Ceramic slams against glass. Coffee sloshes, dark liquid staining white linen like a bruise blooming in real time.
“Who the fuck are you looking for?”
The words crack across the table, sharp enough to make a nearby server flinch before vanishing entirely, as if summoned away by instinct.
I freeze with my fork halfway to my mouth.
Noah’s hand is flat on the table now, fingers spread, tendons standing out beneath his skin. His jaw is tight. His smile is gone—replaced by something cold and thin and irritated, like I’ve scratched an itch he can’t reach.
“I—” My voice comes out too soft. I clear my throat. Try again. “No one. I just?—”
His eyes don’t leave my face.
They don’t blink.
I swallow.
“I thought,” I say carefully, because everything feels like it needs to be handled carefully now, “I might ask Vivian if she wanted to go shopping later. She mentioned the boutiques near the marina.”
The name barely leaves my mouth before he cuts me off.
“Vivian has gone.”
The sentence drops heavy and flat between us.
I stare at him. “Gone?” Something twists low in my stomach. “What do you mean, gone?”
He exhales through his nose, slow and deliberate, like I’ve inconvenienced him. Like I’ve asked about the weather instead of a woman who was here last night, smiling too sharply, saying too much.
“She left early this morning,” he says. “Unexpectedly.”
“Left?” My brows knit. “But she said she was staying through the weekend. She said?—”
“I said she’s gone, Scarlett.”
The way he says my name makes it feel like a correction.
I push my chair back slightly without meaning to, the scrape of wood against stone too loud in the quiet that’s settled around us.
“That’s… sudden,” I say. “Did something happen?”
Noah lifts his coffee again. Takes a measured sip. Sets it down with surgical precision.
“You ask a lot of questions.”
There it is.
That tone. Smooth. Mild. Warning.
I force a small laugh, because this is breakfast, because the sun is shining, because this is what normal couples do—eat fruit and talk about nothing and pretend nothing is wrong.
“I’m just surprised,” I say. “She seemed… comfortable. Like she knew everyone.”
His eyes flick up, sharp.
“Is that what bothered you?”
“No,” I say quickly. Too quickly. “No, I just thought?—”
