That didn’t make sense either.
But nothing made sense anymore.
She just felt so hurt. So empty. So shamefully, stupidly naive.
The blouse slipped from her trembling fingers. She pressed her palms flat against the suitcase, trying to ground herself, trying to breathe through the tightness in her chest.
A knock sounded at the door.
Room service. Finally. She’d ordered coffee hours ago, before Shayla’s office, before the world had tilted sideways and refused to right itself.
Lexy crossed to the door, wiping at her eyes even though she hadn’t realized she was crying. Her reflection in the entry mirror showed a stranger. Smudged makeup. Hair escaping its careful arrangement. The four-inch heels she’d insisted on wearing now felt like instruments of torture.
She opened the door.
And froze.
Leonidas stood in the hallway, golden hair slightly disheveled from travel, tawny eyes searching her face with an intensity that made her want to step back. He was still wearing his suit from Monaco, though the jacket was gone and his shirtsleeves were rolled to his elbows.
In his hands, he held a bouquet of roses.
Red. Perfect. Absurdly romantic for a man who’d never pretended their marriage was anything other than a business arrangement.
On their third year of marriage, over breakfast one morning, they had somehow gotten to talking about the past. She’d shared how her father used to give roses to her mother every time he did something wrong. A peace offering. An apology in petals.
The next day, Leonidas had given her roses.
The note card had said:I’m sure I’ve done something wrong by now. But if I haven’t yet, keep track. I like to pay in advance.
It had made her laugh. Actually laugh, the kind that caught her by surprise and left her smiling for the rest of the day.
He’d been giving her roses out of the blue since then. No occasion. No reason. Just...roses. And it always made her laugh. Always. She had thought of it as their private joke, had even made her feel secretly special because she knew Leon wasn’t the type to indulge in cozy little traditions.
Roses made her smile because of him.
But now, as she accepted the bouquet with numb fingers and stepped back to let him in, all she could think about were the words that had turned her world upside-down in a blink.
Long-term companion.
Monthly financial provisions.
Six years.
And suddenly the roses in her hands felt like a lie. Like every rose he’d ever given her had been part of some elaborate performance she’d been too stupid to see through.
“Lexy.” His voice was low, edged with the kind of fierce protectiveness that she used to cherish. But now it made her wonder if she had misread this all along, and it was simply...guilt.
Tawny eyes tracked over her face, taking in the smudged makeup, the tear-tracks, the trembling hands. “What’s wrong?”
She looked at him.
Reallylooked at him.
The golden hair with its single silver streak. The leonine features that made strangers step aside without knowing why. The broad shoulders and sleek power barely contained in expensive fabric. A modern-day monarch who commanded billions with quiet authority.
Her husband of eight years.
A stranger.
