Chapter 4

Hannah was caught off guard. She hadn't expected Ethan to be home.

Usually, whenever he went out with Sara, he used "entertaining clients" as an excuse, staying out all night and not showing his face until sometime the next afternoon.

The pillow slammed into the bridge of her glasses, sending a sharp jolt of pain through her nose. Blood immediately began trickling down over her upper lip.

Ethan paused, a flicker of guilt crossing his face. He reached for a box of tissues and started to get up, apparently intending to help clean her up.

But halfway there, he stopped himself and sank back onto the couch, his expression hardening as he switched to an interrogating tone. "Why are you back so late? You're hours past your curfew. Where have you been?"

Hannah ignored him entirely.

She opened a drawer, took out a bottle of antiseptic and some cotton swabs, and quietly cleaned the blood from her face. Her complete indifference only made Ethan angrier.

"I asked you a question. Are you deaf or something?" he demanded. "Did you do something behind my back that you're afraid to admit?"

"What about you?" Hannah gave him a cold, faint smile. "Why are you suddenly home so early? Don't you need to keep Sara company?"

Ethan froze, clearly not expecting her to confront him so directly. He quickly recovered, scowling.

"What are you talking about? I didn't have any client dinners tonight, so after helping Sara, I came straight home. And all those other times were business trips and client work. Stop reading too much into everything.

"I came home early because I knew you were in a bad mood and wanted to be here for you. Standing you up today was my fault, but does that give you the right to ignore my texts and stay out until midnight? I thought something had happened to you. I was seconds away from calling the police.

"And what do I get in return? You walk through the door throwing passive-aggressive jabs at me. I even stopped by that place and picked up your favorite seafood soup because I was worried you might be hungry."

Hannah glanced at the bowl of soup sitting untouched on the coffee table. A wave of revulsion washed over her.

All these years, she hadn't realized that every time Ethan tried to manipulate her into taking some pill for Sara's sake, he brought home this same seafood soup afterward to placate her.

Now even the smell was enough to trigger a visceral wave of nausea.

"No thanks," she said flatly. "I already ate."

Ethan completely missed the icy undertone in her voice. Convinced that he had successfully smoothed things over, he continued casually, "By the way, Sara says her parents aren't easy to fool.

"They insist on seeing wedding photos before they'll back off, so I have to take a set of wedding photos with her tomorrow. You've done a ton of research on this stuff, so which photography studio has the fastest turnaround? And who carries the best high-end wedding gowns?"

His eyes shone with genuine anticipation, but that only made Hannah feel even more disgusted.

He knew perfectly well that every bit of research she'd done had been for their own wedding. And now he had the nerve to ask her to help plan a wedding photo shoot for himself and Sara?

Hannah shut him down without hesitation. "Figure it out yourselves. I don't have any recommendations."