Chapter Three
1180 Words
Chapter Three
(Nia's POV)
It was the sound of the front door that woke me up.
That, and a voice I could have picked out of any crowd. Light. Sweet. Pitched just loud enough to drift up the stairs.
Sienna.
For a moment I lay still in the dark, certain I had dreamed it. Then I heard Adrian's voice underneath hers, low and careful and gentle, and the dream curdled into something real.
I had not seen him since he walked out at midnight, a full day and night ago.
And now he was back. With her.
I got up. I went to the top of the stairs, peering over.
And there they were.
Adrian had one arm around her, guiding her through the door as though she might shatter. There was a small white bandage taped to her temple. One. A single delicate bandage, for an accident violent enough to drag my husband out of our bed in the middle of the night.
She leaned into him, her face turned up to his.
Then she saw me on the stairs, and something flickered across her features. Satisfaction, quick and bright, gone before anyone but me could have caught it.
"Nia." Adrian looked up. His face closed the moment our eyes met. "Sienna's staying here for a few days. Until she's recovered."
I came down the stairs slowly, one hand light on the rail.
"What happened?" My voice came out even. I was proud of that.
Sienna lifted her head from his shoulder. And just like that, the performance began.
"Oh, Nia, I'm so sorry." Her eyes were already shining, wide and wet. "It was nothing, really. A little accident, yesterday. Some car ran a light and clipped mine. I was barely hurt, see?" She touched the bandage and winced. "But Adrian was so worried. He insisted on bringing me here so he could look after me himself."
She said it so softly. So innocently.
As if the man beside her were not my husband, but hers.
Then she tilted her head, and her voice shrank smaller still. Docile. Almost shy.
"You don't mind, do you? If I stay? Just for a little while." Then she paused a moment. "I would never want to come between you and Adrian."
There it was. The trap, wrapped in tissue paper and tears.
If I said no, I was the cruel wife turning an injured girl out into the night. If I said yes, I opened my home to the woman who had pushed me into the sea and watched me sink.
Come between us. As though there were a single inch of space between Adrian and me. As though she had not been living in the warmest part of his heart since long before I ever had a name.
My hand drifted, without my asking it to, toward my stomach. Toward the two small reasons I could not afford to lose my temper tonight.
I breathed in. I breathed out. And I smiled.
"Of course," I said. "Stay as long as you need. I'll have the guest room made up."
Disappointment crossed Sienna's face, there and gone. She had wanted a scene. She always did. I had learned, at a price I was still paying, not to give her one.
Adrian's eyes lifted to mine. For a moment he simply looked at me. He had expected an argument and crying but gotten none. The hard line of his mouth eased, almost into a smile, and then he gave me a small nod.
"Thank you, Nia," he said quietly.
It was nothing. Two words. But it was the warmest thing he had given me in weeks, and I hated how easily my foolish heart leaned toward it.
Then Sienna swayed against him with a soft, pained sound, and he turned at once. The warmth swung back to her like a compass finding north, his hand rising to steady her, his voice low and tender. "Careful. Let's get you upstairs."
And just like that, I was furniture again.
Adrian carried and settled her into the guest room himself.
I went back to our bed and lay in the dark and listened to the low murmur of his voice through the wall.
Patient. Soft. The voice he saved for her.
It went on a long time.
I told myself it meant nothing. That he was only being kind. But I was lying to myself.
I pressed my hand flat over my babies, stared at the ceiling.
I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on behind that closed guest room door.
By morning, I had folded myself back into armor.
I dressed for work, smoothing every crease. Whatever was happening at home, the company was still mine. It was something even Sienna couldn’t take from me. It was the one place that I had the right to make decisions.
“Nia.”
I was almost to the front door when Sienna caught up with me.
"Leaving so early?" Sienna fell into step beside me, bright and chirping. "Let me see you off. It's the least I can do, after you've been so generous."
She walked me out into the morning air, all the way to the step, smiling for the windows of the house.
And then we rounded the corner of the drive, out of Adrian's sight, and the smile slid off her face like a mask cut loose.
"You really think letting me stay makes you the bigger person?" Her voice dropped, low and amused, the sweetness gone and the cruelty underneath laid bare. "He carried me to that room himself, Nia. Did that not hurt?”
My whole body went cold.
"Be careful," I said.
"Or what?" She stepped closer, her eyes glittering. "You can wear his name and sign all his papers, Nia. It will never make him yours."
I stood there silently.
"Adrian and I grew up together. He held my hand before he could even spell his own name. Twenty years of birthdays and summers and secrets, while you sat in an orphanage nobody wanted you in. That isn't a contract. That's love."
Every word landed exactly where she aimed it. She had spent her whole life learning where I was softest, and now she pressed on every tender place at once, smiling the entire time.
"You're a name on a certificate," she whispered, leaning close. "I'm the girl he actually chose. He married you because his father told him to. He stayed at my bedside all night because he wanted to. So, tell me, dear sister. Who do you think he imagines when he sleeps with you?”
My hand moved before I decided to let it.
The slap cracked across her cheek, sharp and clean, loud in the still morning air. Her head snapped sideways. For one perfect, ringing second, the satisfaction was worth anything it might cost me.
Then her hand flew to her face.
Sienna’s eyes filled with tears instantly.
And behind me, from the open front door, I heard Adrian's voice turn to ice.
"Nia."
- Writer
