Chapter Twenty-two: Doubts and Denials
The office was quieter now.
Rachel had gone home early, though not without protest. Nathaniel had insisted—her pale face and trembling hands weren’t things he could ignore, no matter how strong she pretended to be. She finally gave in after finishing the last round of scheduling notes and updates, leaving with a weak smile and a tired wave.
Now it was just him and Marcus.
Nathaniel sat at his desk, flipping through a document he couldn’t seem to focus on. His mind kept drifting back to that moment—the way Rachel ran off, the look in her eyes, how violently she reacted to the food.
Marcus sat slouched across the room in the visitor chair, his arms crossed and that brown paper bag of now-cold empanadas on the floor beside him.
“I swear,” Marcus sa
