CHAPTER 6- TOO COMFORTABLE

"About the conversation we had last month." I thought about her words.

I waited for the rest of that sentence the night before. But Celeste had only smiled and said, "Actually, never mind. Ask him yourself. I don't want to start anything."

Then she had gone to bed, leaving the words hanging in the air like smoke that wouldn't clear.

I never asked Dominic. Some part of me was afraid of what he'd say. A bigger part of me was afraid he'd say nothing at all — that he'd just look at me like the question itself was an inconvenience.

So I let it sit. And the days kept moving. The first thing I noticed about Celeste was that she never hesitated.

Most people did, in someone else's home. They asked where things were kept. They moved carefully, the way you move through a space that isn't yours yet.

Celeste did none of that.

Three days in, she moved through the penthouse like she'd lived there for years.

I was in the kitchen one morning, Luca on my hip, trying to make coffee with one hand, when she walked in wearing a silk blouse that probably cost more than my month's grocery budget.

"Good morning, Amara."

Her smile was warm. Not fake, exactly. Just comfortable. That made it worse.

"Morning," I said.

Luca reached for the gold necklace at her collarbone, completely unbothered by anything I was feeling.

Celeste laughed. "Well, aren't you charming?"

She let him grab her finger and he squealed, delighted.

I forced a smile. "He's friendly with everyone."

"That's a wonderful quality." She said.

"Until he's a teenager."

A moment later Dominic walked in — jacket over one shoulder, tie loose, looking like he'd slept badly even though, as far as I knew, he hadn't slept anywhere else but beside me.

The old version of me would have crossed the kitchen and asked if he'd slept enough.

The current version of me just stood there.

"Morning," he said. His eyes flicked toward me — half a second.

Then settled on Celeste. "Did legal send the revised figures?"

"About twenty minutes ago."

He groaned. "Please tell me you're joking."

"I'm not."

"They want another review meeting?"

"They want two."

"Of course they do." He pointed at her. "You said this would happen."

"I always do."

"You never let me forget it."

"I enjoy being right."

I stood there, holding our son, listening to the rhythm of it — fast, easy, the kind of back-and-forth two people only build after months of saying things to each other.

Something pressed sharp against my ribs.nBecause Dominic used to sound like that. With me.

I poured my coffee — too fast, some splashing over the rim, hot enough to sting — and walked out.

Neither of them noticed.

Nina called that afternoon. "You sound miserable," she said before I'd even said hello.

"You always open with an insult."

"Not an insult if it's true." A pause. "What happened?"

I walked over to the nursery window, Luca dozing against my chest, and looked down at the city.

"Remember the woman I told you about? The business partner?"

"The one I already don't trust?"

"That's the one."

Nina's voice sharpened. "What did she do?"

"Nothing."

"That's not reassuring."

"That's the problem." I pressed my forehead against the glass. "She's everywhere. She knows where Dominic keeps things. What coffee he drinks. How he likes his presentations formatted."

Silence on the line.

"Oh," Nina said finally.

"Yeah."

"That's... not great."

"No," I said quietly. "It isn't."

That evening Dominic came home early. For once.

I let myself hope — pathetically, the exact kind of hope that keeps women holding on a little longer than they should.

I had made dinner. For about twenty minutes, sitting at the table with the three of us, everything felt almost normal.

Then Celeste appeared in the doorway.

"Perfect timing," Dominic said, already pulling out the chair beside him. "Sit with us."

"If you're sure."

"Of course."

And just like that, dinner became a meeting. Market projections. Investors. Acquisitions.

The words flowed easily between them while I sat there in a conversation I used to be fluent in and somehow, without noticing, had stopped being invited to speak.

Halfway through, Luca started fussing. I lifted him out of the highchair. Immediately his arms shot out toward Dominic.

My heart clenched, because he did this every time. Still hopeful. Still too young to understand disappointment, or how many times it takes before a person stops reaching at all.

"Dada." Not really a word yet. Just a hopeful sound.

Dominic glanced over. Smiled — quick, automatic, gone almost before it landed — and turned back to Celeste.

"Anyway, as I was saying—"

Luca's arms dropped slowly. His face crumpled, then he pressed it into my shoulder, hiding.

Something cracked quietly in my chest. No sound. Just a hairline fracture, a little deeper than last time.

Three days later I was carrying a sleeping Luca down the hallway when I heard it. Real laughter. The kind that escapes before someone can catch it.

Dominic's laughter.

I stopped walking.

It was coming from the study. Another burst followed, then Celeste's voice, light and teasing.

My stomach went tight.

I moved closer — quiet, the way you move when part of you doesn't want to be heard and another part of you can't stop walking.

"—you should have seen his face," Celeste was saying, breathless.

"I did see his face."

"No, you didn't."

"I absolutely did."

"You were checking your phone."

"I wasn't."

"You were."

"I wasn't—"

"You were."

Their laughter spilled together, warm and easy — the kind of comfortable that doesn't come from a few weeks in someone's spare room.

I stepped into the doorway. The laughter stopped instantly. Dominic looked up, Celeste looked up.

Neither of them said anything.

The silence was strange — the kind that makes you wonder what had been happening in the half-second before you appeared.

I stood there with my sleeping son against my shoulder, looking between my husband and a woman who fit into his life more naturally with every day that passed — more naturally, if I was honest, than I had in months.

And for the first time since she arrived, a thought slid into my chest and refused to leave. ‘Maybe I'm not imagining any of this.’

Neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke. And standing there, in my own home, holding my own son —

I was the one who felt like I didn't belong.