Damien didn't come home for two days.
Odette told herself she didn't notice. She told herself the empty desk without a rose on it every morning was a relief, that the quiet house without his footsteps in the hall at odd hours was easier to breathe in. She told herself a lot of things that week that weren't true, and by the second night she stopped believing any of them.
Wolf drove her everywhere the same as always, quiet, watchful, saying nothing about where Damien was sleeping or why. Mara set two plates at dinner out of habit and quietly cleared the second one, untouched, without comment. The house felt bigger with him gone from it. Colder, in a way that had nothing to do with the thermostat.
On the third morning, Estelle Rhodes called the house line directly, something she'd never do
