Chapter 3

What? I Almost Told Him

Virelle's POV

I didn't wait for him. I walked straight through the lobby, past the piano, past the doorman who pulled the door open with a polite smile that had no idea what had just happened three feet behind him.

The cold outside felt like the first honest thing all night. It was the kind of night where the air smelled like rain that hadn't fallen yet, and I remember thinking, absurdly, that I should have brought a heavier coat.

"Virelle. Wait." His footsteps came fast behind me. I didn't stop until he caught my arm and I spun around hard enough that he nearly lost his balance.

"Don't touch me."

His hand dropped. For a second something almost soft crossed his face, he took in the tears I hadn't noticed I was crying, and his jaw worked like he was trying to solve a problem he didn't have the pieces for.

"What's wrong with you?" he said. "You're acting like—"

"Like what, Kael? Like a woman who just heard her husband tell another man that her disappearing wouldn't change anything?"

He went quiet. I watched it land on him slowly.

"You were listening."

"I was standing there waiting to surprise you. I heard you laugh while you said it." My hands curled into fists. "Did you mean it?"

"Virelle…"

"Did you mean it?"

He looked past me, out at the traffic. "It was a joke. Frank was being an idiot and I said something back. It wasn't supposed to be picked apart like this."

"So you didn't mean it."

"I didn't think about it at all," he said, and somehow that landed worse.

"I think about everything I say to you," I said. "Every word. Do you know how long I planned tonight?"

"I don't understand why this is turning into something so big." Frustration had crept into his voice now, replacing whatever softness I'd hoped for. "I came out here because you looked upset, and now you're crying in the street over one sentence."

"It's not the street I'm crying about."

"Then what do you want me to say? That I take back a joke I made to a colleague? Fine. I take it back."

"You can't take back what's true."

"It's not true," he said, too fast, and I almost believed he meant it. Almost…

"It's not one sentence. It's four years of them." My throat was tight. "Every anniversary you forgot. Every dinner I ate by myself. Every night I told myself you were just tired, just busy, just building something for us. Tonight I finally understood there is no us. There's just me, waiting for a man who wouldn't notice if I was gone."

"That's not fair."

"Then tell me I'm wrong." I stepped closer, searching his face. "Tell me you love me. Say it. Right now."

He opened his mouth but nothing came out of it.. The silence went on long enough to become its own answer.

"That's what I thought," I said quietly.

"It's not that simple."

"It is." I wiped my face with the back of my hand, angry at myself for still crying in front of him. "A man either loves his wife or he doesn't. You don't need a merger meeting to figure that out."

I almost told him. I'm pregnant. We're having a baby. Please say something that gives me a reason to stay. The words sat right at the edge of my mouth.

But his face was still tight with confusion instead of guilt, more annoyed than sorry, and I swallowed them whole. If I told him now, he'd stay out of duty. He'd hold my hand through the pregnancy because it was the responsible thing to do, not because he wanted to. I'd rather raise this baby alone than raise it next to a man who thought of me as an obligation.

"Say something," he said, quieter now. "Anything."

I almost laughed. Four years, and he finally wanted to talk when I had nothing left to say.

"I'm going home," I said, and got in the car without looking back.

I packed that night without any of the theatrics people show you in movies. No slammed drawers, no clothes thrown across the room. I folded everything and set it in the suitcase the same careful way I did most things for him, even now, when careful had cost me everything.

Kael stood in the bedroom doorway, arms crossed, watching me the way he watched things at work he didn't yet know how to fix.

"What are you doing?"

"Packing."

"I can see that. Why?"

"I need space." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "I'm going to stay somewhere else for a while."

He didn't say anything for a moment. When I glanced up, his face had changed, this time around not annoyed anymore just uneasy…

"You're really leaving," he said, like the thought hadn't fully landed until he watched me pulling dresses off hangers he'd bought on trips he barely remembered taking.

"I need to think."

He took a step into the room. "Virelle—"

The room tilted. The closet doors blurred into streaks of white and I reached for something to hold and found nothing. My knees gave out under me.

"Virelle!"

I heard him shout my name as the floor came up. The last thing I remember is a warmth spreading beneath me, dark against the pale carpet, and Kael's face over mine, pale in a way I'd never seen before, his hands shaking as he lifted my head off the ground.

"Stay with me," he was saying. "Virelle, stay with me. Please."

Then nothing…