Chapter 3 The Collision

“Jovienne.”

Vance said her name quietly, but Jovi reacted as though the single word had struck her. She lowered her hand from her mouth and stared at him, while Zane instinctively shifted closer to her.

“There you are,” Vance added.

Jovi's eyes moved between us, her face pale beneath the makeup that had looked flawless only a few hours earlier. She seemed unable to decide whether to look at Vance or at me, as though either choice would force her to acknowledge what stood in front of her: her husband had found her at a hotel with another man, while that man's wife was standing beside him.

“Vance,” she whispered.

Zane stepped slightly in front of her. The movement was small, almost instinctive, but I noticed it immediately. His body had always moved that way around Jovi, placing himself between her and anything he believed might hurt her. I had seen him do it years ago when she was upset, when someone spoke too harshly to her, whenever she needed someone to take her side.

I had simply never realized how much it would hurt to see him do it now.

“What the hell is this, Nerissa?” Zane demanded, his anger directed entirely at me, as though Vance weren't standing there and as though the real offense was that I had walked out of a hotel room with another man.

Vance turned his attention to him. “You're questioning her?”

“I'm talking to my wife.”

Vance's gaze moved briefly toward Jovi before settling on Zane again. “Then perhaps you should start by explaining why you were in a hotel room with mine.”

Zane's expression tightened. “You don't get to talk to her like that.”

“And you don't get to question my employee about where she spent the night when you were in that room with my wife.”

The hallway fell silent.

Jovi swallowed and finally turned toward Vance. “Please. It isn't what you think.”

Vance looked at her without saying anything.

“We weren't—” She stopped, glanced at Zane, then quickly looked back at her husband. “Nothing happened. We were just talking. We fell asleep.”

I almost laughed. After what I'd seen in that bedroom, hearing Jovi call it innocent was almost absurd enough to be funny.

Vance didn't argue with her. He simply extended his hand toward her. “We're leaving.”

Jovi stared at his hand but didn't take it. Her eyes moved toward Zane instead, and the look they exchanged was one I had seen too many times over the years. Zane's jaw tightened as he looked back at her, caught between following her and knowing he had no right to interfere.

Finally, Jovi stepped away from him. She walked toward the elevator without taking Vance's hand, and he followed a few steps behind her. Before the doors opened, he looked back at Zane, and the two men held each other's gaze across the hallway.

Neither of us said anything for a moment. Vance looked at me, and when our eyes met, I found myself remembering the question he'd asked me in the hotel room only a few hours earlier. I still didn't know what he had been thinking when he'd asked it, and I was far too exhausted to try to figure out what was going through his mind now.

The elevator doors opened beside them, and Vance turned toward it. Jovi stepped inside first, followed by Vance, but just before the doors closed, his eyes found mine again. He didn't say anything. A second later, the doors slid shut, leaving me alone in the hallway with Zane.

“Nerissa…” Zane's voice had lost some of its anger, but I didn't mistake the change for regret. When I turned toward him, he was already looking at me with the same question he'd been holding back since we'd left the room.

“What were you doing with him?”

I stared at him, unable to believe that was what he wanted to know.

Zane stepped closer, his expression tightening as he continued, “I saw you coming out of that room together. You spent the night with him. What am I supposed to think?”

“You want to know what happened?” I asked, my voice quieter than I expected. “I went to a bar. I drank too much. Two men tried to take advantage of me, and Vance stopped them. He took me to the hotel because I could barely stand. That's what happened.”

Zane's expression changed, and for a brief moment I thought I saw relief there, but it disappeared almost as quickly as the suspicion that followed it. “You expect me to believe that?”

“You were alone with him all night, Nerissa,” he said, his voice tightening. “What exactly am I supposed to think?”

The words left me strangely quiet. I'd spent the entire night carrying the shame of that kiss, replaying it over and over in my head and wondering how I would ever be able to face Vance again. I'd blamed myself for what I'd done, even though I'd been drunk, devastated, and barely thinking clearly enough to understand what I was doing at the time.

Yet standing there in front of my husband, listening to the suspicion in his voice, I realized what hurt almost as much as the accusation itself: he wasn't asking whether I was all right. He wasn't asking why I'd been drinking or what had driven me to that hotel room. The only thing he seemed to care about was whether I had betrayed him.

I looked at him for a long moment before a tired, humorless smile touched my lips. “That's right,” I said quietly. “I should have stopped expecting anything from you a long time ago.”

“Nerissa, that's not what I meant.”

I didn't answer. I was already turning away, pushing through the stairwell door before he could say anything else. I needed to get away from the bright hotel corridor, from his questions, and from the explanations I no longer had the strength to give.

The cooler air inside the stairwell should have helped, but I had barely made it down one flight when my stomach twisted violently. I caught the railing, but the nausea came too quickly, forcing me against the wall as I bent forward and retched, my whole body trembling while I tried to steady my breathing.

Somewhere in the middle of it, an old memory surfaced with strange clarity. Years ago, Zane had knelt beside me on the bathroom floor when I was sick, holding my hair away from my face with one hand while the other moved slowly across my back.

“I've got you,” he had murmured. “Just let it go. I've got you.”

I had believed him. Back then, hearing those words had been enough to make me stop being afraid, because I had never doubted that Zane would be the person beside me when I needed someone.

The memory faded as quickly as it had come, leaving me in the cold stairwell with the same man standing a few steps behind me now.

“Nerissa.”

I wiped my mouth and forced myself upright. Zane had stopped several steps above me, and whatever anger had been in his face before was harder to see now. After watching me for a moment, he came down another step.

“Are you okay?”

I didn't answer, and after a moment he said, “Let me take you home.”

“I don't want to go home.”

“Then let me take you somewhere else. We need to talk.”

I shook my head, but he came down another step and softened his voice. “Nerissa, please.”

When he reached for my arm, I pulled away before his hand could close around it. “I said no.”

He stopped and looked at me, his hand falling back to his side. After a moment, he exhaled. “At least let me drive you.”

I wanted to refuse again, but the exhaustion had settled so deeply into my body that even another argument felt impossible. My hands were still trembling, and I didn't have the energy to walk outside alone or search for a taxi. “Fine.”

Zane nodded and turned toward the stairs, and I followed him without saying anything more. By the time we reached the lobby, sunlight was pouring through the glass doors, bright enough to make me squint. People were already coming and going with coffee cups and briefcases, caught up in the ordinary rhythm of their morning while mine had been torn apart only hours earlier.

Zane pushed open the doors and walked toward his car, slowing when he realized I was several steps behind him. He opened the passenger door, and I reached for it without thinking before a faint floral scent drifted from inside the car. I knew it immediately—it was Jovi's perfume.

The scent had always been familiar, something I had encountered so often over the years that I had stopped noticing it. But standing there now, with my hand resting on the door, I suddenly became aware of how easily another woman's presence had settled into my husband's life without me ever questioning it. I stared at the passenger seat where I had spent countless mornings beside Zane, suddenly aware that Jovi's scent had become familiar in a place I had always thought belonged to me.

“Nerissa?”

I swallowed and got into the car.