“I have never lied—” Leonidas stopped speaking when he saw the look on his wife’s face. Her eyes were too bright, her chest rising and falling too quickly. What the—
“Did Adriano’s wife tell you something?” he growled, his mind racing through possibilities. Thea had been at the house for tea two days ago. “Because whatever it is—”
“Stop blaming other people for speaking the truth!”
Leonidas stilled. “So she *did* tell you something—”
“She told me what you should have told me from the start! You owed it to me—”
“Just give it to me straight, dammit!”
Lexina wanted to cry. And scream. And...and strangle him. All at the same time! Why did he want her to be the one to say it? Why did it have to be her?
“I can’t believe you’re making me do this.”
She only realized she had choked the words out the moment they spilled past her lips. And while it made her husband whiten—that didn’t give her any pleasure at all.
“Lexina—”
He took a step around the desk.
She took a step back.
He expected her to jerk away when he reached for her.
Even expected her to step back and avoid his touch.
But he was wrong on all counts.
Because the moment she heard her own name on his lips—that careful, almost tender way he said it—it was as if invisible flood gates had broken open, invisible tears had started flowing, and her pain—
“You...”
It was unseen. But audible. Palpable. A living thing that seemed to fill the space between them.
“You have a mistress.”
Four words. Just four words. But they unlocked everything. Four words, and everything became visible. Not just about the present. But the past eight damn years.
Leonidas went completely still.
The absurdity of it—the sheer, painful absurdity—hit him all at once.
And it almost...almost...
Lexy could not believe her eyes. “Are you—are you seriously, oh God, are you seriouslysmiling?”
He pressed his lips together, trying to contain it. This was not the moment. Not when she was standing there with tears tracking down her cheeks, her small body practically vibrating with hurt.
And the straight line lasted.
Or seemed to.
But after two more seconds—the sheer ridiculousness of the misunderstanding, the mental image of himself practicing celibacy for the rest of his natural life—
Lexy had already raised her hand without even thinking. Because that smile...for her husband to actually smile in the face of her pain—
But just as her arm started to swing—
