Tiana’s return to the mansion did not restore anything. If anything, the cracks in her marriage widened with every passing day.
The house felt heavier than before, an atmosphere thick with unspoken anger and exhaustion. James barely spoke to her.
Even when he tried, the conversation dissolved into sharp tones and raised voices. He was no longer the man who once bent to her moods; too much had changed.
Too much had broken.
Yet he didn’t take the final step.
Divorce sat at the edge of his mind, a decision that whispered to him every night, but the thought of what it would do to Melissa held him back. She was innocent. She needed stability.
She needed both parents, and James feared that ending the marriage would tear her heart in two. It kept him trapped in a house that felt nothing
