Chapter 2 A Cry In The Night

She moved in close, lifted her face, and kissed him.

It was awkward at first. Her lips brushed his with more courage than skill. She laid both hands on his chest. He felt warm and solid under her fingers. One hand slid up to his neck but she stopped short of pulling him in closer. Romy kept her eyes closed, perhaps to shut out any show of rejection in his expression.

He smelled faintly of soap and the clean, tangy trace of cedar that had clung to his shirts for as long as she had known him. It was a scent so familiar, it never failed to tease her senses. 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 insistent 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.

Devon did not move at first.

Then his hand came to her waist.

Romy 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 free. A little gasp.

Then Devon 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.

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

Devon 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.”

Romy 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.

Devon turned back. “Romy, 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.

At this time, his cell phone rang on the bedside table.

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

It belonged to Caroline.

Devon hesitated.

For a moment, his hand remained at her waist, his breath still warm against her cheek. Then something in him changed and he abruptly moved back, restoring the polite distance he always maintained. Romy could tell that any fragile semblance of new intimacy opening between them, was firmly slammed shut.

He reached for the phone.

Too quickly.

“Caroline?” His voice was low, but Romy heard 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. Romy 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.

Devon sat down on the side of the bed.

His back was to her now, the shirt fallen to the floor, and Romy 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.

Romy sat down quietly on the other edge of the bed, one hand still at her shoulder, the other pressed flat against the covers. She looked at Devon’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 Caroline’s voice, but the few seconds in which Devon forgot to pretend. His head lowered slightly, and his breath caught in a way Romy had never heard for herself. Not once in their three years of marriage.

Then he turned to her. Their eyes met.

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

But Devon 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.

Romy’s fingers curled against the sheet.

A bad lie.

“At the office?” she asked.

The question came out quietly. Too quietly, without anger or challenge.

Devon had already stood. He picked up his shirt 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 on the bedside table.

“Was that Caroline?”

His fingers paused for less than a second. Then he reached for his jacket.

“It’s work, Romy.”

She nodded once, though she did not know why. It felt like obedience, like something that was expected of her, something her body did before her mind could stop it. Wear the excuse.

Devon crossed the room to collect his watch from the dresser. All trace of the man who had returned her kiss as if he was discovering something new and valuable, was gone. In his place stood the husband she knew too well: composed, distant, already leaving.

Romy pulled the fallen strap of her nightdress back onto her shoulder and smoothed it again.

“I see,” she said. Her voice was small, and there was a hint of poorly concealed disappointment in it.

Devon 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.