Chapter 2

She lifted her face and kissed him.

It was awkward at first, almost unbearably so. Her lips brushed his with more courage than skill, and her hands caught in the front of his robe because she did not know where else to put them. Rebecca kept her eyes closed. She could not bear to see his face while she was doing this.

He smelled faintly of soap, cool water, and the clean, dark trace of cedar that had clung to his shirts for as long as she had known him. It was a scent so familiar it made her chest ache. For three years, she had slept beside it, folded it from his laundry, breathed it in from the empty side of the bed after he had already risen.

Now it was close enough to touch.

She pressed her mouth to his again, a little harder this time, trying to follow instinct where experience failed her. Her fingers tightened in the robe. She was aware of everything at once—the warmth of him, the damp ends of her hair against her neck, the painful beat of her own pulse, the silence in which he had not yet stopped her.

Vance did not move at first.

Then his hand came to her waist.

Rebecca almost pulled back from surprise, but his fingers closed around her instead, firm through the thin fabric of her nightdress. The breath she had been holding broke against his mouth.

Then Vance stopped.

He pulled away so sharply that the air seemed to rush cold between them. His hands remained on her for only a second longer, just enough to steady her, before he let go.

Rebecca stood where he had left her, her fingers still curled in the empty air where his robe had been. She opened her eyes slowly.

Vance had turned half away from her. One hand was pressed to the back of his neck, his head lowered, the neat line of his shoulders no longer quite so composed. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, roughened at the edges.

“This cannot happen.”

Rebecca heard the words, but for a moment she did not seem to understand them. She only looked at him, her lips parted slightly, the warmth still fading from her mouth.

Then her hand dropped to her side.

“Oh,” she said.

It was a small sound. Too small for the humiliation spreading through her.

She lowered her gaze before he could see too much of her face. Her fingers found the hem of her nightdress again and smoothed it once, uselessly, though there was nothing wrong with it.

Vance turned back. “Rebecca, I—”

“It’s all right.”

She said it too quickly.

The words came out polite, automatic, almost practiced. She even managed to step back, giving him the distance he had not asked for but clearly needed. Her bare heel brushed the carpet, and she became suddenly aware of how exposed she was standing there in front of him, with damp hair, swollen lips, and nowhere to put her shame.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” she said.

The phone rang on the bedside table.

The sound was soft, almost delicate, but it cut through the room with a precision that made Rebecca’s fingers tighten against the sheet. She knew that tone. It was not the one Vance used for business calls, nor the plain chime that came with everyone else.

It belonged to Catherine.

Vance stilled above her.

For a moment, his hand remained at her waist, his breath still warm against her cheek. Then something in him changed so completely that Rebecca felt it before he moved—the sudden restraint, the distance returning to his body, the careful closing of a door she had only just believed might open.

He reached for the phone.

Too quickly.

“Catherine?” His voice was low, but the bedroom was quiet enough for Rebecca to hear the name clearly.

She did not move. Her nightdress had slipped slightly from one shoulder, and she lifted one hand to hold it in place, more from instinct than thought. The warmth in her face faded slowly, leaving her skin cold beneath the thin fabric.

A woman’s voice came through the speaker, unsteady and wet with tears. Rebecca could not catch the first few words, only the sound of distress, intimate enough that it seemed wrong for her to hear it from her own bed.

Vance sat up.

His back was to her now, bare beneath the loose fall of his robe, and Rebecca watched the line of his shoulders change. She had seen him handle crises before. Board meetings, family dinners, public scandals brushed aside with a calm that made other people look foolish for panicking. But this was different. His composure did not hold. It faltered in the small turn of his head, in the way his fingers closed around the phone, in the silence before he spoke again.

“What did you say?”

The voice on the other end broke, then steadied just enough.

“I’m pregnant.”

The words were not loud. They did not need to be.

Rebecca sat very still on the edge of the bed, one hand at her shoulder, the other pressed flat against the sheet. She looked at Vance’s back and felt, with a dull clarity, how little space there was left for her in the room.

He did not hang up at once.

He listened.

That was what she would remember later—not the call itself, not even Catherine’s voice, but the few seconds in which Vance forgot to pretend. His head lowered slightly, and his breath caught in a way Rebecca had never heard for herself. Not once in three years.

Then he turned.

Their eyes met.

Rebecca waited for something. An explanation, perhaps. A denial. Even guilt would have been something she could hold on to.

But Vance only lowered the phone from his ear and said, “Something came up at the office. I have to go.”

His voice had returned to its usual softness. Smooth, controlled, almost kind.

Rebecca’s fingers curled against the sheet.

“At the office?” she asked.

The question came out quietly. Too quietly.

Vance had already stood. He picked up his shirt from the chair near the window and put it on with swift, practiced movements, his face angled away from her as he began fastening the buttons.

“Yes.”

She looked at the phone still in his hand.

“Was that Catherine?”

His fingers paused for less than a second.

Then he reached for his jacket.

“It’s work, Rebecca.”

She nodded once, though she did not know why. The movement felt small and obedient, something her body did before her mind could stop it.

Vance crossed the room to collect his watch from the dresser. The man who had kissed her as if control had finally failed him was gone. In his place stood the husband she knew too well: composed, distant, already leaving.

Rebecca pulled the fallen strap of her nightdress back onto her shoulder and smoothed it with trembling fingers.

“I see,” she said.

Vance glanced at her then, and for an instant something like discomfort passed across his face. It disappeared before she could name it.

“I won’t be long.”

She lowered her eyes.

The lie sat between them, neat and polished, like everything else in this house.