Chapter 25: my hubby
Quinn’s eyes were still red when she wiped them and pushed herself back up. She took her time before she spoke.
"The twenty-sixth. Next Wednesday."
"Is Amara still telling you to turn down every job I offer?"
"Yes." Her voice came out smaller than she probably wanted it to.
"Then start keeping records. Every offer, every email from every client, save all of it. I’ll need it next Wednesday." I kept my tone flat, almost bored. "If you’ve got any sense left in you, you’ll realize working with me beats working for Amara. She’s a mistress, Quinn. That fact alone means she’ll never get anywhere near the international stage."
She didn’t answer right away, but I watched the calculation happen behind her eyes. She’d spent months watching Amara lurch from one disaster to the next while my name quietly climbed back to where it belonged. She was starting to understand what I’d known for a long time: Amara had built her entire career on being pitiable, and I’d let her play that role right up until I didn’t need her to anymore.
She made her decision.
"I’ll help you put it together."
I nodded and turned for the door. At the threshold, I paused and glanced back at her.
"If you don’t know how to survive a scandal, don’t hand me one to clean up."
It wasn’t a threat so much as a fact. If she couldn’t afford to be caught doing something stupid, she shouldn’t have done it.
Quinn’s face lost what little color it had. I could tell this was new territory for her, an artist who’d planned this far in advance without anyone catching on. Whatever Amara thought she had going for her, it clearly wasn’t enough, because I was already three steps ahead and closing in.
Outside, the sun was too bright for how I felt. I walked to the car looking exactly the way I felt: wrung out.
Nicole took one look at my face and her expression dropped.
"You and Liam had it out?"
"He asked to break up." I let my head fall back against the seat and closed my eyes. "You know what was strange, Nicole? He sounded like he was reading off a card someone handed him."
"He’s also freezing my bookings for three years."
"That absolute coward." Nicole’s voice sharpened with anger. She reached over and squeezed my arm. "Don’t let a man like that get to you. You’re going to make him regret every second of this. Ten times over, easy."
"I can’t really talk about it right now," I said quietly. "Just take me home."
"Okay. Get some rest."
The whole ride back, my thoughts wouldn’t slow down. If Liam could be this cold and this careless already, this wasn’t close to the worst of it. One word from Amara and he’d do something worse. I needed to cut her legs out from under her before she got the chance to use him again.
It was eight in the evening by the time Caspian got home. The apartment was dark, quiet, no smell of dinner anywhere. He must have assumed I wasn’t back yet. Then he walked into the bedroom and found me lying there in the dark, not asleep, just still.
He didn’t ask what happened. He sat down on the edge of the bed beside me.
The second I felt the mattress dip under his weight, I sat up and wrapped my arms around him without a word.
"If you need to cry, cry," he said, rubbing slow circles against my shoulder. "You’ll feel better after."
I’d been holding it together since that morning. The moment his arms closed around me, I stopped trying. I pressed my face into his chest and let it all come apart.
"I’m sorry," I choked out. "I told myself I wasn’t going to cry over something that isn’t even worth it."
"It’s fine." His voice stayed low, steady. "Cry. Who else are you supposed to be honest with, if not me?"
Maybe it was the warmth of him. Maybe it was the way he made everything feel less dangerous just by being there. Whatever it was, I cried into his shirt for a long time that night, until there was nothing left.
"Better?" he asked once I’d finally gone quiet.
"Yeah." I sat back and wiped my face. "You haven’t eaten. Let me make something."
Before I could get off the bed, Caspian caught my chin between his fingers and kissed me.
It wasn’t soft.
It was the kind of kiss that said everything he wasn’t going to put into words, the kind that chased down every last thing I was still holding onto and burned it away. When we finally broke apart, neither of us was breathing quite right.
"Valerie." He held my face in both hands. "Happy or hurting, I want to be the person you come to first. Wear whatever mask you need out there. In here, you don’t wear any of them. We’re married. That’s supposed to mean something."
He wiped the last tear off my cheek with his thumb and stood.
"And you’re still not allowed in the kitchen."
I grabbed his hand before he could walk off.
"I need you. Just stay here for a minute. Hold me. Kiss me again."
"I need dinner first," he said, dead serious. "Then I’ll kiss you properly."
That got a laugh out of me, the first one all day.
I threw the blanket off and took his hand.
"Fine. I’ll keep you company while you cook."
We ate together, showered, and when we came back to bed Caspian settled against the headboard with a stack of contracts while I tried to sleep beside him.
I turned over four times and gave up.
"Can’t sleep?" he asked, not looking up from the page.
I pulled the blanket down from over my head.
"Read to me?"
Caspian was the only person I never had to perform for. I didn’t have to be composed with him the way I was with Nicole, didn’t have to hold myself together like I did for everyone else. With him I got to just be his wife, someone allowed to lean on somebody else for once. And I think, with me, he got to set down whatever version of himself the rest of the world expected.
He set the contracts aside, pulled a book off the shelf, and got back into bed with an arm around me.
Then he started reading.
It was such a small thing. Ordinary, even.
In all my years with Liam, he’d never once done anything like it.
I never thought the most feared man in this industry would be the one to make me fall for him over something this quiet, this simple.
The ache in my chest eased, bit by bit, until I drifted off in his arms and slept the way I always did when he was there. Completely.
The next morning the air outside felt heavy, thick with humidity before I’d even opened my eyes.
My phone rang and dragged me out of sleep.
It was Quinn.
