Not Tonight

“What are you going to do?” Andy asked, holding her firmly in place. “Walk in there in a four-thousand-dollar dress and scream at them in a hotel lobby?”

“I don’t care what it looks like.”

“You will tomorrow. You’ll care when it’s a headline instead of a marriage.”

“Then what am I supposed to do, Andy? Sit here and watch the door?”

“Yes.” His voice was low and certain. “Tonight, yes. I’m not going to let you hand them a version of this they get to tell at dinner parties for the rest of their lives. The wife who lost her mind in a hotel lobby instead of the two people who actually did something wrong.”

Hannah struggled against his grip once more, but the fight was already draining out of her. “He’s my husband.”

“I know.”

“He’s in there with her.”

“I know.”

The calmness in Andy’s voice only made the truth hurt more. Hannah looked toward the hotel again, her vision swimming with tears. 

Behind those golden doors was Danny, the man who had kissed her goodbye that morning as though nothing in their marriage had changed. The man who had given her a bracelet on their anniversary and sworn that marrying her was the only thing he had ever done right.

Now he was in that hotel with another woman.

Andy finally loosened his hold and let her wrist go. Hannah didn’t reach for the door again. She simply sat there, trembling, her hand falling uselessly into her lap.

For a long moment, the only sound was rain tapping against the windshield.

“What am I supposed to do now?” She whispered.

Andy looked at the hotel entrance before turning his attention back to her.

“Let me handle tonight.”

She gave him a hollow laugh. “You’ve already handled enough.”

“I know. And I’d do it again a million times.” Andy paused, his gaze lingering on Hannah for a moment longer than it should have. “Because that’s all I can do to protect—”

“Your dignity, I know,” Hannah cut in with a thin smile before turning toward the window.

She pressed her palm against the cold glass, trying to steady her breathing as the drizzle blurred the hotel lights outside.

But she was wrong.

Andy wasn’t protecting his dignity. He didn’t care about that anymore. Not after he discovered that the man who had been sleeping with his wife was Danny—the same man who happened to be his twin brother.

Twin. The word meant nothing to him now. Their parents had divorced when they were nine, and the boys had been separated soon afterward. 

They hadn’t grown up together. They hadn’t shared birthdays, teenage years, secrets, or the ordinary pieces of childhood that were supposed to bind brothers together.

Whatever bond blood was supposed to create had never had the chance to form. There was no brotherly loyalty left to betray. No deep connection for Andy to mourn.

Danny was simply a man who had spent years becoming a stranger.

And once Andy discovered what he had done to Hannah, even the faint obligation of family disappeared completely.

But Hannah— she was different. She had been everything he cared about long before she became Danny’s wife. She had been the girl beside him in art class, the only person who knew him before his family name became a burden he carried everywhere. And then, one day, she became Danny’s.

Andy had accepted it. He had told himself he had no right to feel anything else. But sitting beside her now, watching her press her hand against the window as she tried not to fall apart, he finally understood something he’d spent years refusing to name.

“Take me home,” she said when she trusted her voice again.

“Hannah—”

“Not my home. I can’t go there tonight.”

“Okay,” he said quietly, and started the car. 

He didn’t ask where she wanted to go, and she didn’t ask where they were headed. For the next twenty minutes, they crossed the city in near silence, with only the rain and the muted hum of the engine filling the space between them.

It was only when Hannah noticed the familiar streets falling behind them that she realized Andy had taken the long way. 

He avoided the busiest intersections and the streets where they might be caught beside another car, where someone might recognize the Vaughn name and wonder why Hannah Vaughn was crying in the passenger seat of Andy Vaughn’s car.

Definitely the wrong twin’s car.

She turned her face toward the window, watching the city smear into ribbons of light through the rain, and said nothing.

Neither did Andy.

But she noticed the way he kept choosing quieter roads, as though even now, he was trying to give her one thing she desperately needed: privacy.

“I need a scotch, clearly.”

Andy glanced at her before returning his attention to the road. “You’ll get one.”

He kept driving, taking the longer, quieter route through the city. Hannah didn’t ask where they were going. She didn’t have the strength to care. She watched the blurred streetlights slide across the glass, trying to understand how a marriage she had trusted so completely could suddenly feel like something that had never existed.

Twenty minutes later, Andy pulled into the private garage beneath his building. He parked, killed the engine, and looked over at her.

“Come on.”

The elevator carried them directly to the top floor.

Andy’s penthouse stretched across the entire floor, its glass walls overlooking the black river. Art covered the walls, none of it looking like the kind of expensive pieces people bought simply to fill a room. Hannah would normally have noticed everything: the view, the architecture, the quiet luxury.

Tonight, she noticed none of it.

The moment they stepped inside, her legs simply gave up. She sank onto the deep gray couch, covered her face with both hands, and cried. She cried the way she hadn’t cried in front of another person since she was nine years old.

Andy didn’t try to stop her. He didn’t tell her it was going to be okay, because neither of them knew whether it would be.

He simply went to the bar, poured the scotch she’d asked for, and set the glass within her reach before taking the armchair across from her.

Close enough to be there.

Far enough to give her room.

And waited.

“He gave me a bracelet. Four months ago. For our anniversary. He put his hand over his heart and told me marrying me was the only thing he’d ever done right.”

“I know,” Andy said quietly. “I was there.”

“Right. Watching your own wife across the table, probably. Did you know then?”