“I think,” he says, his gaze tracing every line of my face, “you care too much about yourself to risk what happens if you ignore it.”
The truth of it hits me.
He is right.
Any report. Any accusation. Any violation. None of it will be about her. All of it will be about me. My career. My name. My future.
I’ve spent years building a shell of respectability, a persona dependent on the fickle approval of people who believe that I am a man of character, substance and steady hands. Years of cultivating a reputation, a network. I am competent, trustworthy, respectable.
A restraining order violation will mean more than legal trouble. It will mean a story. A story that follows me. A story people remember. A story people would pass around dinner tables like bowls of rotting fruit. A smear on my name that no amount of professional success could scrub away.
I look past him.
Nora laughs. Soft. Unforced. Free.
Maeve says something else, and Nora nods, her smile still there, easy and unguarded. She looks happy.
Away from me.
Kieran shifts, just enough to block my view again. “Stay away from her.”
I swallow hard.
I hate him. I hate this. But I know what happens if I push. Police reports. Violations. Courtrooms. Public.
I step back.
Kieran straightens. “We’re celebrating tonight,” he adds, a small, unbothered smile on his lips. “Thought you should know.”
Maeve takes Nora’s arm, guiding her toward the parking lot. Nora goes with her—willingly, easily—without a single glance back.
I stand there, my hands empty at my sides, my chest aching and tight.
That’s it.
No last glance. No hesitation. No crack in her resolve.
I feed myself the thin, bitter comfort of denial as I walk to the car. I tell myself she’s being dramatic. She’ll realize what she’s throwing away. She just needs time to cool off before she comes to her senses.
The house is waiting patiently for me when I pull into the driveway. The windows are dark, sightless eyes. The door is locked. I sit in the car for a long time, the engine off, the silence pressing in from all sides.
I enter and close the door behind me. Wait for something to happen.
A sound. A movement. The smell of dinner cooking because she always started early, knowing I hated eating late.
Nothing.
Just the dead air of a place that used to be lived in.
The house has been empty for months. I have been living in it alone, sleeping in the bed we used to share, eating at the table where she used to sit across from me. But the air has never feltthis heavy. The house holds its breath, waiting for something that will never return.
I walk into the kitchen first, guided by muscle memory.
The kitchen was her place. She moved through it—chopping, stirring, wiping down the counters. Morning after morning, evening after evening, she kept everything running. She was the engine. I just lived inside the warmth she generated.
The counter is bare.
I stand in the doorway and stare at it. The pale granite is polished. The surface gleams. But there is nothing on it. No cutting board waiting. No lunch containers stacked neatly beside the sink, drying. No small bowl of fruit, the one she kept stocked with those waxy red apples she knew I’d grab just to have something to crunch on in the car.
