room floor, happily banging a wooden spoon against an upside-down pot. Like most one-year-olds, he was completely entertained by the simple noise he was making.Dana arrived a little after eleven, having driven in specifically for the day, her arms were full of presents, and she insisted she hadn’t brought too many, even though it was obvious that she had."One is a big deal,
I didn't sleep that night, or the night after.Every time I closed my eyes, the photographs burned into my eyelids.The dark hotel room,the man with the blurred face,my body and features,the total ruin of the only night that had ever felt real to me.I sat on the edge of the sagging mattress in a c
I spent most of my wedding pretending I wasn't terrified.The fake smile on my face must have been convincing enough because nobody questioned it,guests toasted us, cameras flashed, and champagne flowed like water.Everyone kept gushing about what a perfect couple we made. I just smiled, nodded, an
Three months earlier."Congratulations, Serenity, you're getting married."The fork slipped from my fingers, clattering loudly against my plate,the dining room fell dead silent while I stared across the table at my father. "Excuse me?"Dad didn't even look up,he just calmly dabbed his mouth with a
I don't even remember how I got out of Jason’s office.One minute I was looking at the man I loved handing me divorce papers the next, I was trapped inside the elevator, staring at my reflection in the mirrored walls.The woman looking back at me was a stranger,her lipstick was smeared,her eyes wer







