"Why are you crying? This has nothing to do with you. You belong at the executive offices. You are not going anywhere," Garrett said to Tamsin.
Alden peeked out from behind them, tilting his chin up toward me. "Mom, won't you come home? Tamsin said that when you are not around, nobody prepares my meals."
I lowered my eyes to look at him.
Two years had passed, and he had grown taller. Yet the words falling from his mouth followed the exact same selfish cadence.
"Mom, please come back."
Garrett drew Alden against his hip and exhaled a heavy sigh. "Do you hear that? Even the boy is pleading with you now. Vespera, can you really stand there and watch our son suffer without a mother?"
I looked at the three of them, standing shoulder to shoulder in seamless alignment. I was the outsider wh
