I breathe.
She keeps holding me.
And I stay.
Chapter Twelve: Nora
I’m just finishing the last, stubborn patch of tile near the pastry case when Maeve’s voice rings out, “Break time!”
I prop the mop against my shoulder like a walking stick, letting out a slow breath. My palms are sore, a pleasant burn runs along my shoulders. It’s a good ache. An ache I’ve earned.
Our regulars know our ritual, so these fifteen minutes are always, blessedly, ours. The café empties slowly. A man in a grey coat folds his newspaper, drains the last cold inch of his coffee. He nods to us on his way out. Two women by the window gather their shopping bags, their conversation trailing behind them like ribbon. The last customer gathers her things. She tucks her paperback into her leather bag and leaves a tip on the table: two coins and a crumpled bill.
The door swings shut behind her.
The others are already heading up to the terrace. Only Maeve and Kieran remain behind the counter, their quiet conversation a soft hum in the empty café.
Then, the bell above the door chimes. And the floor seems to vanish beneath my feet.
Julian walks in.
For a moment, all sensation leaves my hands. The mop handle might as well be air. My fingers are still wrapped around it, but I cannot feel them. I cannot feel anything except thesudden, violent lurch of my heart. A deep, muscular heave against my ribs, urgent and wild.
I am rooted to the spot. My breath locks in my chest.
He was never meant to be here. This place was my sanctuary, my secret. The two halves of my life were supposed to remain in separate, sealed universes. The wife who stayed. The woman who left. They were not supposed to collide.
But here he is. In my café. In the place where I have been learning to breathe.
Julian’s gaze finds me instantly and then drops to the mop, to my worn-out clothes.
His expression shifts. It’s subtle—a slight tightening around his mouth, a barely perceptible hardening in his gaze. It’s the quick, instinctive flash of disdain that people are trained to mask, but never quite fully conceal.
Disdain. For the mop. For the apron. For the sweat on my forehead and the flush in my cheeks. For the work that is beneath him, beneath his world, beneath the woman he thought he married.
A flash of judgment crosses his face. There and gone in a second. But I saw it.
He steps closer, into my space, and reaches out. His hand closes around the mop handle, just above my own grip.
“Nora…” His voice is low, placating. The voice he uses when he wants something. “Let it go.”
I don’t.
He applies a gentle, firm pressure, trying to ease it from my fingers.
His hand is stronger than mine. He could take the mop if he wanted to. He could pry my fingers open, one by one, and pull it from my grip. But he doesn’t. He just… presses. Testing. Pushing. Seeing if I will give.
I tighten my hold until my knuckles whiten.
The wood bites into my palms. The soreness from the morning’s work sharpens into something else—something that feels like defiance. My fingers are locked around the handle. I will not let go. I will not let him take this from me.
His eyes dart up to meet mine, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing his face.
He is not used to this. He is not used to me pushing back. He is used to silence. To the wife who nodded and saidokayand turned back to the sink.
But that wife is gone. She has been gone for months. He just did not notice.
“Nora,” he murmurs, a whisper of exasperation escaping him. The exasperation is familiar. It is the same exasperation he felt when his breakfast was five minutes late, when the house was not quite clean enough, when I did not perform my wifely duties to his satisfaction. “Just—alright. Fine. Keep it.”
