Chapter 2

"Wren, what's gotten into you lately?"

His tone wasn't defensive.

It was disappointed.

"You weren't like this before. You tore through the whole Pack House to collect this stuff so you could put me on trial? Do you know what you look like right now?"

I waited for him to say it.

"You look like your mom when she was going through your dad's accounts after the restaurant collapsed."

Blood rushed to my head.

He was using my family's ruin against me.

"Cain. You're changing the subject."

"I'm stating facts!"

He raised his voice. "You changed after your Pack fell apart. You got sensitive. Paranoid. I stay an extra two days at the office and you're already digging around sideways. I understand you don't feel secure. But you can't treat everyone around you like a threat just because you're scared."

"Serena is twenty-four. Fresh out of school. Everyone at the Pack office knows her. She's polite and respectful toward me. If you're reading something else into it, that's your problem."

His voice was steady.

Every word sounded rehearsed.

Then I noticed it — the faint curve at the corner of his mouth while he was speaking.

Not the panic of someone caught. The ease of someone who'd confirmed something. Like he was thinking: see, you can't leave me after all, you came back to interrogate me, and that's exactly as it should be.

I opened my mouth and found I had nothing to say back.

Not because he was right.

Because he'd grabbed hold of the wound I least wanted touched and pulled.

I picked up my bowl and ate the food he'd cooked, one bite at a time.

It was over-salted and tasted bitter.

After dinner he went to wash the dishes.

His phone was on the couch.

I didn't touch it.

But it pinged, and the screen lit up.

A notification. Serena had posted.

A photo.

The sky at dusk — gold and red clouds pressed low.

I knew that angle too well. It was taken from the left edge of our balcony. The only spot in the whole Pack House where you could frame the building across the street and the horizon at the same time.

I'd tried it many times.

Her caption:

【Some views, you're lucky just to be allowed to see them.】

Dozens of comments: "Where was this?" "So romantic." "Do you have someone?"

She replied to all of them:

"Secret spot. Not telling."

I went into the bedroom.

I opened the wardrobe and quietly took down my jackets, sweaters, and scarves, folded them one by one, and packed them into the suitcase.

Cain finished the dishes and walked over, drying his hands. He saw the open suitcase.

"What are you doing now?"

"I'm staying somewhere else for a few days."

"Why would you do that?"

He leaned in the doorway, arms folded. "You'd rather suffer in some cheap hotel than stay here? What's the point?"

"If you're still upset, stay. I'm not forcing you to admit you're imagining things. But I also refuse to apologize, because I have nothing to apologize for."

I zipped the suitcase shut.

When I got to the door, he stepped aside.

He didn't stop me.

"Come back when you've calmed down."

His voice followed me from behind, steady and certain. "You'll see. No one else is going to give you a south-facing room."

The door clicked shut.

The motion sensor light in the hallway came on for one second, then went dark.

I didn't look back.

But my heart was shaking.

Not because I was afraid.

It was because the way he said "no one else" — that same certainty in his voice — sounded exactly like the easy tone of that strawberry contact on his phone.

Certain I couldn't leave him.

Certain I'd always come back.

A week later, Cain called and his voice was unusually gentle.

"Pack dinner on Friday. Come along. Get some air."

He paused.

"I want everyone to know you're my mate."

That hit me somewhere that hadn't fully healed yet.

Five years. Five years wasn't something you could set down after a few nights in a hotel.

I took out the one dress I owned — navy blue, past the knee, decent without trying too hard.

When I walked into the private room of the restaurant, I stopped.

Serena was sitting next to Cain.

She had on a deep blue dress in almost the same shade as mine.

The only difference was her neckline was lower, and she wore a tassel bracelet on her wrist that swayed every time she lifted her glass.

She looked good.

And she'd chosen her seat well.

"Wren!" She smiled and stood, tugging Cain's sleeve. "Cain, Wren's here."

Cain gave me a nod and pointed to the empty seat across from him.

"Sit there."

I walked around the long table and pulled out the chair.

The row of people across from me looked at me with polished smiles.

A few faces I recognized — Cain's business partners and the key members of his project team. The rest I couldn't name.

The dinner got underway. Cain raised a toast and said the usual things.

Serena sat close to him, deflecting drinks on his behalf, passing him napkins.

When he reached for the rare steak, she adjusted the dipping sauce without being asked — three parts to one, exactly the ratio he preferred.

That ratio was something I had told him.

He'd only ever told one person.