Nathaniel’s phone rang the entire drive back to the villa.
His head started pounding the second he saw “Grandma” flash across the screen.
At the next red light, he finally hit the brakes and answered.
“Grandma,” he said, gentling his voice.
“Oh, so you do remember you have one!” the old woman’s voice cracked through the speaker.
“What exactly is going on with this Vivian Blake?”
Nathaniel pinched the bridge of his nose, forcing patience into his tone.
“She’s sick, Grandma.
It’s nothing more than that.”
“Nathaniel Cole, have you lost your mind?” his grandmother snapped.
“Nothing more than that?
The girl knows perfectly well you’re a married man and she’s still playing house with you in front of every camera in the city.
She wants to be wife and mistress both, and I’ve never seen anyone so shameless.
You end this with her right now and go make things right with Eliana!”
Nathaniel’s jaw tightened, Eliana’s face flashing unbidden through his mind.
Irritation flared in his chest.
“Did she call you complaining?” His tone iced over.
“Did she need to?” his grandmother shot back, furious.
“It’s plastered across the internet, Nathaniel.
Let me remind you of something: your wife’s name is Eliana Hart.
How dare you watch her fall to the ground in front of a crowd of strangers and stand there defending another woman instead?”
“Do you have any idea what people will say about her now, with every reporter in the city watching?”
Nathaniel’s mind snapped back to the fall to the flicker of pain in her eyes right before she’d hit the ground.
It hadn’t looked staged.
He shoved the thought aside almost immediately.
“No, Grandma, that’s not what happened.
She saw the story online and went there on purpose to ambush Vivian.”
“Give me the phone,” his grandfather cut in.
“Nathaniel.” The old man’s voice came through, steady and firm.
“You were the one who brought Eliana to me and told me you wanted to marry her.
Now that you have, you owe her better than this.”
“Grandpa”
“We’re having dinner at the family house tonight.” The old man didn’t leave room for argument.
“Bring Eliana with you.”
Then he hung up, without another word.
Nathaniel sat alone in the car.
His finger drummed against the wheel, unconscious and rhythmic, his frown deepening by the second.
He pulled up Eliana’s contact.
She still hadn’t answered his earlier texts.
Irritation simmered under his skin, but he swallowed it down and called her instead.
It rang a long time before she finally picked up.
“What are you doing?” His voice came out colder than he intended.
“Did you need something?” She answered his question with one of her own.
He rubbed his temples.
“Why did you ambush Vivian at the hospital today?”
“I didn’t,” Eliana said, perfectly calm.
“I was there to see Chloe.”
“Eliana, don’t lie to me.” Anxiety crept back into his chest, sharpening into impatience.
All he got in return was a quiet, breezy laugh from her end.
Completely unbothered.
Like she genuinely didn’t care what he thought at all.
That, somehow, made him angrier than outright defiance would have.
But then he remembered his grandfather’s order, and his anger deflated into something closer to helplessness.
“Come back to the family house with me tonight,” he said finally.
“I’m busy.” No hesitation at all in her voice.
“It’s Grandpa’s order,” Nathaniel pressed, frowning.
The line went dead a second later.
Nothing left but the dial tone.
He sat there, stunned, brow furrowed deep.
He tried calling again.
No answer.
Traffic rolled past on either side while he stared at his phone in silence, saying nothing.
Eventually he pocketed it, restarted the engine, and drove toward the villa they’d shared as husband and wife.
The sky was fading into dusk by the time he got there.
He parked and walked straight inside, his expression already hardening before he’d even crossed the threshold.
“Eliana.”
He called her name, flat and cold.
No response.
That’s when he noticed the entryway light was off.
The whole house sat dark.
Something about that caught him off guard.
Normally, at least one lamp stayed lit for him no matter how late he came home.
More often than not, he’d find her curled up asleep on the living room sofa, a book open on her chest, having read herself to sleep waiting for him.
Click.
He flipped on the light and looked at the sofa.
Empty.
No sign of her anywhere.
Until now, his irritation had mostly been about his grandmother and Vivian complicating his evening.
Now something else crept in something closer to unease.
Clack-clack-clack-clack
He hit every light switch in the house, moving room to room.
Nothing in the living room.
Nothing in the kitchen.
Nothing in the bathroom.
No sign of her in any bedroom, or the study.
She wasn’t home.
She wasn’t answering her phone.
Where had she gone?
This fake divorce must have hit harder than he’d expected, if she was acting out like this.
Never mind.
She’d come around eventually.
Vivian only had six months left; Eliana would just have to get used to being someone he thought about, rather than someone he came home to.
Still if she was refusing to go to the family dinner out of spite, he couldn’t show up alone.
He walked into the storage room and pulled out a few boxes of health supplements meant for his grandparents.
After a moment’s thought, he set them down and went back into the bedroom instead.
The scent of her perfume still lingered faintly in the air, the one he’d brought her back from London.
His shoulders eased, just slightly, at the smell of it.
He grabbed a few changes of clothes and left in a hurry.
He never noticed that in the closet where both their clothes used to hang side by side, only his half remained.
Never noticed that everything meant for two people in that house now sat there as one, solitary thing.
Stripped of warmth.
Nothing left in its place but a flat, colorless quiet.
…
Meanwhile,
A beauty salon across town.
Eliana and Chloe sat side by side getting their nails done.
Chloe glanced over at the pregnancy-safe polish Eliana had specifically requested and shook her head, amused.
“Didn’t you already say you were going through with the procedure?
And here you are, using the pregnancy-safe formula anyway.”
Eliana smiled.
“If there’s a choice available, I might as well take the gentler one.
It’s still inside me for now.”
Chloe shrugged, entirely unbothered, admiring her own glittering manicure with obvious delight.
Eliana glanced down at her own hands.
Nathaniel’s chronic stomach condition had kept her in the kitchen and running the household nearly every day since the wedding.
It had been ages since she’d last done something like this for herself.
“Doesn’t matter what you pick,” Chloe said.
“As long as you’re actually willing to change something.”
“Nails are just step one.
Hair’s next.
Then your whole wardrobe.”
“Eliana, I remember it clear as day we weren’t even ten yet, sneaking around in our moms’ pointed heels, running wild through the house.”
“No reason we should be moving backward from that.”
Chloe admired her nails a moment longer.
“Shame I’m a doctor now can’t get away with being quite that dramatic anymore.”
Eliana smiled.
It was true.
She’d always been the bold one, the outgoing one right up until she fell for Nathaniel and slowly reshaped herself around whatever he preferred.
For years she’d believed the greatest happiness a person could have was loving someone, cooking for them, raising children with them, growing old side by side.
Now it all looked like an elaborate joke she’d played on herself.
Fortunately, it wasn’t too late to undo it.
She was getting her life back.
Starting now.