Chapter 19
Kieran
The door clicked shut behind them and the room went still.
I rolled my sleeves past my elbows and grabbed the towel draped over the chair. Ran it under cool water, wrung it out, and pressed it against Serena’s forehead.
She flinched in her sleep but didn’t wake.
Her skin was on fire. The fever sat behind her temples, radiated down her neck, pooled in the hollow of her collarbone. I folded the towel, flipped it to the cooler side, and placed it back.
Then I sat.
For the next hour, I changed the compress, checked her temperature, and tilted water against her cracked lips whenever she stirred enough to swallow. Cora had gone eerily quiet inside me this sight of Serena sick was unappealing to him.
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He wanted Serena and I to be happy
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< Chapter 19
Around two in the morning, her breathing hitched.
“Kieran.”
My hand stilled on the towel.
Her eyes were closed. Her brow was pinched, mouth barely moving, but the word was unmistakable. She said
my name.
I took her hand.
Her fingers curled around mine on instinct, weak but deliberate.
Even in sleep, she reached for me. Even after everything, my name was the one she called.
This wasn’t a woman who wanted a divorce. This was a
woman who loved her husband deeply.
The divorce papers meant nothing. Anger, frustration, hurt pride, I understood all of that. But love like hers didn’t disappear because of a misunderstanding.
hshould
should have handled tonight differently. When she
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grabbed at me, desperate, trying anything to make me stay, I should have recognized what that was. She wasn’t being irrational.
Instead of waiting for her to calm down, I’d walked out.
That was my fault.
Her hand tightened around mine, and Cora pressed forward, nudging against the bond. It was faint, barely a thread, but Aina responded.
Still there.
I pressed my thumb against her knuckles and stayed.
The fever held for three days.
She’d surface sometimes, eyes glassy and unfocused, long enough for me to get water into her or adjust the pillows before she slipped under again. Once, she tried to sit up and collapsed back so fast I caught her head before it hit the headboard.
I cancelled my meetings. Rerouted calls through Mark and i made sure to eat in the bedroom and watched
her.
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Serena
On the third morning, her temperature finally broke.
My phone said Monday.
I stared at it, the brightness stinging my eyes, and counted backward. I’d lost three days.
Two missed calls from Gerald Finch. One from Raymond.
My stomach dropped.
I typed fast, fingers clumsy on the screen.
I’m so sorry
I’ve been sick and unable to reach my
phone. I understand if this changes things. I’ll be
available whenever you’d like to reschedule.
I hit send and pressed the phone against my chest, willing the reply to come quickly. This job was my lifeline. If Gerald decided I wasn’t worth the trouble before I’d even
started-
Aina nudged me. Get up. You can’t control his answer from this bed.
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She was right.
I swung my legs over the side and stood. My body felt hollowed out, and my limbs felt weak.
The study door was open.
I stopped walking.
That door was never open during the week. Kieran kept it locked when he wasn’t home, some territorial habit inherited from his father.
If it was open, he was here.
On a weekday.
Before I could process that, he stepped out.
He looked like he hadn’t slept well. His eyes found me immediately, scanning my face and my posture.
He crossed the distance between us and raised his hand totoward my forehead.
jerked backward.
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His hand hung in the air for a beat. Then it dropped to his side, and his expression sealed shut.
“Why do you keep doing that?”
I didn’t answer.
If I opened my mouth, I’d scream. And screaming at Kieran was like screaming to a wall. my voice would echo and bounce and shatter against the walls while he stood unaffected, waiting for the noise to stop.
He’d label it a tantrum. File it away as proof that I was emotional and irrational. Nothing I said in anger ever
landed where it needed to.
So I said nothing and walked past him into the bedroom.
He followed.
We moved around each other in silence, him standing near the window, me gathering clothes for a bath.
The realization crept in slowly.
Without the argument, without the accusations and the
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“I’m leaving on a business trip,” he said instead. “Two days. The bridal studio is delivering your wedding dress
this afternoon —”
“I won’t be here.”
His hand dropped. He looked at me the way a man looks at a wall he’s been hitting for hours – not angry anymore, just tired of the resistance.
“You’ve cried. You’ve screamed. You’ve thrown things across the room.” His voice was flat. “What more do you want, Serena? When is it going to be enough?”
I held his gaze for three full seconds.
Then I turned and walked into the closet without a word.
Behind me, I heard him exhale. A drawer opened and shut. Then his voice, clipped and professional, already on the phone.
“Push the departure forward by two hours.”
The line went dead. His footsteps moved down the hallway, down the stairs, and out the front door
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I dressed, drove to St. Michael’s, and spent the afternoon convincing Gerald Finch that I was worth keeping. He gave me a stack of reading material thick enough to use as a doorstop and told me to be back Monday at seven, not
nine.
I thanked him twice and meant it both times.
Raymond walked me to the parking lot, pointing out shortcuts through the east wing and warning me about Gerald’s hatred for tardiness. He was patient and thorough, and when he shook my hand goodbye, he said, “You’ll do fine here.”
I held those words the entire drive home.
The house was dark when I walked in. Kieran was gone – already en route to wherever his business took him.
I dropped my bag on the kitchen counter and headed for the stairs.
Halfway up, I stopped.
The wall above the landing
the pale rectangle where
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gur yedding photo used to hang – wasn’t empty
anymore.
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A new frame sat in its place. Same photo. Same frozen smiles. Same ceremony I barely recognized as mine.
He’d had it reprinted and rehung while I was gone.
I stood there, staring at the two people trapped behind glass, and felt absolutely nothing.
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