ELENA
The world did not stop moving.
That was the strange thing.
The hospital kept going.
Trolleys, footsteps, a phone ringing somewhere down the corridor.
Everything is entirely unaware that a man had just said mine and tilted everything I thought I understood about the last several months.
I stepped back until my shoulders hit the wall.
Nicholas did not move toward me.
He just stood there. Giving me the space.
Watching my face with the expression of a man who has said the thing he has been carrying and is now waiting to see what it costs him.
Mine.
I didn't cheat on Liam.
The thought kept circling. I knew my own life. I knew what I had and hadn't done. Which meant—
"How," I said.
"Can we go somewhere?" he said. "Not the corridor."
**
The family room at the end of the hal
