Larissa woke alone, curled into a tight knot in the center of the vast bed. Jasper had already risen, the faint scent of his cologne the only proof he had been there. The physical closeness of the night had done nothing to soothe the raw, exposed nerves left by his abrupt rejection. She had been left in the dark, both literally and figuratively, still dressed in the lingerie intended for a hopeful future, now stained by a painful, unspoken refusal.
The wound wasn’t the rejection of s*x, it was the rejection of progress. It was the implication that after all the turbulence, after confronting Jasmine and Kate, the deepest barrier in their marriage was still their own. The lack of an answer, the deliberate choice to turn away and pretend to sleep was the cruelest silence of all.
That cold d
