Set it back down.
Alexis was everything I was supposed to want. Beautiful, intelligent, respectable. She fit into my world without friction. The sex was incredible—raw and primal in a way that let me burn off the darkness I carried. She didn’t ask too many questions. Didn’t push too hard. Knew how to play the game.
But at the end of the day, she wasn’t Truth.
And that was the problem I couldn’t solve with boundaries or cold dismissals or perfectly executed performances.
I pulled out my phone and stared at the last text message in my thread with Truth.
Six weeks. Then we try again.
I should have been focused on Alexis. On managing the relationship I’d just claimed. On keeping things simple and controlled.
But all I could think about was whether Truth had eaten today. Whether the cramping had stopped. Whether she was still crying on bathroom floors or if Delphine had managed to pull her out of the spiral.
I locked my phone and set it face-down on the desk.
Told myself to focus.
Told myself Alexis was the right choice.
Told myself I was in control.
But the lie tasted bitter on my tongue.
I made it halfway to the jewelry store before I turned the car around.
The thought of putting on that face—the polite, charming, normal businessman who smiled at customers and talked about custom designs—felt impossible. Like trying to wear a suit that didn’t fit anymore. My body was there, hands on the wheel, but my mind was still in that clinic recovery room, watching Truth process the failure. Still hearing her voice at 2 AM, breaking apart on the phone while I sat in the dark and listened.
I called my assistant manager and told her I wasn’t coming in.
She didn’t ask questions. She never did.
At home, I changed into swim trunks and grabbed a towel. The pool was heated year-round, one of those luxuries I’d paid for and rarely used. But today I needed the water. Needed something to drown out the noise in my head.
I dove in without testing the temperature first. The shock of it hit my system like a reset button—cold enough to make my lungs seize, warm enough not to kill me. I stayed under as long as I could, pushing off the bottom and gliding through the silence. Down here, there were no phone calls. No failedtransfers. No women crying on bathroom floors. No Alexis testing boundaries in my office. Just water and pressure and the muffled thud of my own heartbeat.
When my lungs started burning, I kicked toward the surface.
I broke through, gasping, water streaming down my face—and froze.
Kaisen was sitting in one of the lounge chairs at the edge of the pool, legs stretched out, looking at me like he’d been there the whole time.
“What do you want?” I said, my voice flat.
He raised his hands in mock surrender. “Damn. I was just checkin’ on you. Dad told me things didn’t go well with the surrogate.”
I wiped the water from my eyes and swam to the edge, resting my forearms on the concrete. “It’s not your business.”
“Ease the fuck up,” Kaisen said, but there was no heat in it. Just exhaustion that mirrored my own. “I’m not here to start shit. I’m here because you’re my brother, and you look like hell.”
I stared at him for a long moment. Wanted to tell him to leave. Wanted to put the walls back up and handle this the way I handled everything else—alone, controlled, compartmentalized. But I was tired. Bone-deep tired in a way that had nothing to do with the swim and everything to do with the past two weeks.
I exhaled slowly and pulled myself out of the pool, water sluicing off my shoulders. Grabbed the towel and sat in the chair next to his.
“The surrogate shit is harder than I thought,” I said finally, staring at the water instead of at him. “I thought I’d just pay someone to carry my baby and pick it up from the hospital. Clean. Simple. Transactional.”
Kaisen didn’t say anything. Just waited.
