Page 16 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

Someone who kept the lights on for a man who had stopped coming home to her.

The bedroom door clicked shut behind me. I turned to see Cassian shrug off his jacket and drape it over the chaise. The wool slipped into a careless fold as his fingers went to his tie, loosening the knot with two quick tugs.

I watched him, waiting for his eyes to find mine.

They never did.

When was the last time he came home and looked for me?

“Aren’t you going to say something?”

The question came out rougher than I intended, my voice catching beneath the anger and hurt I’d been holding in for so long.

Cassian finally looked up. His face had already settled into that familiar exhaustion. His shoulders sagged, his eyes dull beneath the weight of another long night. “I already explained why I was late. What else do you want me to say?”

He exhaled, his head dipping as he dragged a hand down his face, fingers pressing briefly against his eyes.

The difference between the man I’d heard laughing in the foyer and the man standing before me felt cruel. With Cassandra, his shoulders had been loose, his face unguarded, laughter coming easily from him. In front of me, the weight had returned to his posture, his features drawn with exhaustion, every trace of that warmth gone.

I stared at him, waiting.

Waiting for something in his face to crack. For his eyes to soften when he finally looked at me and saw what he’d done.

I had to stand there, hurt and humiliated, listening to him laugh with her while the cake I’d baked for him sat untouched in the dining room.

I wanted him to look at me and realize.

To see how close I was to breaking. The tears burning behind my eyes, the tremor threatening my hands, the crescents my nails had carved into my palms just to keep myself together.

Surely he could see it.

Surely he had to know what this was doing to me.

I searched his face for something. A pause. A crease between his brows. Any sign that my pain had reached him. Every tiny movement made my heart lurch, only for that fragile hope to die when his expression gave me nothing.

Come on.

Look at me.

Just look at me.

His eyes finally met mine. But there was nothing in them that reached for me. No concern. No softness. Not even a hint that he understood how close I was to falling apart.

He simply stared at me, his face giving away nothing, and I felt my heart crack beneath the weight of everything he left unsaid.

All those feelings clawing up my throat had nowhere to go. They crowded behind my teeth, hot and painful, begging to spill out, while he stood there looking at me without the slightest sign that he understood.

My vision blurred. I bit the inside of my cheek, swallowing against the ache in my throat. I refused to let the tears fall. Not yet. I had spent the entire evening holding myself together, and I couldn’t bear to unravel in front of him now.

“You missed your birthday party,” I said at last, each word dragged through the ache lodged in my chest. “The one I spent a month planning for you.”

He went still.

His eyes widened a fraction, shock breaking across his face before his lids fell shut. A curse slipped beneath his breath. When he looked at me again, the apology was already forming.

“The Aethelstan deal came through at the last minute. Cassandra helped bring it in. We all got busy, and it just… slipped my mind.” His voice dropped. “I’m sorry.”

Cassandra.