Page 23

He wrapped an arm around the woman and kissed her temple like it was second nature, like affection didn’t require permission. The woman leaned into him like he was the pillar that stabilized her.

Everly’s eyes flicked away, fast. The ache hit like a flash fire, hot and sharp and uninvited. That intimacy. That ease. It wasn’t just marriage. It was play. It was knowing. It was safe. She swallowed hard. A lump like guilt lodged in her throat.

“This is my wife, Isabelle,” Gator said, casual but proud. “I guess you two didn’t meet in Niamey. She was the acting ambassador before we were kicked out of the country.” His face was so…soft and tender when he looked at her. She was the only woman he saw. “Izzy, this is Dr. Everly Quinn.”

Izzy offered a hand, still holding the flamingo shirt with her other hand. “I’ve heard so much about you. Thank you for taking care of Zeph and his whole team.”

Everly groaned inwardly. What was this? A coordinated emotional ambush? Could she walk two steps in this damn hotel without colliding with one of Zorro’s teammates and their wives whose marriages didn’t look like a slow heartbreak?

First Pippa and Joker thriving under ambition without losing their passion. Then Gator and Izzy, all fire and mischief, effortless and known. Together, they looked like hope. Like something that endured without demanding either person compromise.

Zorro, God , Zorro had looked at her like she was light. Even when she was unraveling.

She mumbled something about needing to go and turned before they could say anything else, especially anything kind. She couldn’t take kindness right now. She was too brittle. Kindness would break her faster than cruelty.

She moved on autopilot, her fingers fisting around the curve of the keycard in her pocket.

But she still didn’t turn toward Zorro’s room. She couldn’t, not while everything was so precarious, and his kindness meant she might be forgiven, and his forgiveness meant she might be worthy. That was the part she still didn’t know how to believe.

The shop door jingled behind her. She stepped into the corridor like she was surfacing from deep water.

The shift in temperature hit her first, humid warmth replacing the air-conditioned chill. Then the noise. Laughter. Clinking glasses. Voices clustered in the mezzanine lounge just beyond the corridor.

She started to turn back toward the elevators, the keycard still tucked in her pocket like a pulse, when a group of conference attendees stepped out from the alcove nearby.

She didn’t mean to linger. She didn’t mean to listen.

But her name, his name, froze her in place.

“…Dr. Quinn’s Welcome talk? Devastating. Honest. The kind of thing that stays with you.”

Everly slowed.

A woman’s voice answered, “I don’t know how she did it. To speak like that…after everything? She’s incredible.”

A man let out a quiet breath. “She always was. Even when she didn’t see it.”

There was a pause.

Then, soft, almost regretful, “I met Rob once. Cairo. Trauma policy review a few years ago. We were in the speaker’s lounge between sessions. He said—” The man hesitated. “—he said she only got invited because she was easier on the eyes than the competition.”

Someone gasped, sharp and appalled.

The woman’s voice returned, fiercely. “He said that ? About his remarkable wife?”

“He said it like it was a joke,” the man replied. “But it wasn’t, and it stuck with me. I thought…maybe she knew. Maybe that was the deal. He got the spotlight. She was quietly brilliant. But watching her today…” Another breath. “I don’t think she knew.”

Everly couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

She didn’t know.

She didn’t want to believe it. But she did.

Now she could feel it. The accumulation of little wounds she’d dismissed. The way Rob had smiled too thin when she was praised. The edits. The vanishing citations. The silence when she won awards.

It had all been there, and she'd called it partnership .

She pivoted away before the tears could rise, walking fast, her heart pounding.

She needed answers and she needed them now. She turned toward the stairwell and took the steps down two at a time, heart pounding. She bypassed the press room, the conference wing, the glass atrium lounge. She walked fast with purpose.

Straight to Madeline.

The knock was firm, decisive.

Everly’s hand trembled against the brass plaque outside the suite.

She always sensed that Madeline and Rob were closer…even closer than he and Everly. She didn’t want to seem petty, but the pain in her was throbbing with incidents that were starting to add up.

Madeline opened the door a beat later. Not in heels or her usual crisp tailoring, but barefoot, her blouse untucked, a pair of reading glasses perched atop her head.

She blinked. Then stilled.

“Ev?” she asked gently. “What?—?”

“Can I come in?” Her voice was too calm. That scared her more than anything.

Madeline stepped aside instantly. “Of course.”

The door closed behind her with a soft snick , sealing them off from the world. The room smelled like brewed tea and paper, sunlight pouring through gauzy curtains that swayed in rhythm with the breath of the air conditioner. Somewhere, a kettle beeped.

But all Everly could feel was the burn of the keycard still in her pocket and the roar of her thoughts spiraling.

“I need to know something,” she said quietly.

Madeline turned from the table, frowning. “What is it?”

Everly looked down. Her hands were clenched. She hadn’t realized.

“Did Rob…ever talk to you…about me?” Madeline’s pause was just long enough. “Madeline.” Her voice cracked like dry earth. “Please. He’s dead, but I feel he’s haunting us both.”

Madeline closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them, something in her had changed. Resignation, maybe. Or the end of restraint.

“Yes, he complained all the time about you. He resented you, Everly. Bitterly,” she said softly, the words costing her. Everly blinked. Madeline hesitated. “I don’t want to hurt you. But it just got worse and worse.”

The words landed like stones. Small ones. Sharp. Too familiar. Everly sank onto the edge of the velvet chaise, her spine straight but brittle. “He was going to divorce me. Wasn‘t he?”

“Everly—”

“Wasn’t he? That’s why he took the single contract for Afghanistan. That’s why he acted so distant and cruel before he left.” She closed her eyes. “That’s why…Oh, God. He didn’t tell me about the danger, the evacuation. He wanted me to die in that explosion.”

Madeline covered her mouth and looked away, tears squeezed out of her eyes, and her breath rushed out. “I can’t say the thought didn’t occur to me when you told me you didn’t know.” She shook her head. “Why did you follow him? Why put yourself through his indifference?”

“I don’t know. I always try…try to be the best I can be. I tried in our marriage. It was supposed to be about companionship, partnership, mutual interests, and service.”

Madeline looked like she was the one about to collapse this time.

She sat there for a moment, anguish contorting her lovely features.

“Yes, he was going to divorce you. He said he was sorry he ever married you.” Madeline exhaled, then crossed to the small table near the window, poured tea into two cups even though only one of them would be touched.

“He didn’t think you’d come. He thought you’d refuse. ”

“I almost did.”

“I know.” Madeline walked back and set the tea down untouched. Then she sat beside her. “Rob wasn’t…” She paused, hands clasped tight in her lap. “He wasn’t just difficult, Ev. He was…threatened.”

Everly turned her head slowly.

Madeline’s eyes shimmered, but not with pity. Just exhaustion and something else…guilt.

“You outpaced him, and he knew it. Your publications had higher citations. Your methods were more innovative. Your name carried more weight in trauma reform circles than his ever did. But instead of being proud of you…he started resenting you.”

A breath caught. Everly’s, maybe. Or the room’s.

“He would wait until after you left the room to make corrections,” Madeline continued, her voice lower now. “Would revise papers where your names were listed together. Remove references you added. Dismiss your research in private conversations. Some of us noticed. Some of us…tried not to.”

Everly didn’t move. Couldn’t. The calm had fractured.

“That contract for Afghanistan? They wanted you, Everly. He was an afterthought,” Madeline said slowly. “He was incensed. I’ve never seen him so apoplectic. That’s when he decided on divorce.”

Everly flinched like she'd been struck.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Madeline swallowed. “I was afraid. I thought…if I told you, I’d be tearing down the man you were still grieving.”

“Was I?” Everly whispered, more to herself than anything. “Grieving him? Or grieving what I thought he was?”

Madeline reached out, didn’t touch her, just let her hand hover near her arm.

“He said you were too good for anyone to love.”

She gasped. “He said that to you?”

“Yes, but he didn’t mean purity or goodness.

He meant competence like no man could survive under your shadow.

” Madeline, composed, brilliant, loyal Madeline, seemed to fold in on herself.

A woman who had kept too many secrets. Too many lies wrapped in the guise of respect.

“There’s something else,” she said quietly.

“It’s been a terrible weight on my conscience… .”

Everly looked at her then. Really looked.

“I was sleeping with him,” Madeline said. “Less than two months after the wedding. I won’t insult you by asking for your forgiveness. I’ll understand if you never want to see me or talk to me again.”

The pain in her didn’t flare. It just settled like dust after collapse. Her vision didn’t blur. It sharpened.

The keycard in her pocket burned like it was branding her. Her hand drifted there, clutching the fabric, the outline of Zorro’s silent plea pressing into her palm.

Come to me because you need me.

The grief. The rage. The years of silence dressed up as virtue. It all cracked, clean and quiet, like a fault line finally splitting beneath her ribs.

Then, softer now. Almost tender, she said, “He used you, too, didn’t he?”

Madeline nodded, the truth falling into place.

“You were his public. I was his private.” Madeline let out a breath that sounded like surrender.

“He needed to be adored,” she whispered.

“You outshone him from the start. He told me once your mind made him feel invisible. So, he stole it. I let him. I loved him. But I knew he didn’t love me.

He didn’t love you either, Everly. He just… used us.”

Everly didn’t speak for a long moment. “I think…we were both caught in the same trap. Just from different sides.”

Madeline nodded once, slowly.

“You deserved more than he gave you,” she said. “You always did.”

Everly stood and slowly, no rage, just clarity.

She met Madeline’s eyes. “Thank you,” she said and meant it. Then she turned and walked out of the room like she was walking off a battlefield, because maybe she was. But she had no intention of carrying his body with her.

She didn’t feel lighter. Not yet. But she did feel clearer.

She had spent years trying to be good enough to be loved. Noble enough. Unshakable enough. Forgiving enough. Rob had watched her do it and still turned away.

The pain wasn’t just that he had cheated. It was that she’d given him so much , and he’d treated it with indifference.

But Zorro…Zorro saw her when she was brittle and bleeding, and he hadn’t flinched.

The keycard in her pocket was just warm now, a question.

Are you ready to stop punishing yourself?