He starts the car instead, the low purr of the engine drowning out my words as he pulls away from the curb.
“I told you,” he says. “It’s time to go home.”
“I’m serious, Nathaniel!” I shout, gripping the edge of the seat. “You had no right to do that. You can’t just…pick me up and throw me in your car like I’m a?—”
“Where were you planning to go?” he interrupts, his voice steady. “Wander the streets at night, alone? You think I’d let that happen?”
I glare at him, my hands trembling in my lap. “I told you, I don’t want to be with you right now!”
Something cracks in his composure then, his knuckles whitening against the steering wheel, his breath skipping like a needle on vinyl. He pulls the car sharply to the side of the road, the sudden stop jarring me in my seat.
“You don’t mean that,” he says, his voice low but fraying at the edges. His hands are trembling now, too, as he turns to face me fully. “Tell me you don’t mean it, Olivia.”
I blink, startled by the intensity in his gaze. “I—I didn’t mean I want to leave you,” I stammer, my earlier anger slipping away. “I just… I meant I need space.”
His eyes bore into mine, unblinking, as if searching for some kind of assurance. “Don’t say that again,” he begs, his voice a raw whisper. “Don’teversay that again.”
“Nathaniel—”
“No,” he interrupts, reaching out to grasp my hands. His grip is firm, almost desperate. “You can’t say that. Not even in anger. Not even for a second.”
I swallow hard, my heart pounding at the sheer vulnerability in his voice. “I didn’t mean it like that,” I repeat softly. “I just… I was upset.”
His forehead drops against mine, his breaths shallow and uneven. “I can’t lose you,” he murmurs, his voice breaking. “I won’t survive it, Olivia. Don’t you understand that?”
I don’t know what to say. My earlier frustration feels like a distant memory as I reach up, hesitantly, to touch his face. His skin is warm under my fingers, his jaw tight with tension.
“I’m here,” I reassure quietly, the words coming out without thought. “I’m not going anywhere, Nathaniel.”
He exhales shakily, his hands coming up to cradle my face. “Promise me you’ll never leave,” he pleads. “And promise that you won’t lie to me again.”
I hesitate, the weight of his words pressing down on me.
“I promise,” I reply at last.
It’s then I realize—this isn’t control.
This isterror. The kind that lives deep in the marrow. The kind that doesn’t come from power, but from the fear of losing it.
Of losingme.
He doesn’t say much after pulling the car back into traffic, only reaches across the console to hold my hand, his thumb drawing slow circles against my palm as if to coax my pulse into something calmer. I don’t protest when he takes the familiar turn toward the penthouse. I don’t have it in me. My body feels wrung out, like I’ve been wrangled through hours of weather I never dressed for.
The moment we step through the door, he slips off my coat for me, hangs it with care, then turns to ask, “What would you like to eat?”
I shake my head. “I’m not hungry.”
“Olivia,” he says gently. “You need at least a little something.”
“I’m just tired,” I say with a sigh, toeing off my shoes. “Can we not?—”
“Soup,” he says decidedly. “With toasted bread. It’ll be ready in fifteen minutes.”
I know I should push back, but the resistance inside me folds in on itself.
I nod, already walking toward the bedroom, my muscles aching with each step. I change into an old cotton tee and a pair of soft joggers—clothes that belong more to this apartment than to me—and tie my hair up, hands sluggish with exhaustion.
When I return to the kitchen, he’s already ladling soup into two bowls, steam curling into the air. He’s toasted the bread the way he knows I like—lightly crisp at the edges, still soft in the middle. He pulls out my chair and gestures for me to sit. I do.
