CHAPTER 5: The First Time He Said Her Name
Adrian had imagined finding Naomi a thousand different ways.
He imagined her angry. He imagined her remarried. He imagined her standing in some city street, refusing to look at him while he begged for an explanation.
He had never imagined her on his floor, pregnant and shaking.
When he reached toward her, Naomi flinched.
The movement cut deeper than any insult Celeste could have spoken. Adrian froze, his hand hovering in the air, then lowered it slowly.
“I won’t touch you unless you want me to,” he said.
Naomi’s breath hitched. It was the first gentle sentence anyone in that house had spoken to her in months.
Celeste stepped forward quickly. “She’s manipulating you. She stole from me, Adrian. I caught her with my bracelet.”
Adrian turned.
The look on his face made Celeste stop.
“Why is Naomi Brooks working in my house?” he asked.
Celeste swallowed. “I don’t know what story she told you—”
“Answer me.”
The mansion seemed to hold its breath.
Naomi pushed herself upright, wincing as her hand slipped against the soup. Adrian removed his suit jacket and placed it carefully over her shoulders. She tried to resist, but the cold had already begun to set into her wet uniform.
Celeste’s eyes darted from the jacket to Naomi’s belly.
“She came here under a false name,” Celeste said. “I was going to report her.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“You knew who she was.”
“No.”
“You knew,” he repeated, quieter now, more dangerous.
Celeste lifted her chin. “She is nothing to you anymore.”
Adrian looked back at Naomi.
Naomi closed her eyes, tears carving clean lines through the yellow stains on her cheeks.
Then Adrian said the words Celeste feared most.
“She is my wife.”
May you like
The room changed with that sentence.
And Celeste, for the first time, looked afraid.
