Chapter 8

Chapter 8

DAMIEN

Nothing. The house was empty, silent, mocking me with its vacancy.

I checked the garage—her Mercedes was there, untouched. I checked the bedroom—the bed was made, her things were in their usual places. I even checked the guest room where she sometimes retreated when I made it clear I didn't want her around.

Empty. All of it empty.

My heart was pounding now, my collar suddenly too tight. I pulled out my phone and tried calling again. Still voicemail.

Where the hell was she?

I paced the living room, my mind racing through possibilities. She had no friends—I'd made sure of that, subtly discouraging her from maintaining relationships that might give her ideas about independence. She had no family that I knew of—she'd told me she was an orphan, alone in the world except for me.

So where could she have gone?

I called her phone fifteen more times over the next hour. I texted increasingly frantic messages. I even considered calling the police, but what would I say? That my wife wasn't home when I'd explicitly told her I wouldn't be coming home either?

By the time I heard a car pull into the driveway, I was nearly out of my mind.

I flung open the front door before she could even get out of the vehicle—a car I didn't recognize, which raised a whole new set of questions. She climbed out slowly, hood pulled up, carrying a pharmacy bag.

The relief that flooded through me was immediately replaced by anger. How dare she make me worry like this? How dare she not respond to my texts, not answer my calls, disappear for hours without explanation?

"Where the hell have you been?"

She looked up at me, and for just a second, I could have sworn I saw something unfamiliar flash across her face. But then it was gone, replaced by that same apologetic, confused expression she always wore.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to worry you."

The familiar response should have calmed me. Should have put everything back in its proper order. But something felt off.

"I texted you over an hour ago. You didn't respond. You always respond within seconds."

Because I'd trained her to. Because the one time she'd taken ten minutes to reply, I'd frozen her out for three days and she'd learned her lesson.

She held up the pharmacy bag, and I noticed for the first time that she was moving carefully, like something hurt. "I had to get ointment for the burns. I didn't have my phone with me—I left it in the car while I was in the store."

Burns. Right. The soup I'd poured on her.

Guilt, unexpected and unwelcome, twisted in my gut.

I took the bag from her, checking its contents like I didn't quite trust her explanation. Burn ointment, bandages, pain relievers. All things someone with burns would need.

All things she needed because of what I'd done.

"Let me see," I said, gesturing her inside.

She followed obediently, but there was something different about the way she moved. Something I couldn't quite put my finger on. When I told her to sit on the sofa instead of her usual chair in the corner, she complied without that eager-to-please smile she usually wore.

"Take it off. I need to see how bad it is."

She pulled off her sweatshirt—another thing that was off, Adriana didn't wear sweatshirts, she wore the bland, modest clothes I'd told her looked appropriate—and revealed the burns covering her chest and stomach.

They were bad. Angry red patches, some already blistering. The kind of burns that would hurt for days.

I'd done that to her.

I'd poured hot soup down her front in front of my friends, called her pathetic, sent her away like she was nothing. And now I was sitting here playing concerned husband, applying ointment to wounds I'd inflicted.

"You need to get better at understanding what I need from you," I heard myself say, because I couldn't acknowledge what I'd done, couldn't admit that maybe I'd gone too far. "If you had brought the soup at the right temperature, if you had been more careful, this wouldn't have happened. You understand that, don't you?"

"Yes. I understand."

The words should have satisfied me. Should have put everything back in its proper place, with me in control and her accepting whatever I deemed necessary. But they rang hollow somehow.

"I'll try harder. I promise."

"I know you will. That's what I appreciate about you, Adriana. You're willing to improve."

I finished applying the ointment and made a decision I didn't fully understand. "Come on. Let's go to bed."

She looked at me like I'd spoken a foreign language. "Bed?"

"Yes, bed. Where married couples sleep."

I held out my hand and she took it, but there was a hesitation I'd never noticed before. Like she had to think about it first, had to decide whether to accept my touch.

We went upstairs together, and I found myself doing something I never did—pulling her close when we lay down, holding her against me like she actually mattered, like she was more than just a convenient arrangement.

She went rigid in my arms, every muscle tense, and I told her to relax even though I knew it was hypocritical. When had I ever given her reason to relax around me?

Eventually, her body softened, and I fell asleep with her pressed against me, trying not to think about how this was the first time in months I'd actually wanted her there.

---

The next morning, I woke up before dawn, careful not to disturb Adriana as I extracted myself from the bed. She was still asleep, her face turned away from me, and for a moment I just stood there looking at her.

In sleep, she looked different. Peaceful, maybe, or just... absent. Like the part of her that was constantly trying to please me had temporarily shut off.

I showered and dressed quickly, my mind already shifting to the day ahead. I had three major meetings scheduled, a conference call with our Singapore office, and a presentation to the board about Q4 projections.

By the time I left for the office, Adriana was still asleep. I didn't wake her.

The guilt from last night had faded to a dull background noise, easily ignored in the face of more pressing concerns. I told myself I'd make it up to her eventually. Maybe take her out to dinner or buy her something nice. That's what husbands did when they felt bad about something, right?

My secretary, Melissa—not Adina, who only worked events and special projects—greeted me with coffee and a tablet full of messages when I arrived at my office.

"Morning, Mr. Castellan. You have a call with the Singapore office in thirty minutes, and the board presentation has been moved up to two PM instead of four."

"Fine." I took the coffee and settled behind my desk, trying to focus on the emails that had accumulated overnight.