"You're getting good at that," she observed, nodding at my knife work.
"I had a demanding teacher."
"I prefer 'exacting.'" She bumped her hip against mine as she passed. "More dignified."
I caught her wrist, pulled her close, and kissed her, slow and sweet, tasting like the wine we'd been sipping. She melted into me for a moment before pulling back with a laugh.
"The sauce is going to burn."
"Worth it."
"You're ridiculous."
"You love it."
"I really do."
This was us now. Easy. Comfortable. The desperate intensity of our early reconnection had mellowed into something steadier, not less passionate, just more sustainable. We'd found a balance between his needs and her boundaries, between supporting each other and maintaining our own identities.
But I'd noticed something over the past week. A shadow in her eyes when certain commercials came on. The way she changed the subject when her mother asked about"future plans."A tension she thought she was hiding, coiled beneath the surface of her smiles.
That night, curled up on the couch with a fire crackling in the hearth, I finally asked.
"What's going on with you?"
She stiffened slightly against my shoulder. "What do you mean?"
"You've been somewhere else all week." I paused the movie, some romantic comedy neither of us was watching. "Talk to me."
"It's nothing."
"Charlotte." I shifted to face her, taking her hands in mine. "I can feel you pulling away. Whatever it is, we face it together. That's the deal."
She was quiet for so long, I started to worry. Her gaze dropped to our intertwined fingers, and I watched her take a swallow as if she was preparing herself for bad news.
"What if I can't give you everything you deserve?"
The question and the way she asked it, her voice was so fragile, so fearful, it took me a moment to process it.
"What are you talking about?"
"There's something I never told you." She pulled her hands from mine, wrapped her arms around herself like she was cold. "About my marriage. About why it really ended."
I waited, giving her space, my heart rate climbing with every second of silence.
"It wasn't just the affair," she finally said. "That was the symptom. The disease was... me. What I couldn't do."
"Charlotte—"
"Let me finish. Please." She took a shuddering breath. "We tried for seven years to have a baby. Seven years of tests and injections and hope and failure. Every month, the same cycle, maybe this time, maybe this time, and then the crash when it wasn't."
Her voice cracked, but she pushed on.
"Drew... he wanted a family more than anything. It was the whole reason he got married, I think. And I couldn't give him that."
Tears were streaming down her face now, silent and steady.
"After the divorce, I had more tests. The final ones." She looked up at me, and the fear in her eyes was devastating. "I'msterile, Miles. It's not low odds. It's no odds. My body can't carry a pregnancy. I am broken."
