The wife he left behind

e that made her stomach drop. She had heard Marshall's phone ring at 2am and watched him take it to the bathroom. She had heard every version of its goin

his whole posture shift and soften, become the man she had spent nine years waiting for him to be for her. Sandra said something low. Marshall touched her face. "That was my cousin," he said, loud enough to carry. "Old family thing. It's nothing." Sandra laughed and let him guide her inside. Cloe stood on the pavement and breathed. Cousin. Nine years of her life, and she was his cousin. She turned before the tears could decide anything and walked fast, no direction, just away, until she rounded a corner and stopped and pressed both hands flat against the wall. She was not going to fall apart in public. She had made that rule a long time ago. She had never broken it. She pushed off the wall and kept walking. * * * She did not see him until she walked straight into him. The collision knocked her bag off her shoulder. Her phone hit the pavement. She stumbled and a hand caught her arm before she could go down. "Careful." She looked up. The man holding her arm was tall, dark-suited, watching her with an expression she could not read. Not annoyed. Not performing concern. Just present in a way that felt unfamiliar right now. He bent and picked up her phone. Screen cracked clean across the corner. "I'm sorry," Cloe said automatically. "You're apologising for walking into me." Not quite a question. "You were in the way." Something shifted in his face. Almost amusement. He held the phone out and she took it. Her hands were still unsteady. She hated that he could see it. "Are you alright?" he asked. The question was so simple and so direct that something in her chest pulled tight. No one had asked her that today. No one had asked her that in longer than she could remember. "Yes," she said. "Thank you." She walked away. She did not look back. She