Five years crawled past like a long shadow. The scars time left behind were deep, but James learned to hide them well.
He had thrown himself completely into work, building walls of meetings and deadlines around his pain.
The company, once slipping from his hands, began to thrive again under his restless energy.
People said success looked good on him. They didn’t know it was guilt that drove him, not ambition.
At home, Tiana had settled into her role as his wife, officially now. They’d married the previous year, quietly, with only a handful of guests. It was less a celebration and more a compromise, the final step of a decision James made out of duty, not love.
He told himself it was the right thing — she was the mother of his child, and she had suffered too. The least he could do
