Chapter 2

CLAYTON'S P.O.V.

She didn't recognize me.

And I didn't know if I should be relieved or upset about it. It had been years, so long have I ached to have her in my arms again, but alas, I was nothing more than a stranger to her.

We've both changed; the years and life had taken a toll on us, but one thing was certain: my feelings for her never did.

Seeing Yvonne so broken, crying in the fúcking cold, made me want to strangle the bastard she, unfortunately, tethered herself to.

A long breath heaved out from me as I dragged a hand over my face. If only I had stayed...

I knew without a doubt that Edgar was the one who caused her pain last night. I could still feel Yvonne's hot tears soaking my shirt, her body shaking in mine as I held her. Pain, guilt, and plenty of other ugly feelings slithered across my spine and stabbed me right in that beating organ. It was too late to hold her, I should have done so sooner. I never should have left.

“Fuck” I muttered, sinking further into the leather chair.

The years had changed everything, but they changed nothing. She was married. Fucking married to a man who wasn't me, yet my reaction to her had been so overwhelming just like the first time we met. Just like those years ago, she had leaned into me and trusted me.

I wanted to take her back to my townhouse. I wanted to soothe her, but once her tears subsided, Yvonne insisted I drop her off at her best friend's.

“You know,” Thane drawled, his brooding gray eyes as assertive as usual, “I thought you came here to catch up. But it seems like you would rather brood all day. Is this because of the sudden decision to step out of the shadows and take over your company or something more...personal?”

I lifted one shoulder in a shrug, my eyes trained on the skyline behind him. “Just some thought times. Who else would understand that better than you do?”

Thane and I had schooled together in London, and as only sons of wealthy families who would one day take over our companies in Seattle, we developed some kind of bond, only that I stayed in London longer than I should have.

Long enough for her to marry Edgar fúcking Baxter.

I shook my head, trying to organize my train of thought. “Forget about it,” I said to Thane. “I came here for a reason— for you to fill me up on everything that happened in Seattle business world while I was away. What changed? What's new?”

Thane didn't answer. He kept studying me, for any other person, his stare would be unnerving, but not me.

A smug smile curled on his lips “I know that look,”

I raised a brow. “What look?”

His half smile widened. “It’s a woman, isn’t it?”

I rubbed my fingers on my temple. Trust Thane Renihardt to see through a person like glass. With a long exhale, I agreed to his assessment. “And let's you are right. So what?”

His eyes crinkled with amusement, shoulders shaking with quiet laughter. “Clayton Voss. I had never seen you with a woman in all our years at Oxford. Who is she?”

He wasn’t wrong. While we were at university, I’d had random flings, women whose names and faces I barely remember; I could never hold on to a serious relationship because all those women—they weren't her.

Even after she married Edgar, even after she wed someone else— Yvonne still stays at the center of my heart.

“Don’t you have to take Andera to her ultrasound or something?” I deflected, steering the conversation in his direction instead.

Warmth I didn't know Thane was capable of showing so openly flickered in his eyes when I mentioned his wife. I was happy for him, after all the crazy shit they'd been through for nearly a decade, they deserved happiness.

And he was happy. Lucky him.

Thane tilted his head slightly to the side and threw my question back with his question. “Are things that bad between you and her?”

“Oh God. You won't let this drop will you?” I groaned

The side of Thane's lips curled upwards. “It's only fair you tell me. You have no other friends here and considering how eager you were to hear my own love story...”

He gave me a look. When I came back to Seattle nearly a month ago, Thane had been the first person I sought out, and I was curious to know about him and his wife, the surprising and unmistakable devotion for her, the love that was so evident between them two it made my heart ache with a feeling of loss.

Thane told me about them, their relationship I mean. The more he told me about their very complicated up story, the more I respected what the two of them had fought for and, at last, had.

We all couldn't be so lucky.

“How far were you willing to go to get your wife back? I blurted out.

His shoulders grew taut, eyes gleaming with a possessiveness I knew all too well.

“I was willing to do anything,” Thane said without hesitation. “ It didn’t matter what I had to do. How long I had to wait? How many boundaries I crossed or how much I invaded her space—so long as she was mine again.”

My frustrations only tipped over. Thane was... chivalrous? Relentless? Whatever it was, it wasn't as fucked up as me. Who is still holding on to a very much married woman who doesn’t even remember me?

Yvonne had looked straight through me like I was a stranger, and it fucking hurt.

“Forget it,” I muttered. “Just give me the latest updates.”

Thane didn't push further. He filled me in on everything I had missed. Market changes, rivalries, mergers, and new faces in the industry. When we finished, I stood up and shook Thane’s hand.

“Hey, Thane,” I called just as I reached the door.

“Yes?”

“If, let's say, by the time you realized Andera was it for you, she had already married someone else, what would you have done?”

“Then that someone else would have had to lose, and I wouldn't have felt sorry about it. ” a ghost of a smile hovered on his lips. “She's my axis, Clayton. My balance. Without her, I'm lost.”

I mulled over his words for five short seconds, then with a departing nod, I left Thane's Company complex and slid into the driver's seat of my car.

Was this what love did to people, consumed them, gnawed and ate on their souls till all the lines blurred and there wasn't one was willing to cross?

I reached into my pocket, stroking the cold metal there that had kept me connected with her even though we were oceans apart.

There and then, something snapped inside me, fell into place, and locked tight. I wouldn't let Yvonne shed another tear for her useless husband. If not for anything, but because I saw her first,

Because I loved her first,

Because she's is his, when's she was always meant to be mine.