Her voice hits something behind my ribs. Andrea has been back in Cambridge over the weekend, from what I’ve caught in snatches of conversation between Roxanne and my servants.
I straighten. “They can manage without you for another hour.”
She tenses—barely, but I see it. “I’d like to get settled before she gets there. It’s been a long transition for her.”
Her tone has a layer I can’t name. Protective, firm, defensive. The bear in me rears with a growl, and I feel the sneer on my lips—but another, quieter part of myself that I don’t recognize worries about Andrea. That this move might be exhausting or scary for her.
“Roxanne,” I say, letting her name sit heavily in the air, “we’re in the middle of?—”
Lauren’s glances between us. Jesse glances down at the table like he wants to disappear.
Roxy looks at me—finally—and her expression is soft but unyielding. “I’d like to go, Makari. I promise I’ll get the meeting notes to you tonight and finish the paperwork from this morning’s shipments. Just from home.”
Something sharp catches in my throat.
I don’t want her to leave. I don’t like when she’s far from me, when I can’t see her. It keeps me up at night.
I don’t want her thinking I’m something she has to shield Andrea from.
But I nod once. “Fine. After lunch.”
Relief moves through her body like she’s been holding her breath. She rises and collects her things. “I’ll be back in the morning.”
I open my mouth, but I don’t know what to say. She’s already moving toward the door anyway. “And Roxanne,” I call.
She stops, turns her head a fraction.
“Your daughter…” My voice drops without my permission. “…she likes the ocean?”
Roxy’s eyebrows pinch, surprised, before she nods. “She loves it. She’ll run into the waves no matter how cold the water is. Has since she was three.” Her lips curve, the smallest smile. “She says it’s alive. ‘Breathing.’ She wants to know how everything works. Always asking questions. How did you know that?”
I secret her answer away like something precious. “Dima,” I answer evenly, though that’s not true. Andrea told me herself—rambled about seagulls and the tide the last time she was here. Roxy’s smile freezes, and her eyes go far away. She closes me out again.
“Anyway,” she murmurs, “I should go.”
And then she’s gone.
The door clicks shut, and silence swells behind her.
Lauren exhales softly. Jesse scratches the back of his neck. Neither says a word. They don’t have to. The air is thick with what they both witnessed.
I rise slowly, setting my palms on the table to steady myself. My entire world used to feel solid. Structured and predictable, all routes and scheduled drop-offs.
Now it feels like it’s shifting—sliding like loose earth after a storm. I don’t like it. I don’t like how she affects me. I don’t like the way my chest tightened when she talked about Andrea.
And I don’t like the sick, quiet doubt gnawing at me:Does she think I wouldn’t be a good father?That I’d be a threat?
Is that why she hasn’t told me what’s been wedged between us?
The thought turns my stomach in a way no enemy, no betrayal, no bloody uprising ever has.
Lauren clears her throat. “Is everything all right, Mak?”
“No,” I say. Honest and brutal. “Everything is not all right.”
Her eyebrows lift delicately. “Noted.”
I end the meeting without letting anyone else speak. I need distance. Air. Something to ground me. The hallways feel too bright, too narrow as I move down them with clipped, impatient strides.
