Chapter 2

David closed the door to the hotel suite behind us, shutting out the sterile hallway. The silence in the room was louder than the city hum outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. He walked over to me and tried to wrap his arms around my waist from behind.

"We haven't seen each other in three months," he murmured into my hair. "Don't you miss me?"

I stiffened, his touch sending a wave of revulsion through me. It didn't feel like affection, it felt like an obligation he was trying to fulfill.

"I'm tired, David," I repeated, my voice flat.

He sighed, a sound of pure annoyance. "Come on, Chloe. A little 'exercise' will help you relax."

Exercise. He called it exercise. The word was so detached, so clinical. It stripped away any pretense of intimacy or emotion, reducing it to a physical act, a transaction. My exhaustion turned into a cold, hard anger.

"No," I said, turning to face him. I pushed his hands away. "I said I'm tired. Don't you understand English?"

My sharp tone surprised him. His face flickered from predatory charm to irritation. For a moment, the mask of the successful, charismatic husband slipped, and I saw the selfish man underneath.

"Fine," he snapped, holding his hands up in a gesture of mock surrender. "Whatever you want. I was just trying to be a good husband."

He walked over to the minibar, his back to me. The way he moved, the set of his shoulders, screamed frustration. He was playing the part of the patient, accommodating husband, but I knew it was just an act. He was angry that I had denied him.

I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower, letting the hot water run over me, hoping it would wash away the feeling of Sarah's judging eyes and David's hollow words. When I came out, wrapped in a thick hotel robe, he was lying on his side of the king-sized bed, facing away from me, scrolling through his phone.

The bed felt like a vast, empty continent. I lay down on the very edge of my side, the space between us a cold, unbridgeable chasm. Sleep wouldn't come.

A few minutes later, his phone buzzed. Not a loud ring, but a soft, discreet vibration. He glanced at it, and his thumbs immediately started moving, tapping out a reply in the dim light. Then, as if realizing I might be watching, he got up.

"Just need to use the bathroom," he muttered, taking his phone with him.

I lay there, staring at the ceiling, my heart pounding. The bathroom door clicked shut. I heard the faint sound of the fan, but not the tap. He wasn't washing his hands. He was texting. Hiding in the bathroom to text someone at nearly midnight.

When he came out, he didn't get back into bed. He walked over to the desk by the window and opened his laptop.

"Just got an urgent email from the team," he said, his voice a little too loud in the quiet room. "Sarah's found a flaw in our data model. She's amazing, she never stops working."

Sarah. Again. He couldn't go five minutes without mentioning her name. He was praising her, building her up, while I was lying here feeling like an intruder.

My voice was quiet, but it cut through the air. "You seem to know her really well."

It was a test. A baited line cast into the dark water between us.

He stopped typing. He turned his head slowly, his face illuminated by the blueish glow of the screen. His expression was cold.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you talk about her a lot," I said, sitting up. "More than you talk about your actual work."

His chair scraped against the floor as he stood up, his temper finally breaking through the carefully constructed facade.

"Are you serious, Chloe? You fly all the way out here to start a fight? I'm under immense pressure, my career is on the line, and you're getting jealous over my assistant? Grow up."

His words hit me, but not in the way he intended. They didn't make me feel childish, they made me feel clarity. This was who he was. Dismissive. Arrogant.

My mind flashed back, unbidden, to a time when he was different. Or maybe a time when I just saw him differently. We were in college, not yet a "convenient arrangement," just two kids from connected families. David was the golden boy, the one all the parents pointed to as an example. He was smart, popular, and always seemed to know the right thing to say.

I, on the other hand, was quiet, bookish, and perpetually insecure about my looks. I wasn't ugly, just... plain. In a world of bright, shiny people, I was beige. I remember a party where some drunk guys were making fun of my glasses and my serious expression.

"Hey, leave her alone," David had said, stepping between us. He wasn't my boyfriend then, just a friend of a friend. He put an arm around my shoulder and guided me away.

"Don't listen to them," he'd said later, as we sat on a quiet balcony. "You're smart. That's more important than being pretty. And for what it's worth, I think you're pretty."

That memory, once a source of comfort, now felt like a cruel joke. The man who had once defended me from jeers was now the one making me feel small and inadequate. The boy who told me I was pretty now had an assistant who looked like a supermodel and was clearly more than just an employee. The protector had become the threat.

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