"Really? Because from where I'm standing, it looks exactly the same as control."
The word hangs in the air between us. I watch his face shift, hurt flickering beneath the surface before he buries it under something harder.
"You think I'm controlling you." He moves toward me, and my body responds despite everything, a flush of heat I resent and can't suppress. "After everything we've been through to get here. That's what you think."
"I think you're so afraid of losing me sometimes that you can't see you're pushing me away."
He stops. The space between us feels charged, dangerous. Barely three feet of floor that might as well be a minefield.
"You want to control everything," I say, and my voice wavers but I don't stop. "Even how I handle my own shame."
He blows out a curse. “This is about our life." He closes another step, and I can smell the whiskey on his breath now, sharp and medicinal. "Our future. Everything we're building together. You think I'll let some tabloid profit from hurting you?"
"And destroying them undoes the hurt? Erases what they wrote?"
"It makes sure no one else tries."
"You can't burn down everyone who wounds me, Nick." I'm trying desperately to reach him. I can hear the plea underneath my own anger, the need to make him understand. "That's not protection. That's—"
"That's what?" He's close now, too close, his presence overwhelming my senses even as my mind screams at me to hold my ground. "That's loving you, Avery. That's refusing to let anyone touch what's mine."
Mine.
The word hits something old in me. Something we've struggled with before.
I force myself to breathe. To stay present instead of spiraling into old wounds.
"What happens when I disagree with you?" My voice shakes, but I hold his gaze. "When I have a different opinion about my own life? Do I just fall in line? Is that how this marriage is going to work?"
"That's not fair."
"Isn't it? You made a decision tonight that affects both of us, and you didn't ask. You didn't even pretend to consider what I wanted."
"I'm trying to protect—"
"I don't need you to protect me from my own choices!"
The words ring through the penthouse. We're both breathing hard now, standing too close, and even through the anger I'm aware of the heat between us—that current that never dies, no matter how much we're hurting each other.
I step back. Force myself to think. Nick walks back to the bar where his whiskey sits.
"The article," I say, hating to rehash everything again. But I need to know. I need something to hold onto. "Did they take it down?"
He blinks, recalibrating. "Yes. Their lawyers contacted Beck about twenty minutes ago. A retraction's being drafted."
The tension in my chest loosens, just slightly. A fragile, tentative relief. Maybe he heard me. Maybe some part of what I said broke through. I take a step toward him, my voice softening despite myself.
"Thank you. That's... that's good, Nick. Maybe we can let it end there. Let it die down."
He doesn't answer. Doesn't move.
"Nick?"
He reaches for his glass. Drains the last of the whiskey. Sets it down with precise, deliberate care.
"Every action has consequences." His voice has gone cold. Decided. "They never should have run the story in the first place."
The fragile relief in my chest turns to ice.
