Left at the Edge of Goodbye

The security guard immediately bent over backward for Rachel Carter.

“Mr. Hale, Mrs. Hale—there was a thief trying to break in just now. I’ve already taken care of her.”

Rachel flushed and turned as if to explain, but the second her eyes met mine, all the color drained from her face.

“Waverly? When did you get back?”

She forced a smile.

“Why didn’t you tell us…” She stopped herself and quickly changed tack. “I mean, I’ll have the housekeeper add another place setting.”

She spun around too fast, caught one foot on the other, and nearly fell.

Julian caught her by the arm at once, a slight frown creasing his brow.

“You’re always in such a rush. How many times have I told you to slow down?”

My heart gave a sharp, ugly twist.

We had spent ten years side by side, but the tenderness in his voice was something I had never once heard directed at me.

The security guard hurried to pull me to my feet, grinning apologetically.

“So you’re a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Hale. The system alarm went off, and I thought you were a burglar.

“Just a misunderstanding. My mistake.”

Julian gave a brief acknowledgment and took my suitcase from my hand.

I stared at him.

“You deleted my face profile?”

His answer came easily, as if there were nothing strange about it.

“The system hit its limit for facial access, so the least-used profiles had to be removed. Yours went first.

“We can scan you back in later.”

Once inside, I watched Rachel direct the housekeeper to bring out the food as naturally as if she owned the place.

“Where’s Mrs. Warren?” I asked Julian.

Back in the early days of our startup, I drank my way through so many client dinners that I ended up with stomach bleeding.

Julian had interviewed more than a hundred cooks before finally finding Mrs. Warren, who specialized in light, nourishing Mediterranean dishes.

But the unfamiliar housekeeper now carrying plates out of the kitchen served nothing but food drenched in chili and spice.

Julian set out a child’s bowl and utensils with practiced ease.

“Ricky’s a picky eater. He wouldn’t touch Mrs. Warren’s cooking.

“We can’t just think about ourselves. We have to consider what a child likes too.”

But aside from the cola-glazed chicken wings, the rest of the meal was heavy, bold, and aggressively seasoned—the exact kind of food Rachel loved.

My appetite vanished.

When I went upstairs and pushed open the master bedroom door, I stopped cold.

The entire room had been repainted a sugary rose pink, and the nightstand held a cloying floral-fruit diffuser.

I was allergic to artificial fragrance.

And I hated pink.

Julian brushed past me in long strides and scooped up the pink bedding from the bed.

“I didn’t know you were coming back today, so I haven’t had time to clear it out.

“Rachel insisted the master bedroom had the best light, so I let her stay here."

“And the walls?” I asked. “She wanted those repainted too?”

Julian frowned, already sounding impatient.

“Wasn’t it you who said that as long as she was happy, none of that mattered?”

I clenched my fingers tight.

I remembered when we first moved into this house last year.

One wall in the master bedroom had been left unfinished. Julian—a CEO who never had time for anything—had gone to the home improvement store himself, bought paint, and stayed up half the night finishing it in pale blue.

A therapist had once told him blue might help stabilize my moods, and he had remembered.

I had struggled with insomnia for years, and without fail, he used to bring home fresh lavender every week and leave it by my bedside.