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As soon as the hotel room door clicked shut behind us, I knew we weren’t going to be pretending everything was fine. Holden didn’t even take off his jacket before he spun to face me. His dark blond hair was mussed after the amount of times he’d shoved his hands through it, and a storm raged behind those blue eyes.

The sharp angles of his face seemed to have been molded in stone as he narrowed his eyes at me, his chin high, and a muscle feathering in his jaw. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

My stomach rolled at the hurt in his voice, the pain, and the definite underscoring of betrayal. I strode over to the bed and kicked off my shoes, then lifted both hands to unfasten an earring, sliding it out before I started on the next.

“I didn’t know how,” I admitted quietly, continuing with my nightly routine. If I didn’t give myself something else to focus on, I was going to fall apart. Dropping the earrings on the nightstand with a soft clatter, I moved on to the clasp of my necklace. “It was a lot and it came out of nowhere. I needed time to process and I didn’t know what to say to you when I couldn’t even fully comprehend it myself.”

He scoffed. “Here’s a thought. You could have started with, Holden, I got fired today. God, Alicia, I asked you so many times if something was wrong.”

“I know.”

“Then why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

After pulling the necklace free, I slid a few bangles off my arm and set them down on the nightstand too, but since the next step was taking off my dress to change into pajamas, I strode over to the windows and looked out at the city lights. There was no way I was getting undressed right now, and since I couldn’t bring myself to look at him, I just focused on the dancing light reflecting off the water and tried to keep myself from bursting into tears.

“I was embarrassed,” I said quietly, hugging my arms around my chest in an attempt to physically keep myself together. “You don’t know what it’s like to get that call and I hope you never have to find out, but it’s not exactly fun.”

“Which is why I could’ve been there for you. Hell, I should’ve been there for you, but that’s pretty fucking hard when the person you share a home with is hiding shit.”

“I wasn’t trying to hide it.” I spun to face him. “I was just trying to figure out what I was going to do.”

“Right, and you thought it’d be best do that without me. Like I don’t factor into the decision at all.”

“That’s not true,” I snapped as his words sliced deep into my chest. “That’s not it at all, actually. Shit, Holden. I wanted to come to you with a plan so that I didn’t feel so pathetic.”

“So you decided to lie to me for a week?” His eyebrows pinched together, hurt glittering in his eyes. “Did it ever occur to you that we could’ve figured it out together? We’re married, Alicia. Last I checked, that means that when you make plans for the future, you do it with the other person. You don’t lie to them.”

“I didn’t lie.”

“You lost your job and proceeded to tell me you were okay. For a fucking week. How is that not lying? Clearly, you’re not okay and I don’t even know what happened. I don’t know why they fired you or if there’s a way to help you get your job back. I don’t⁠—”

“There isn’t,” I cut in, hugging myself tighter as I held his stormy gaze. “It turns out you were right about how the public views a Thayer. That’s what happened. The story broke in the press, people found we were married, and then some of them decided I was a problem.”

His face fell, the fight draining out of him, but his shoulders remained rigid, a different kind of hurt suddenly brewing behind those eyes. “So that is what happened? You got fired because you’re married to me.”

My heart pulled toward him, but I resisted the urge to wrap my arms around his neck and whisper all sorts of promises and reassurances about how everything was going to be okay. “I don’t blame you, Holden. Parents just didn’t want me working with their children anymore. There were complaints and my boss said it wasn’t about my performance or that I’d done anything specifically for them to complain about. It just…”

“It is what it is,” he finished for me, suddenly looking so defeated and so devastated that I almost wished he’d just get angry again. “You should’ve told me.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t,” I said quietly. “There was nothing you could do, though. I knew you’d want to try and I didn’t want to put that on you on top of everything else. You have enough on your plate.”

“If I’d known, I would’ve scraped everything else off the plate.” He held my gaze intently but didn’t take a step closer like he usually would.

It was like I could see those gears in his head turning, pointing all the guilt inward, so I shook my head and let out a soft scoff, needing to draw him back out. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you scraping everything else off your plate because there genuinely is nothing you can do. You would’ve skipped out on your midterms and become even angrier with your father, and neither of those things would’ve gotten me my job back.”

As painful as it was to say that to him, that was our reality. This wasn’t temporary. It was my life now. Every job application would have my name on it and every employer would Google me. Every time our picture appeared in a paper, people would remember exactly who I was married to.

I was a part of his world now, and clearly, that world had teeth. Holden had tried to warn me and I hadn’t gotten it. And now it was too late.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” he finally murmured as that light in his eyes went out. The gears had stopped turning, and while it was subtle, I knew him well enough by now to recognize when he was retreating behind that cold, logical part of himself. “If you want out, you can get out.”

I wouldn’t have been more surprised if an Egyptian cobra had reared up right in front me. Stumbling back a step, I blinked hard and tried to remember that he didn’t mean it. He didn’t want me to, but…

“The prenup protects you,” he said, his voice so painfully calm that it was hard not to wonder if maybe he did want me to take the exit ramp after all. “You’d still have the house and the money. Everything Alex promised you would stay. You’d be set for life, Alicia.”

“You think I want out?” I whispered. “Do you really think that little of me?”

He shrugged—fucking shrugged—those eyes more gray than blue now that the storm that’d been raging behind them was gone. Instead, they’d turned completely flat. Like none of this affected him at all. “I think maybe this isn’t what you signed up for and that’s okay.”