Natalie’s POV
Daniel came home late again.
Noah was already asleep. I had left a plate covered in the fridge and turned most of the lights off. When the front door opened, I was sitting at the kitchen island with my laptop open to a page I had been staring at for twenty minutes without reading a single useful word.
He dropped his keys in the bowl by the door the way he always did. The sound was ordinary. Familiar. It should not have made my shoulders tighten.
“You’re still up,” he said.
“I was working.”
He loosened his tie and opened the fridge. The covered plate made him pause for half a second, as if the evidence of ordinary care was mildly surprising.
“You didn’t have to wait up.”
“I wasn’t waiting.”
He didn’t argue. He never did when the truth was inconvenient. He took the pla
