Page 224 of Say My Name

I want to ask if she’s okay. I wait.

“I apologized,” she says. “I told him keeping the relationship private stopped protecting anything once we began lying to the people who loved us.”

Cliff remains near the hallway, listening.

“I told him the contract was my idea,” she continues. “So was lying about ovulation. Coming back from Colorado was my decision, and staying here is too.”

Her shoulder presses against my arm.

“Loving you is my choice, Dominic.” The words land in the quiet space between us, a truth she’s offering not just to me, but to her brother.

I lift our joined hands and kiss her knuckles.

Cliff looks at his sister, leaning into me because she wants to. When he meets my eyes again, the hard anger in them has softened.

After dinner, Rachel and the children settle in the living room for a movie. Elena goes with them after Theo rejects every option Sophie chooses, and Sophie accuses him of having bad taste.

Cliff stays in the kitchen.

I place the last dish in the dishwasher while he takes a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet. He holds it up.

“Yes.”

He pours two glasses and slides one toward me.

We listen to the argument in the next room. Elena suggests assigning numerical values to everyone’s choices. Sophie approves until Elena explains that Theo receives the same vote.

“That sounds like her,” Cliff says.

“She started a spreadsheet for baby names.”

“Of course she did.”

“She has filters.”

A quiet laugh leaves him. It’s brief, a crack in the tension, but it’s the first one directed at me all day.

He looks into the living room. Elena sits on the floor beside Sophie with Theo half across her lap. She turns at that moment and finds me watching. Her smile is small and private.

“I’m still angry about how it began,” Cliff says.

“You should be.”

“The secrecy. The contract. You being her boss. Falling in love doesn’t turn any of that into a good decision.”

“No.”

His eyes narrow slightly. “You’re really not going to argue with me?”

“I’ve already had this argument with myself. You make several valid points.”

“Several?”

“I’m not giving you all of them.”

He almost smiles again, then looks back at Elena. “I can see what this is now.”

I wait.