LOGINWe picked up Rowan from Carol's a little after noon, both of us a little sheepish walking down the hall together, though Carol didn't seem to notice or care, just handed him over with a smile and told us he'd been an angel the whole time."You two have a nice morning?" she asked, and something in the way she said it made me wonder if she'd noticed more than she let on."We did," Daxton said, easy, not embarrassed at all, and I felt my face warm anyway.We went back to Daxton's apartment instead of mine because many of Rowan's things had slowly ended up there over the past few weeks without us planning it. There were extra baby clothes in a drawer, diapers under the bathroom sink, and a portable crib that now stayed permanently in the corner of Daxton's bedroom.Daxton prepared lunch while I fed Rowan, the three of us easily fell into the comfortable routine we had built over the past few months, even though we had never talked about it or given it a name.After lunch, Rowan lay on a b
I didn't sleep. Dana's question just sat there in the dark, over and over, until the sky outside went gray.I got up before Rowan woke, made tea I didn't drink then sat at the table and made myself actually answer it instead of running from it.Did I love Jason, once? Yes. But it was fast...one dinner, one night, a handful of honest moments squeezed between months of two strangers being polite to each other. I'd fallen for a feeling more than a person. For what he might become to me, not what he'd already proven himself to be.Daxton was different. There was no single perfect night with him. Just month after month of small things, he fixed my sink, he sat with me through a panic attack at two in the morning, he built a crib on a Saturday and stayed for lunch like it was nothing, he showed up at the hospital twice, once for a false alarm, once for the real thing, and both times he didn't have to be asked.That wasn't the same shape as what I felt for Jason, it didn't need to be. Slow a
Dana called on a Sunday evening, her usual time, and I answered from my small kitchen table, Rowan finally down for the night, the apartment quiet around me in the particular way it got once he was asleep and the day's noise finally settled."How's my favorite almost-toddler," she asked, the same way she opened most calls now."Sleeping, thankfully. Growing so fast I can barely keep up with the clothes.""And how's his mother.""Good," I said, and heard, even as I said it, how easily the word came out, how little I had to search for it lately.Dana was quiet for a moment on the other end, and I could picture her exactly, sitting in whatever chair she favored these days, considering her next words the way she used to consider a difficult question from a student who hadn't quite earned the answer yet."You sound different lately," she said finally. "Lighter. I've noticed it the last few calls, actually.""Is that a bad thing?""Not necessarily," she said. "I just want to make sure I und
Daxton came by that evening the way he did most evenings now, letting himself in with the spare key I'd given him a few weeks earlier, a small, ordinary trust I still hadn't fully gotten used to extending to anyone.Rowan was fussing in his crib when Daxton arrived, two months old now and still working out the difference between hungry and simply wanting to be held, and Daxton went straight to him without even setting his bag down, lifting him out and settling into the chair by the window with the easy, practiced confidence of someone who'd been doing this for months instead of weeks."Hey, buddy," he murmured, warming a bottle with one hand while balancing Rowan against his shoulder with the other. "I know, I know. Bottle's coming."I stood in the kitchen doorway and watched them, the particular ache in my chest that had become familiar these past months, love and something more complicated tangled together so tightly I'd stopped trying to separate them.Daxton knew everything. He'd
Marcus called within minutes of the email, his voice tighter than I'd ever heard it."It's smaller than I feared, but I want you to see it before you panic," he said. "The reporter didn't get everything. She got enough to run something, but her editor apparently pulled back on the more specific claims......no names beyond yours, no confirmation of a child, it's vague enough that most people reading it won't connect the dots unless they're already looking hard."I sat there gripping the phone, some of the dread in my chest loosening slightly, though not fully."What does it actually say," I asked."That an unnamed woman connected to a prior high-profile divorce has reportedly been living under an assumed name," he said. "That's essentially it. No Crane name attached directly, no mention of a business, no mention of Rowan, it's thin.....thin enough that I think this dies quickly if nobody feeds it anything further."I let out a slow breath, Daxton's hand tightening around mine across th
The meeting ended without a formal decision about Vanessa's future, Patricia insisting the board needed time to discuss it properly, separately, without either Vanessa or myself in the room. Daxton walked me out afterward, his hand steady at my back, both of us quiet until we reached the elevator."That could have gone worse," he said, once the doors closed."It could have gone better too," I said honestly. "Nothing's actually resolved, she still knows everything, she's still angry and a board decision doesn't erase either of those things.""No," he agreed. "But it does mean she's not going to have institutional cover to keep going after you. Whatever she does next, she'll be doing it as someone the board is already watching carefully."I wanted that to feel like more of a relief than it did.We didn't have to wait long to find out what came next. Two days later, while I was at my desk finishing a contract review, my phone rang with a number I didn't recognize."Is this Anne Grayson?
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
Twenty-four hours. That was how long I lasted as Mrs. Crane, I stared at the papers on Jason’s desk. I kept waiting for the words to scramble into a joke, but they just sat there, heavy and permanent.DIVORCE AGREEMENT.My throat went completely dry just a few hours ago. I'd woken up in his bed w







