Chapter Sixty-Three
● The Night I Breathed
Sophia arrived like a storm.
Not the destructive kind—the kind that clears the air, that washes everything clean, that leaves you gasping and alive on the other side.
"I'm taking you out," she announced, already through the door, already pulling clothes from my closet. "No arguments. No excuses. You're coming with me."
I sat on the edge of the bed, still in my nightgown, the afternoon light slanting through the windows. "Sophia—"
"Nope." She held up a hand without turning around. "I've watched you fade for months. I've watched you disappear. Not anymore. Tonight, you're coming with me, and you're going to remember what it feels like to be alive."
She turned, a dress draped over her arm.
Black.
Of course.
But not my black—not the heavy, mourning silks Rowan had chosen. This was different. Shorter. Lighter. A dress for dancing, not hiding.
"I didn't ask him," I said quietly.
Sophia's eyes flashed. "Good."
---
I didn't ask.
I didn't leave a note.
I just put on the dress—it fit perfectly, because Sophia knew me better than anyone—and walked out the door with her.
The car was waiting. Music played softly. The city rushed past the windows, and for the first time in months, I didn't feel like a prisoner being transported.
I felt like a woman going somewhere.
---
The house belonged to one of Sophia's friends.
Large. Warm. Filled with people who didn't know my name, didn't know my story, didn't look at me with pity or judgment. They just... existed. Laughing. Talking. Living.
Sophia kept me close at first, her hand on my arm, anchoring me in the noise.
"You okay?" she asked.
I nodded.
And meant it.
---
We talked.
Real talk—not the careful, edited conversations of the penthouse. Someone asked about my studies. Philosophy, I said, and they actually wanted to hear about it. About Sisyphus, about Camus, about the absurdity of finding meaning in a meaningless world.
They listened.
They didn't know I was talking about survival.
---
We danced.
Not the careful, performed dancing of galas and events. Real dancing—messy, joyful, stupid. Sophia spun me until I was dizzy, until I was laughing, until the sound startled me because I'd forgotten what it felt like.
The music pulsed. The lights shifted. Bodies moved around us, alive and unselfconscious.
I closed my eyes and let it take me.
For one song. Two. Three.
I was just a girl at a party.
Not a wife. Not a victim. Not a headline.
Just a girl, dancing.
---
The drinks came.
Sweet things in colorful glasses, pressed into my hand by people who didn't know I shouldn't drink. I sipped slowly, carefully, the taste sharp and pleasant on my tongue.
Sophia watched me with careful eyes, but she didn't interfere.
She just danced beside me, matching my rhythm, keeping me company in the noise.
---
I don't know when I first felt it.
That shift.
That awareness.
The way the air changes when someone is watching.
I opened my eyes mid-song, still moving to the music, and scanned the room.
There.
By the doorway.
Leaning against the frame, arms crossed, face carved from shadow and light.
Rowan.
He had found me.
---
The music kept playing. The lights kept shifting. The dancers kept moving around me, oblivious.
But everything else stopped.
Rowan didn't move from the doorway. Didn't approach. Didn't signal. He just stood there, watching me dance, his expression unreadable.
Sophia followed my gaze.
Her hand tightened on my arm. "Do you want to leave?"
I shook my head slowly.
"No."
Because for the first time in months, I was doing something I wanted. Something I had chosen. Something that felt like mine.
And I wasn't going to let him take it.
I turned back to the dance floor.
And I kept dancing.
● The Reckless Truth
The night air hit my face like a blessing.
Cool. Clean. Alive.
I stumbled on the steps outside the house, my heels catching on nothing, and Sophia's arm tightened around my waist.
"Whoa there, lightweight," she laughed, pulling me upright. "When did you become a two-drink girl?"
"Three," I corrected, the number feeling very important. "Maybe four. I lost count."
"Of course you did."
We swayed together on the sidewalk, giggling like we were nineteen and stupid and the whole world was a joke we were finally in on. The dress—Sophia's dress, black and short and nothing like my usual armor—fluttered around my thighs.
Then he was there.
Rowan.
Materializing out of the shadows like the dark itself had decided to take human form. His face was carved from stone, his eyes fixed on me with an intensity that cut through the wine haze.
"Time to go," he said.
Not a question.
Sophia straightened, squaring off against him despite her own unsteady stance. "We were having fun."
"The fun is over."
He reached for me.
I let him.
Partly because the world was spinning and his hand was steady. Partly because some drunk, reckless part of me wanted to see what would happen next.
He pulled me against his side, one arm wrapping around my waist, anchoring me to him. Sophia clung to my other side, refusing to let go.
"We're a package deal," she announced.
Rowan's jaw tightened.
Then he signaled.
Leo appeared—silent, efficient, exactly the same as always. He approached without a word, waiting for instructions.
"Take Sophia home," Rowan ordered. "Stay until she's inside with Mother."
Leo hesitated.
Just for a moment.
His eyes flicked to me—draped against Rowan, flushed and dizzy and absolutely not in control of myself.
"What about Aira?" he asked carefully. "I mean—Mrs. Royce?"
Rowan's arm tightened around my waist.
"I'll handle my wife."
The words landed somewhere deep in my chest. Handle. Like I was a problem to be solved, a situation to be managed.
But the wine had made me brave. Or stupid. Or both.
I tilted my head, looking up at Leo with exaggerated consideration.
"You," I announced, "are cute."
Leo blinked.
"Handsome," I corrected myself, nodding sagely. "Very handsome. Cute and handsome. Both."
Leo's lips twitched. Just slightly. The closest thing to a smile I'd ever seen on his face.
"Thank you, Mrs. Royce," he said, perfectly deadpan.
Sophia snorted.
Rowan went absolutely still beside me.
"Handsome?" he repeated. His voice was too calm.
I nodded, still watching Leo. "His eyes are softer than yours."
The silence that followed was deafening.
Leo, to his credit, didn't react. Just gave a small, respectful nod and gently extracted Sophia from my side.
"Come on, trouble," he murmured to her. "Let's get you home."
Sophia blew me a kiss as he guided her toward the car. "Call me tomorrow! Tell me everything!"
The door closed.
The car pulled away.
And I was alone with my husband.
---
The ride was silent.
Not the comfortable kind. The kind that pressed against your ears and made you hyperaware of every breath, every shift, every inch of space between you.
I sat in the passenger seat, my head resting against the cool window, watching the city blur past. Rowan drove with his usual precision—controlled, efficient, absolutely unreadable.
"You're angry," I observed.
Nothing.
"Your face always looks angry." I waved a hand vaguely in his direction. "Nothing new. Cold man."
His grip on the steering wheel tightened.
"You called Leo handsome."
I considered this.
"Yes."
"And said his eyes are softer than mine."
"Yes."
More silence.
Then—
"But you are cuter than Leo."
The words tumbled out, honest in the way only drunk words could be. I turned my head to look at him—really look—taking in the sharp lines of his jaw, the dark intensity of his eyes, the way even his anger was beautiful.
"Cuter," I repeated, nodding to myself. "Definitely cuter."
His jaw worked.
"That doesn't make any sense."
"I'm drunk."
"I noticed."
"So my truths don't have to make sense." I settled back against the window, watching him through half-closed eyes. "They just have to be true."
---
The penthouse elevator was a small, mirrored box.
I watched us reflected from every angle—me in Sophia's short black dress, flushed and disheveled; him in his dark suit, immaculate and controlled. We looked like opposite ends of something.
"You carried me out," I said.
"I did."
"Dragged, really. Both of us clinging to you like drunk monkeys."
"Also accurate."
I giggled. Actually giggled, the sound surprising me.
"You're funny when you're not trying to be."
He didn't respond.
The elevator doors opened.
He guided me out, one hand steady on my elbow, and I let him. The apartment swallowed us—dark and vast and familiar.
"I want to go with Sophia," I announced as he steered me toward the bedroom.
"You can't."
"Why not?"
"Because you're here. With me."
I stopped walking.
He stopped too.
Turned.
I looked up at him—really looked, past the control and the coldness and the walls he'd built so high.
"You're jealous," I said softly.
The word hung between us.
He didn't deny it.
"You heard me call Leo handsome, and you got jealous."
"Aira—"
"That's why you carried me out so fast. That's why your jaw is doing that thing." I reached up, my fingers brushing his clenched jaw before I could think better of it. "This thing. The angry, jealous thing."
He caught my wrist.
Not hard.
Just... there. Holding me in place.
"You're drunk," he said.
"Yes."
"You don't know what you're saying."
"I know exactly what I'm saying." I pulled my wrist free—gently, he let me—and pressed my palm flat against his chest. Right over his heart. "I just wouldn't say it sober."
His heart beat beneath my hand.
Fast.
Faster than I expected.
"You feel things," I whispered. "You just hide them."
He stared down at me, something raw and unguarded flickering in his eyes.
"Aira—"
"I'm going to bed now." I pulled my hand away and stepped back, suddenly exhausted. "Goodnight, jealous husband."
I turned and walked toward the bedroom, leaving him standing in the dark.
At the door, I paused.
Looked back.
He hadn't moved.
"Cuter," I said again. "Definitely cuter."
Then I closed the door and collapsed onto the bed, still wearing Sophia's dress, still tasting wine on my tongue, still feeling the echo of his heartbeat beneath my palm.
Somewhere in the penthouse, Rowan stood alone in the dark.
And for the first time in months, I fell asleep smiling.
---