جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 200

9Grace. Three weeks.That’s how long it’s been since I left Daniel’s house.Seventeen days, to be exact. But who’s counting?Me.I counted the seconds at first. Every tick of the clock in my quiet new apartment. Every empty morning without Sophie’s laugh echoing down the hallway. Every phantom touch I still felt on my skin. Every dream where Daniel said don’t go a little sooner.I’d found a job quickly at a daycare on the other side of the city, small and cheerful, with crayon-colored walls and kids who liked to tug on my jeans while asking about dinosaurs. The pay wasn’t great and the hours were long. But it kept my hands busy.I told myself I was doing the right thing, that I’d protected a little girl from the kind of chaos I knew too well, that I’d spared Daniel the legal nightmare his ex-wife had threatened.But in the quiet moments, when the last toddler had been picked up and the mop was back in the supply closet, I wondered if I’d actually just run.He hadn’t called.Not once

1Claire’s POV. I hadn’t even taken off my coat when I knew this trip was a mistake.The estate was beautiful, yes, all clean white stone and old money charm, but the silence was too heavy. It stretched around us as we stepped out of the car, swallowing the crunch of gravel under our shoes. Daniel was already checking his phone, half-smiling at whatever email was more important than this reunion with the man he’d spoken about for weeks.“He’ll be thrilled to see me again,” Daniel had said in the car, all puffed-up confidence. “Julian and I are very close. He thought me everything I know.”Except, apparently, how to stay off your phone.The front door opened before we even knocked. And there he was.Julian, Daniel’s father, who had not been able to make it to our wedding months back.He was taller than I expected, a little older than Daniel, maybe by twenty years (which is very surprising, I know) but he wore it like an advantage. He had salt and pepper hair, sharp jaw, a dark button-d

3Claire. I took my time getting dressed.Not because I was trying to impress anyone. I wasn’t. But I needed to feel like I had control over something. I needed to remember who I was before my legs had trembled in a pool, before I whispered I want you to a man I wasn’t allowed to want. Before his fingers made me come beneath the surface like it was nothing.I wore the navy dress Daniel always complimented. The one with the thigh-high slit that fluttered when I walked. The neckline dipped just low enough to expose an inhuman amount of cleavage. I curled my hair. I chose a dark red lipstick and sprayed on the perfume I used to save for anniversaries.I told myself it was for me. A reminder that I still belonged to myself, but when I stepped into the dining room and Julian looked at me like that; slow and thorough, like I was a painting he’d already decided to take off the wall, I knew exactly who it was for.The dining room looked like something out of an expensive magazine. Candles fli

5Claire. I had to tell him. I’d rehearsed it in my head too many times to think it would come out clean. But when Daniel finally called after three days of silence, I answered with shaking hands.He was in a hotel room in some city I didn’t care to remember. His voice was distracted, his words quick and clipped like he was already packing for another flight.“I miss you,” he said, after a pause that lasted too long.I didn’t say it back.Instead, I said, “I need to tell you something.”There was silence, then a sigh. “Claire. Can it wait?”“No.”“Babe, I’ve had a week of back-to-back meetings. I’m fried. Can’t this be a later thing?”“It’s not a later thing,” I snapped. “I’m not okay.”There was another pause. “Are you hurt?”“No. Not like that.”“Well, then just... hold on, okay? We’ll talk when I get home. Please don’t do the thing where you spiral and make this bigger than it is. You’re tired, I get it.”“I’m not tired,” I whispered. “I’m ruined.”But he wasn’t listening anymore.

7Claire. I was trying to wash him off me.That was the lie I told myself as I slipped into the clawfoot tub in the corner of the master bathroom. I’d filled it with hot water, poured in a lavender soak I didn’t even like, and sank beneath the surface until the heat prickled my skin.But I didn’t want to be clean.I wanted to feel him again. His voice, his mouth, the way he filled me like I belonged to him. I closed my eyes and leaned back against the porcelain. My fingers slid down my stomach slowly. The ache between my legs hadn’t faded. If anything, it had sharpened.I should’ve gone back to bed, back to my husband’s arms, back to pretending, but I couldn’t. Not tonight. Not after what Julian did to me in that office.My body still hummed with the memory.And guilt? God, it was there, thick in my throat, curled under my ribs, but it didn’t feel sharp enough to stop me. It never did, not with him.The door creaked.I froze.My eyes snapped open.Julian stood in the doorway, shirtles