Page 112 of Ten Day Affair

“When are you leaving?” he asks.

“Tuesday morning. It’s about an eight-and-a-half-hour drive to Atlanta, so I’ll get on the road early.”

He nods. “That’s a long drive.”

“I’ve done longer. But, yeah, I'm not looking forward to it.”

We fall quiet again. He sips his water. I pull the crust from my sandwich and stack the pieces neatly beside my plate, just for something to do.

After a minute, he exhales. “I shouldn’t have called you like that. It wasn't my place, and I'm sorry.”

I glance over at him, but I don’t say anything yet. My dad never apologizes.

“Also, I shouldn’t have asked Cole what I asked him. You’re not a kid, and I acted like you were.”

The tension in my shoulders tightens, then starts to unwind. It's amazing how a few simple words can unwind a lifetime of pressure.

“I know it was messy, and you weren't wrong that it wasn't appropriate. But that didn’t give you permission to make me feel like I messed up just by being with him. And for the record, it had nothing to do with the vote.”

He looks down at his sandwich. “You’re right.”

"Thank you, Dad."

“I never want to be the voice in your head that makes you doubt yourself. God knows your mother and I already took up too much space there.”

I don’t respond, because he's never spoken truer words. I’m not ready to forgive or forget, not fully. But that last line lodges in my throat.

“Have you heard from him?”

I shake my head. “No. We haven't spoken since that day.”

He doesn’t press. He doesn’t ask anything else, or fill the space with advice or opinions. Just sits with me in the quiet. It’s exactly what I need from him for once.

After he leaves,I stand in the doorway, watching his car disappear down Mariner’s Reach Drive. The silence moves in and quickly swells in his absence.

This house is the last thing I have tying me to the version of myself I always thought I had to be.

And I’m walking away from it.

I grip the doorframe with one hand, like it might hold me up.

But there’s no one left to stop me from falling. For the first time in my life, I'm completely on my own.

TWENTY-SIX

Cole

The elevator chimes at seven-fifteen, which means Dorian's early. He's never early unless something's wrong.

I glance up from the quarterly reports spread across my desk as he strides through my office door. No knock, no greeting. He shuts the door behind him with a deliberate click that makes my chest tighten.

"We have a problem."

"Don't tell me the chatter about my competency is back. I thought we put that to bed."

"Arguably, this is worse."

He crosses to my desk and slides a printed email across the mahogany surface. The subject line jumps out at me.