Chapter Sixty-Two
● The Leftovers
The first sign that something was changing came on a Tuesday.
I woke up and, for the first time in weeks, didn't immediately think about dying.
It wasn't hope. It wasn't happiness. It was just... absence. A small clearing in the forest of pain, wide enough to breathe.
I got out of bed. Showered. Dressed in something that wasn't gray or black—a soft cream sweater that Mrs. O'Malley had hung in the closet weeks ago, waiting for me to notice it.
I noticed it today.
The kitchen was empty when I walked in. Sunlight streamed through the windows, warming the marble, making everything look less like a prison and more like a space that could hold life.
I opened the refrigerator.
Ingredients. Beautiful, fresh, untouched.
And for the first time since arriving at the penthouse, I wanted to cook.
---
It started simple.
Pasta. The kind my mother used to make when I was small, before she got sick, before everything went cold. Garlic heating in olive oil. The smell filling the kitchen, warm and familiar and safe.
I didn't think while I cooked.
That was the point.
My hands moved, my body remembered, and my mind went quiet in a way it hadn't since before Rowan.
When the pasta was done, I sat at the island and ate.
Alone.
But not lonely.
It was a small difference. A tiny shift. But I noticed it.
---
The days that followed found a rhythm.
I cooked.
Not elaborate meals—simple things, things that reminded me of before. Soup. Rice. Vegetables roasted until they caramelized. The kitchen became my space, my sanctuary, the one place in the penthouse that felt like mine.
Mrs. O'Malley watched with quiet approval. She didn't comment, didn't interfere, just made sure the refrigerator stayed stocked with whatever I needed.
I read.
Sophia sent books—real books, paperbacks with creased spines and dog-eared pages, the kind that looked like they'd been loved. Novels, mostly. Stories about people whose lives were nothing like mine, which made them perfect.
I spent afternoons on the balcony, wrapped in a blanket, reading while the city hummed below.
I talked.
Sophia called every day. Sometimes twice. She told me about her life—dull things, funny things, the mundane details of existing that I'd forgotten could matter. She made me laugh. Actually laugh. The sound startled me the first time it happened, strange and rusty in my throat.
"See?" Sophia said through the phone. "You remember how."
Aurora sent packages.
Cookies, mostly. The kind she'd baked when I first visited the Royce house, when everything still held possibility. But also meals—casseroles and soups and things that could be reheated, as if she knew I was cooking for myself but wanted to make sure I ate anyway.
She never asked how I was.
She just sent love in Tupperware.
---
I started leaving the bedroom door open at night.
Not for him.
For the air. For the sense that the penthouse wasn't just a cage, but a space I could occupy.
Some nights, I woke and wandered to the kitchen for water, or for the leftovers I'd started keeping in the refrigerator. My food. Made by my hands. Waiting for me in the dark.
I'd stand at the counter, eating cold pasta or leftover soup, and feel something I hadn't felt in months.
Hunger.
Real hunger. For food, for life, for more than just survival.
---
The night it happened, I woke at 3 a.m.
My stomach was growling—the pasta from dinner hadn't been enough, or maybe my body was finally waking up, finally asking for more than the minimum.
I padded barefoot to the kitchen, my nightgown soft against my skin.
The lights were off, but the city's glow filtered through the windows, painting everything in silver and shadow. I didn't turn them on. I knew this path by heart now.
The refrigerator door opened, spilling light across the floor.
I reached for the container of leftover pasta—my pasta, the one I'd made that afternoon with too much garlic and a reckless amount of parmesan.
My hand closed on empty space.
I blinked.
Looked again.
The container was gone.
I stood there, confused, the refrigerator humming beside me. I knew I'd left it there. Right there, on the second shelf, where I always put my leftovers.
Where—
Movement.
Behind me.
I spun.
And there he was.
Rowan.
Sitting at the island in the dark, my container open in front of him, a fork in his hand. He'd been eating. Eating my pasta. The pasta I made. My leftovers.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then—
"How dare you."
The words came out before I could stop them. Not loud. Not angry. Just... incredulous.
"How dare you eat my leftovers?"
He looked up slowly, his expression unreadable. A strand of pasta hung from his fork, halfway to his mouth.
"Your leftovers?"
"Yes. My leftovers." I crossed the kitchen, stopping on the other side of the island. "I made that. With my hands. For me. And you're just—" I gestured at him, at the container, at the absurdity of the moment. "Eating it. In the dark. Like a—like a raccoon."
His eyebrow lifted.
"A raccoon."
"Yes. A raccoon. A very expensive, very well-dressed raccoon who steals food from defenseless women in the middle of the night."
Something flickered in his eyes.
Amusement.
Barely there, quickly hidden, but unmistakable.
"Defenseless?"
"You know what I mean."
He set down the fork. Slowly. Deliberately.
"The pasta was good."
I stared at him.
"That's—that's not the point."
"What is the point?"
"The point is—" I stopped, suddenly unsure. What was the point? That he'd taken something of mine? That he was here, in the kitchen, eating food I'd made? That the man who had broken me was now looking at me with something that almost resembled—
I didn't know.
"I don't know," I admitted.
He studied me for a long moment. Then he pushed the container slightly toward me.
"Sit."
It wasn't an order.
It was an invitation.
I hesitated.
Then, slowly, I pulled out the stool across from him and sat.
He nudged a clean fork across the island.
I took it.
And in the silver dark of 3 a.m., with the city glittering beyond the windows and the remnants of my pasta between us, I ate.
Across from the man who had broken me.
Across from the man who had saved me.
Across from my husband.
And for the first time in longer than I could remember, the silence wasn't heavy.
It was just... present.
We didn't speak.
We didn't need to.
We just ate.
And when the container was empty, he rose, rinsed it in the sink, and placed it in the drying rack.
Then he looked at me.
"Goodnight, Aira."
Not wife.
Not Mrs. Royce.
Aira.
I nodded slowly. "Goodnight, Rowan."
He walked away.
I stayed at the island, alone in the dark, the taste of garlic still on my tongue and something strange blooming in my chest.
Not hope.
Not yet.