Adam's POVThe cursor throbbed like a pulse in the corner of my screen taunting me, ticking away the minutes I'd already lost. The document sat open on my desk, my scrawled notes lying in jagged splinters around it like confetti at a party that never even happened. It just wouldn't add up. The figures refused to add up and the deeper I went into it, the more the answer seemed to be before me, laughing at my ineptitude.I'd been here for hours. My shoulders were tight, and my jaw locked in rage. I leaned back in the chair and let out a sigh that had been stuck in throat all day.The filing was damning! This was a merger of two of my firm's tech subsidiaries, one of which had a massive cybersecurity expansion on the cards. It had to be air-tight, and I was the final pair of eyes. But there was something not quite right in the financial flow through provision. I had checked it, reworked it and even started the entire section again from scratch. But I still stopped at a dead end.I didn't
Maya's POV It started with the ragged sound of his breathing.His steady breathing usually lulled me to sleep whenever I slept next to him, but right now, it was a harsh, irregular gulp. As if he was drowning in the middle of the desert. I opened my eyes and was shaken by the sight of the thick darkness, the moonlight cutting through the blinds in narrow strips. I turned my head swiftly. Adam was still sleeping but he was struggling and trembling. He was soaked in his own sweet and he wimpered below the sheets. “Adam.” No response. “Adam.” I called again and he jerked up with a start. I watched him try to understand what was happening and slowly he rose into a sitting position. Adam sat along the edge of the bed, elbows on knees, with his head bent low. The sheet had fallen from his back, showing the tight lines of his shoulders, the contour of his muscles beneath skin. His hands were clenched in his hair. I stood up slowly. "Adam?"He didn't stir. I bent over, tracing my hand d
Maya's POVSami and Lee's tutor arrived by noon. She wore her usual warm smile, carried a knapsack full of storybooks, and had that friendly, calming voice that comforted the kids more or less immediately. I stayed long enough to see that both the children were settled in before quietly leaving the place. I found Adam standing next to the kitchen counter, sipping something dark from his beloved mug. His shoulders were slumped and his gaze fixed on the window. We hadn't spoken since last night. Not because we were avoiding each other, but because there was so much unsaid, suspended between us like impenetrable mist."Want to go out for a walk?" I asked, trying to break it.His eyes flew to mine and he looked as if he was going to decline but then he nodded slowly. The sun was shining weakly when we stepped out, the sky streaked with soft pale gray clouds that defused the light and chilled the air. We walked down the narrow stone path at the rear of the house to the garden, both of us
Chapter 35 Maya's POVThe day following the headlines was like moving through a house built of eggshells. Every creak, every quiet whisper, every glance out the window to the gate where the paparazzi still lingered felt like it could shatter something delicate into unfixable bits. I fought to hold on to routine. Attempted to laugh at Lee's stories and compliment her buns for being nice, attempted to flip pancakes that were super blueberry-ful for Sami, attempted not to pay attention to how my name was now being mentioned on hashtags not belonging to me.And worse, it felt like Adam had changed.It wasn't in any direct way. He was still here, still with me. He did dishes today. He brushed Sami's hair in the morning. He folded laundry too, next to me on the couch. But there was something different, some sort of weight. Something hollow behind the curve of his mouth. Something distant in the way he had held me at night, not tighter, not looser, just differently. Like I was both anchor a
Chapter 34 Adam's POVThe room was silent, the only thing that altered the silence was the whir of the fridge and the gentle tick of the wall clock. Morning was almost here, and the light gray creeping through the curtains gave the room somber tones. I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling trying to remember where exactly I was. A figure shifted beside me and that's when the memory came rushing back. Maya had drifted off on the couch. She was drawn up against me on her side as if she belonged there. Her loose fingers across my shirt and her head resting on my chin. Her legs tangled with mine beneath the blanket that had slipped down to our waists. My chest was tightened up, but not in a painful way but rather like something warm and impossibly fragile had taken up residence there. I hadn't intended to sleep. We didn't plan any of it, it just happened. She had slept off earlier and I watched her sleep but before I could say jack, I joined her. I looked at her for what could have
Maya's POVThe clock on the wall read 2:18 AM in soft red figures. The TV was still on, now silenced, throwing stuttering shadows against the living room wall. I was snuggled under a blanket, though I wasn't cold. I still couldn't sleep. I would doze, only to wake time and time again, Adam's scent still on the pillow I had picked from the room. I had no idea what kept me awake, restlessness? curiositym? Or the creeping, crawling sensation that something in this house was always on the verge of being revealed.I got up, went into the kitchen to fetch water but did not get any further. My legs carried me to the hallway, and before I knew it, I was standing in front of Adam's office door. The door was shut but not locked.I hesitated a little, my fingers on the handle. I wasn't being nosy, technically. I just wanted to see my mans work space. That piece of him that he never spoke of. That piece which seemed frozen in time, even when the rest of him operated on his schedule like a watch.