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Then open again.

He doesn’t answer

The silence is worse than an answer.

“I’ve called you so many fucking times,” I continue, my voice beginning to crack despite my best effort to keep it steady. “I’ve sent you messages and you haven’t answered a single one. You told me you’d be busy this week. Fine, I understood that. I gave you space because I didn’t want to be that annoying, clingy asshole who keeps calling you every five minutes.”

He clenches his jaw, and I see the way he’s fighting the emotions in his eyes, like he’s trying not to let anyone show.

A bitter laugh catches in my throat. I look away because if I keep looking at him, I might start crying, and I would rather walk into traffic than let Tristan Sinclair watch me cry over him going back to his ex-husband.

“Of course,” I mutter.

“Maksim—”

“No.” I shake my head, the hurt finally twisting into anger. “No, don’t say my name if you’re going to sit there and refuse to speak.”

I walk toward him.

Each step feels too loud against the floor. By the time I reach the table, my hands are trembling so badly I almost drop my phone.

I don’t.

I unlock it and shove the screen in front of him. The article, the photo and the headline are still there.

“So this is true, then?” I ask, my voice coming out too quiet. “You getting back with that fucker is true?”

Tristan looks at the screen.

Then at me.

His jaw flexes again, and for one suspended second, I let myself hope he will say no. That he will tell me Jake lied. That the photo was staged, the article manufactured, that he has spent the past four days trying to protect us from something I cannot yet understand.

Then he says, “Yes.”

The word is barely audible, but it hits me like a gunshot. I stare at him as the apartment tilts slightly beneath my feet.

“What?”

“I’m getting back with Jake.”

For a moment, I can only hear the blood rushing in my ears. I wait for him to take it back, but he doesn’t. I wait for the explanation. The apology. The sentence that tells me this is not what it sounds like.

Nothing comes.

My fingers curl tighter around my phone.

“You’re serious,” I whisper.

Tristan’s eyes flicker—not away, not exactly. But something in them breaks open and shuts again too fast for me to understand.

“Yes.”

The word is quieter this time, and it feels cruel. I scoff, and it sounds wrong and hollow.

“Wow,” I say.

Tristan’s face tightens.