He knows he pushed me so far away I finally collapsed into someone else’s orbit. And he hates it. He hates that it isn’t him anymore. He steps back, shame written all over his jaw, jealousy burning behind his eyes, memories and history and loss clinging to him like smoke from a house fire. And then he’s gone. Just gone.
A hollow ache blooms in my chest something old, not love, not longing, just…residue. Dane sees the way I freeze, even before I speak. He reaches under the table and slides his hand over mine, warm and slow, grounding me instantly. “Hey,” he murmurs. “You’re here with me. Okay?” His thumb strokes the inside of my wrist. Like he’s rewiring me. I nod, swallowing a burn in my throat I didn’t expect. Because for the first time in my life. I’m not a second choice. I’m not tolerated. I’m not somebody’s emotional crutch. I’m chosen. And it scares me. And it thrills me. And I don’t pull away.
Dane
I saw him the moment he walked in. Blake. The ex. The ghost. The reason she flinches at compliments and questions her worth every second she breathes. And the look on his face when he saw us. Fuck. It hits like a blade slipping under the ribs. Not because I care about him. Because I care about her.
Penn stiffens beside me, whole body going silent in that way trauma teaches. And I hate that he can still do that to her. I hate that he ever had that power. Her eyes drop. Her breath stutters. So, I do the only thing I know. I reach for her. My hand findshers beneath the table, warm and trembling, and she looks up as if she can’t decide which direction her heart is supposed to go.
“Hey,” I say softly. Calm. Certain. Unshakable. “You’re here with me.” Her shoulders loosen. Just a little. Enough. And then she nods, and something inside me uncoils, because I know, Blake might know pieces of her history. But he doesn’t know who she’s becoming. I get to meet that version. I get to earn her. I stand, pulling her up with me, not rushing, not pushing, just guiding her with a touch on her lower back. “Come on,” I murmur. “We’ve got somewhere to be.”
Blake watched them as they slipped into a sleek black sedan driven by a driver. A driver. He had a driver. This guy who he felt he knew but couldn’t quite place it. This guy who was holding his wife’s hand his hand in the small of her back slipping her into his waiting car. As they drove off his heart aching with jealousy and regret. He had taken her for granted, and now he was paying the price. He couldn’t understand why he felt this way at all. He had Pandora well he thought he had her, but how wrong was he she had played him.
She was her, his wife.
What a fool. As he vented his frustrations, inside his own head, his heart seethed with a bitter, gnawing regret. He had discarded Penn like an old toy, chasing after the hollow thrill of a new conquest. Drawn into the toxic camaraderie of his mates, men who revelled in betrayal, who abandoned or cheated on their wives with faceless women online, Blake had been blind to what was right in front of him. He had treated Penn as nothing morethan a possession, something to be discarded when boredom set in. In that moment like lighting had struck him he walked from the café and sat on a bench seat outside pulling his phone from his pocket he looked up photos from school hunted social media pages and that was when it hit him.
Dane fucking Stark.
It was Dane Stark who was with his wife. Finally, he has come out of the shadows…and now seeing her with another guy looking genuinely happy and safe, a dark rage bubbled up inside him. The sight was a bleak reminder of everything he had thrown away. The anger and jealousy consumed him, a black tide that surged through his veins. How could that weak, pathetic kid from school the one he and his friends had tormented be the one to make her smile like that?
Blake’s mind spiralled into a darker place. He couldn’t stand it, the thought of Dane touching her, protecting her, loving her. It was an affront to everything he believed about himself and about Dane. The guy who used to get his head shoved into toilets, whose belongings were tossed onto rooftops, who was mocked for his clothes and his broken family, how could he be the one now holding Blake’s world?
He snatched his phone like it was a lifeline, his fingers trembling as he furiously typed, his screen filling with venom.“You won’t believe this, Pandora,”he began, each word dripping with malice.“Saw her with that pathetic loser from school. The one I used to beat the crap out of. And now—he’s acting like some kind of hero. I humiliated him for years, and now he’s playing house with my woman? It’s a joke.”
His thumbs flew faster, rage bubbling in every keystroke.“He was raised by his Nana on and off, for God’s sake… his mum—night-time whore of the town, drunk and high half the time. His dad? A worthless drunk who ran off. And now this… freakthinks he’s something special? We made his life hell, Pandora, and now he waltzes into mine like he owns it. He’s nothing. He’ll always be nothing.”
He paused, breathing hard, chest tight with fury and humiliation, before letting the bitterness pour out again.“Clothes too big, clothes too small, stained, ripped, dirty. He was a nobody. A complete nobody, Pandora. And now she’s smiling at him like he’s the sun itself. I worked her out of me, and he’s stepping in like he’s… he’s—he’s the one she should’ve had?!”
His heart hammered in his chest. Embarrassment mixed with fury, and the thought that Dane might tell Penn Pandora god who was he messaging, and she may actually seeallof the shit he and his mates pulled on him at school—made bile rise. He hammered the send button before he could think twice.
Blake’s bitterness seeped through every word, his anger a dark cloud that blotted out reason. He had lost Penn, not to some stranger, but to the very person he had once thought beneath him. It was a blow to his pride, to his very sense of self. And as he poured his hatred and frustration into his messages, all he could do was watch from a distance, his rage festering, while he sought solace in the false comfort of his online confidante.
The moment we stepped out of the café—Blake’s shadow still clinging to my skin like smoke—the world tilted.
The sun hit the pavement in bright gold sheets, the heat licking up my legs, warm and soft. Dust motes swirled in the air like tiny dancing spirits caught in the afternoon light. And there, parked by the kerb like he’d been waiting for years, was Peter with the sleek sedan humming quietly behind him.
Dane’s hand hovered at the small of my back. Not touching. Not yet. Just close enough that I could feel the phantom of it.
A promise.
A question.
A pulse.
“Ma’am,” Peter said as he opened the door for me.
Dane’s eyes flicked to Blake, who was still standing frozen inside the café doorway. His expression was a bruised, hollow mixtureof disbelief and fury. I didn’t let myself look long. Didn’t let myself drink in his regret or the way he suddenly seemed small in the doorway he once filled with loud confidence.
I followed Dane into the car.
And the door clicked shut like a chapter closing.
The car smelled faintly of cedar and clean leather. Cool air brushed my shoulders. Dane slid in beside me, and every inch of my body became aware of him his warmth, his slow inhale, the way he turned slightly toward me like my gravity was the only thing he could obey.
Neither of us spoke.
Not at first.
