Page 111 of This Life of Mine

She doesn’t sit. She paces.

Anger radiates off her in cutting waves as she pulls clothes from the dresser and slips them on beneath the robe she threw over herself. Every movement is clipped. Like she’s holding herself together through sheer force of will.

I stay where I am. Hands loose at my sides. Giving her space that I’m reluctant to give.

Then she stops. Turns on me. “Am I your job?” she asks.

The question strikes with surgical precision. Like a blade slipped between my ribs and twisted exactly where it would do the most damage.

For a fleeting moment, I consider lying. Softening it. Wrapping the truth in something easier to swallow. I don’t.

And the silence—that single, unguarded beat where I don’t answer fast enough—tells her everything.

Her mouth tightens, and her eyes flash with rage.

“Jesus Christ,” she mutters, dragging a hand through her hair. “I knew it. I fucking knew it.”

She turns away from me, pacing again, like if she stands still the anger might shatter into something worse.

“I knew there was something,” she says. “The timing. The way you watch everything. The way you never panic,” I laugh. “God, I felt like I was being paranoid.”

“You weren’t,” I reply.

She freezes. That was the wrong thing to say. I know it the moment it leaves my mouth.

She faces me again, breathing rapidly, fury edged with something raw. Hurt. Betrayal. Maybe embarrassment—for trusting me.

“So what,” she asks. “This was all just…surveillance?”

“No,” I say. Too fast. Too honest. “It was never only that.”

Her gaze flickers. Searching.

I take a step toward her, then stop myself. This isn’t the moment for touch. This is the time for truth.

“I didn’t expect you,” I say. “I didn’t plan for you. You weren’t supposed to… be more.”

That gets to her. Her jaw tightens like she’s bracing for impact.

“And yet,” I continue, voice low, steady, “You are. You mean more to me than you ever should have.”

The room falls silent. She says nothing. She only looks at me, as though everything she believed has shifted beneath her feet.

And I realize, standing here watching her put herself back together piece by piece, that the worst part isn’t that she knows why I’m here. It’s that she’s deciding whether I was real at all.

“How long?” she snaps, pointing at me. “How long have you been around? Watching? Inserting yourself into my life without me knowing?”

Each word is a dagger.

She starts pacing again. “The shop. You being there every day. You justhappenedto be nearby when Cole showed up. You being where you needed to be, every single time.”

Her voice cracks, but she doesn’t stop. “I slept with you. I let you into my home. My bed.” She laughs bitterly. “And all this time, what? I was a case file?”

I step forward instinctively, then stop myself when she throws a look my way that says,Don’t you dare.

“In the beginning,” I say, choosing truth over comfort, “yes.”

She flinches, as if I struck her.