Chapter 2: He Minded Her Wanting to Leave

This was the first time Claire had ever pushed back on Nathan outright. A long silence stretched between them before his voice finally came, low and rough, out of the dark.

"Give it time. Until my legs are better."

Her throat had gone dry. "I don't mind doing it myself."

She'd already given five years. She wasn't going to give another five waiting.

Nathan sat up and pulled her back against him, his breath warm against her neck.

"Claire. We have time. I want our first time to be right."

She smiled, bitter. She'd half-expected this.

Nathan was too clever by half. To him, his legs were a permanent excuse, an ironclad guarantee that she could never do anything about it.

"And Oliver? Do you want him carrying that name his whole life illegitimate?"

She didn't care for Diana. But the boy hadn't asked for any of this.

Claire had lost her own parents at eight, spent six aching months being shuffled between relatives who barely tolerated her. By the time the Wade family took her in and Grandma Wade raised her properly, her life had turned comfortable, even privileged.

But she still missed her parents. Still wanted, more than almost anything, a family of her own.

Behind her, Nathan's arms loosened. He lay back down without a word, and silence swallowed the room whole thick, heavy, like sinking into a swamp.

Claire didn't move. "Let's divorce, Nathan. Let Oliver have a whole family."

It was the first time since their wedding that she'd called him by his given name instead of anything softer.

Maybe she didn't need him at all. Maybe some dark, quiet part of her had been asking to leave for longer than she wanted to admit.

She'd played the perfect Mrs. Wade for years. But somewhere along the way, she'd stopped living as herself.

Even divorced, she told herself, she could still keep her promise to Grandma Wade as family, if nothing else.

A cold laugh rose out of the dark behind her, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop with it.

"Claire. What gives you the right to decide how my life goes?"

"Remember that a home with you in it is the only home I want."

His voice had gone eerily calm, and that calm frightened her more than any shouting could have.

It felt like something predatory was watching her from the shadows, marking her as property.

This version of Nathan was a stranger to her.

"Nathan!"

Diana's panicked voice cut through the door before Claire could answer, and she flinched.

For the first time in her life, she was glad to hear it.

"Diana, what's wrong?"

Nathan's voice had gone rough enough to sound like something else entirely.

Diana's reply came choked with tears. "It's nothing. I'm sorry to bother you."

Her footsteps retreated down the hall, and Nathan was already wheeling himself upright.

He pushed open the door at the far end of the corridor. Diana stood there with Oliver in her arms, both their faces streaked with tears.

"What happened?"

"He had a nightmare. He kept calling for his father."

Diana turned her face away, unwilling to meet his eyes.

Nathan lifted the boy from her arms. "Oliver. Uncle Nathan's here."

"A monster was chasing me! I called for my dad to save me but I don't have a dad" the boy sobbed, fists twisting into Nathan's shirt.

"I'm sorry I panicked, I didn't think about whether you'd already"

Diana glanced up at him, eyes brimming with hurt.

Something in Nathan's chest twisted with guilt. Almost without meaning to, he murmured, "Diana. You're the only woman I've ever been with."

The surprise in her eyes faded fast, replaced by something sadder.

She tipped her head back, wiped at her face, and let out a long breath. As she moved, one strap of her slip dress slid loose off her shoulder.

"Nathan, I didn't come here to break up your marriage."

He looked down at the sleeping child in his arms instead of answering directly.

"You won't be wronged in this house. Neither will he. I promise you that."

"I believe you."

She bent to take Oliver back, the loose fabric of her nightgown doing little to hide her figure.

"Go on back. Don't keep Claire waiting."

His eyes stayed on the boy's small face. "Alright. Call if you need anything."

But the moment he tried to hand Oliver over, the boy's fists tightened in his shirt, whimpering at the shift.

"I woke him up."

"It's fine."

Nathan stopped her and wheeled closer to the bed instead.

"I'll stay with him tonight."

"But he's used to my scent," Diana said, hesitant. "He doesn't sleep well without me close."

"Then you don't need to leave either," Nathan said, calm.

"What if Claire misunderstands?"

"She's the most understanding person I know. She'll get it."

A faint smile touched his eyes as he said it.

Understanding.

Back in their room, when Nathan hadn't returned after a long while, Claire debated going to check on him and those two words kept circling back to her.

She'd been called understanding, considerate, easy to manage, her whole life. Everyone in the Wade family described her that way like it was a compliment.

What none of them seemed to grasp was that for an orphan living on someone else's charity, being anything less than understanding was the same as being ungrateful.

Tonight, for the first time, all that understanding wasn't enough to keep the ache out of her chest.

She shut the door and retreated into her own thoughts instead.

She dreamed in fragments all night her parents waving at her from somewhere she couldn't reach, Grandma Wade asking why she'd broken her promise, herself standing at Nathan and Diana's wedding, and somewhere in it, a pair of deep blue eyes she didn't recognize.

She woke with her head full and heavy, like it had been stuffed with too much all at once.

Nathan was alone at the breakfast table. Diana and Oliver hadn't come down yet.

Claire sat across from him and ate in silence.

Nathan slid a glass of warm water toward her. "About last night"

"I'm going to look for a job."

She cut him off before he could finish, unwilling to revisit the night before.

She'd married Nathan right out of university and had never worked a real day since. In truth, he only needed her attention when he was actually home; the daytime hours during the week had always been hers.

More importantly, she hadn't let go of the idea of the divorce.

If Diana proved herself capable enough, Nathan would likely file for it himself, eventually.

A tree dies when it's uprooted; a person only grows stronger for it. Whether or not the divorce went through, she wasn't going to sit at home and fight for him like a prize.

Nathan's expression hardened. "No."

Some twisted instinct in him recoiled at the idea of her stepping outside his line of sight.

Claire didn't back down. "Then have Diana and Oliver move out. I don't want to see them here."

Nathan's brow furrowed. "Claire. Is this some delayed rebellious streak?"

She had never once defied him, not in all the years she'd known him.

She set down her fork, wiped her mouth, and lifted her chin, her eyes clear, steady, unmistakably resolved.

"Nathan. Respect me."

Faced with that look, he relented, if only partly. "Fine. I'll get you a position at the company."

He didn't think she'd last a week out in the real world; she'd never worked, she was soft-hearted, too trusting by half. Let her get a taste of how hard it actually was out there. She'd come running back soon enough.

"No need. I already have an interview lined up."

She had never intended to work under Nathan. She was trying to get away from him, not closer.

Nathan cared about her; she knew that but he'd already made his choice the moment he couldn't bring himself to send Diana and her son away.

Clang.

He threw his fork down against his plate, hard. Claire ignored it, rose, and walked out in her heels without a backward glance.

Keeping him happy was Diana's job now.

Nathan rubbed at his temples and picked up his phone.

"Call every company on the list. Make sure none of them hire Claire Whitfield.”