Page 79 of The Husband I Left

“I look like shit,” I inform him. “But I feel slightly less like shit than yesterday, so. Progress.”

The corner of his mouth twitches. “Can I come in?”

I step back, pulling the door wider. “Sure. Enter at your own risk. It’s a biohazard in here.”

He steps inside and closes the door behind him. His presence immediately makes my apartment feel smaller, which is saying something, given that it was already the size of a postage stamp. Oliver does not belong in spaces this small. He belongs in penthouses with rooms that echo when you walk through them. Yet here he is, standing in my living room with its second hand furniture and water stained ceiling.

“Debating whether I’m brave enough to eat something,” I say, settling back into my chair at the table. The tea is cooling rapidly. I wrap both hands around the mug. “Stomach’s been quiet for a few hours. Could be a trap.”

Oliver laughs, and suddenly my stomach is fluttering in a way that has nothing to do with nausea. “I could make you breakfast,” he offers. “Something gentle. Eggs, maybe. Toast.”

I hesitate. I should say no. I should tell him I’m fine, that I can manage toast on my own, that he’s done more than enough already. But the truth is, the thought of standing over the stove right now makes me tired, and the thought of Oliver cooking for me in my own kitchen is—

“Sure,” I say. “That would be… yeah. Thanks.”

He grins. “Drink your tea. I’ve got this.”

So I drink my tea and watch as he moves around my kitchen. He opens cabinets until he finds a bowl, locates a whisk in the drawer by the sink, pulls eggs from the refrigerator. I’m surprised at how confident he is. The Oliver I was married to could barely boil water without supervision. This Oliver cracks eggs, whisks them, heats up the pan, melts butter.

“Mr. Hill’s been teaching you well,” I say.

“He’s a demanding instructor.” Oliver smiles without looking up from the eggs. “I won’t tell you how many omelets it took before I finally produced one that was acceptable to him.”

“I can imagine.”

We’re quiet for a minute. The sound of the eggs sizzling in the pan fills the small kitchen. It suddenly strikes me, we rarely had time like this when we were married when it was just us. Most of the time, his phone would be buzzing, or he’d be distracted thinking about the next work thing he had to do. We really just had the odd hour or weekend here and there and it was always over too quickly. Right now it’s just Oliver and me, and I’m not sure what to do with the way it makes me feel.

“Have you found a job yet?” I ask, more to distract myself from the fantasies my brain is trying to conjure up than anything.

He pauses, spatula hovering over the pan. For a moment, I think he might not answer. Then he says, “Not yet.”

I wait.

“I’m taking my time,” he continues. “For the first time in my life, I’m actually thinking about what I want to do. Not what I’m supposed to do, or what would look good on paper, or what would make my father proud. Just… what I want.”

I study his profile. “You never seemed unhappy running Sinclair Pharmaceuticals,” I say. “You seemed like you loved it.”

He considers this, stirring the eggs slowly. “I did love it,” he says. “I loved the power. I loved the money. I loved being Oliver Sinclair, the man who could make things happen with a phone call.” He gives a short, humorless laugh. “I loved the feeling of being untouchable.”

“Then why give it up?” The question comes out sharper than I intended. “I don’t buy that you did all this for me, Oliver. That’s not—that’s not how people work. Not real people.”

He turns off the burner and plates the eggs, adding a slice of toast from the toaster that’s just popped. When he turns to face me, his expression is serious.

“I told myself I was giving it up for you, to prove to you I was a changed man. But that’s not all of it. Not exactly.” He sets the plate in front of me and pulls out the other chair, but he doesn’t sit. He stands beside the table, one hand resting on the back of the empty chair. “I gave it up because I realized it wasn’t good for me. The money, the power, the lifestyle; it all turned me into exactly the kind of man who could treat you the way I did. The kind of man who thought I could play with people’s lives and get away with it.”

I stare down at the eggs. They’re perfect, fluffy and golden, not too dry, not too wet. I pick up my fork.

“I wanted to be better than I was,” Oliver says quietly. “I still want to be better than I was.”

I take a bite. The eggs are good, and my stomach accepts them without complaint. For a moment, the only sound is the scrape of my fork against the plate.

“Thank you,” I say. “For the food. And for… everything. You didn’t have to do it.”

“I wanted to.”

I look up at him. There’s a soft smile on his face, and I have to look away again.

“You should eat,” he says. “I’ll get out of your hair so you can rest.”