Chapter 1
She sat by the picture window, fingers curled around the warm cup she hadn't touched after taking that first sip. She'd used the family tracker app—the one they almost never opened—to find him. A harmless little surprise, she told herself to make up for being such a bitch to him yesterday. He was nearby, on the street outside and moving closer.
And just as she picked her cup up again, she saw him.
She waited for him to walk in, but he continued to walk past their old university haunt, with someone else.
Her heart stuttered in her chest. She told herself it wasn't what it looked like. It couldn't be.
At forty-five, she had learned to live with the rhythm of her body's little betrayals—the migraines that pulsed like drumbeats in her skull, the swelling in her belly, the dragging weight in her bones. Perimenopause had crept in slowly but insistently, taking her sleep, her patience, and sometimes even her ability to pretend everything was fine.
She had been with Ronin for twenty years. They'd met at university when he was still with someone else, and she waspart of the same tight-knit group of friends. She'd already been carrying the scars of a childhood shaped by abandonment—a father who left when she was fourteen, caught in bed with her best friend's nineteen-year-old sister. She had told her mother immediately, thinking honesty would be the right thing, but her mother never forgave her. Those last years before she left home had been a love-hate truce. Her father remarried the other woman and made a few awkward attempts to reconnect which were quickly rebuffed. Then, he vanished from her life for good.
When Ronin and Mia split up, she had been a shoulder to cry on at first, and later, unexpectedly after a drunken night, his lover. She had once heard Ronin say that they had drifted towards each other as if pulled together by currants. But she was always aware that there was no supernova explosion, just a soft coming together, at least in his book. They had almost married seventeen years ago, but a week before the wedding, her mother died unexpectedly, and grief had swallowed the ceremony whole. They had postponed, then postponed again. The second time came when she was thirty and pregnant with David, but that wedding never happened, either. Somewhere along the way, the urgency had faded; they settled into the life they'd built—business partners once when he had started his company, now comfortable companions raising their boy. He had supported her decision to become a stay-at-home mum for their boy.
She had made herself one private vow a long time ago, never to deny him sex. No matter the exhaustion, the moods, the heaviness of her cycles, she wouldn't shut him out. Until two weeks ago, when she felt so wretched she could barely stand—the pounding migraine, bloating and a stabbing ache low in her abdomen. He'd reached for her in bed, pressed himself against her for a moment, then sighed when she whispered that she was not well. He'd turned away, tossing restlessly while she lay wide-eyed in the dark until sleep finally took her close to dawn.
This morning had been different. The migraine was gone, replaced with a strange, restless energy. David would be home from school mid-afternoon, but Ronin had a meeting at work and then a meeting with an old school friend at this very café—the Snug, once their favorite haunt during their university days. On impulse, she had decided to surprise him.
Now, she watched through the window as a young woman in her early thirties walked beside him, her hand tucked neatly into his. Her blonde curls shimmered like spun gold in the sun. She couldn't see the colour of her eyes, but her profile was stunning and strangely familiar. The woman leaned into his side in a familiar gesture, and his hand rested with easy familiarity at her waist.
He bent to kiss the crown of her golden head, and she, without hesitation, turned him to her and pulled him down to kiss him full on the mouth.
For a moment, as she watched through the transparent barrier separating them, it was like her body no longer belonged to her.
She was dimly aware of the painful heat flooding her face, the hard thump of her heartbeat in her ears, the thin film of glass between them like a pane of ice. She stayed frozen, breath shallow, while the scene played out a few feet away. They couldn't see her heart break though the glare on the reflective glass.
They were about to come in when the woman glanced over her shoulder, caught sight of something Sage couldn't see, and tugged him with easy familiarity in the opposite direction.
Her hand shook as she set the cup down. One tear slipped down her cheek, burning against her flushed skin. Her feet moved without her permission, and she rose, following them as if tied to them by a string, but keeping her distance. The migraine returned with a throbbing vengeance, sharp andpulsing, as if punishing her for her ignorance. How did she not know?
She followed them like a ghost, her breath shallow, her eyes fixed on the narrow space between their bodies where their hands met with careless intimacy.
Ronin's head dipped listen to the petite woman, as if drawn there like a moth to the flame. Her fingers curled around his arm, claiming the space beside him. They were in their own separate bubble, completely absorbed in each other. They turned down a narrow lane, sunlight spilling like molten gold between the shadows of the old brick buildings. They didn't look back as she followed in dazed silence.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket—David, probably home by now—but she didn't check.
She absently caught her reflection in a shop window as they passed. Her long brown hair, which she had kept that way because Ronin liked it, hung limp and stuck to the sides of her face. It didn't frame her; it dulled her. Lifeless, like the rest of her felt. She turned her head away quickly, as though she could erase the image by refusing to acknowledge it.
The woman's burst of laughter—high and light, with a little giggle at the end—pulled her attention back. Something about her face was familiar, though she couldn't place it. A cousin of someone she knew? An employee she'd met at a party? No, someone else. There was an ease there, a history she wasn't privy to.
Ronin's smile broke across his face, and he laughed at whatever the little pixie woman had said. Laughed in that unguarded way she hadn't heard in... how long now? Years? She couldn't remember the last time he looked at her like that, as though she was made of pure sunshine.
They kept walking, and she kept pace at a distance. They entered a small bistro she didn't recognize, the Rochelle. Shestood outside, watching them through the glass as they were led to a table, watched as Ronin leaned forward, forearms on the white linen. She watched as his lips moved and she could imagine him talking in that low baritone of his. She saw the woman tip her head back and laugh, the movement exposing the smooth column of her neck. Watched him lean in, watched him fork something from his plate and place it in the woman's mouth.
They looked young. In love.
She couldn't move. She could barely breathe.
Chapter 2
Her hand was on the brass handle before she even realized she'd decided to move.
Inside, the air was warm and fragrant with garlic, butter, and wine as low voices hummed under the clink of cutlery. A dark-haired maître d' in a crisp black suit approached, smiling with polished professionalism. "How can I help, madam?"
"I'm with them," she said in a surprisingly steady voice while tilting her chin towards their table.
The maître d' inclined his head and, without hesitation, led her across the tiled floor towards their table.
