Page 78 of Angels Are Falling

I looked at my colleagues, who were doing a remarkable impression of people not listening.

“We will talk about this when we’re alone,” he said tightly.

Perhaps it was for the best that I left with him. Not because he had won, but because arguing with Kai at the nurses’ station in front of people he had just paid a thousand dollars each was a battle I wasn’t going to win on optics alone. It had already been a shitty day with everyone staring at me with all sorts of theories swirling in their minds. I didn’t want to create a scene on top of that.

“Fine. Let’s go.”

I walked past him and heard Jo behind me, brimming with warmth. “Have a wonderful rest of your day, Kai.”

I didn’t turn around.

In the car, I noticed two bags in the back seat. My overnight bag, which resided on the top shelf of my closet, was packed and zipped. He had sent someone to pack my bag. Or had he packed it himself? My insides were on fire. Stefan had always said I was hot-tempered, so I took a moment to calm down.

I lasted eleven minutes.

“The article,” I pressed as he entered the freeway.

“What about it?”

“You leaked our wedding announcement.” It wasn’t a question.

He still answered. “Yes.”

“You provided the photographs.”

A beat. “Yes.”

“Does it ever occur to you that this is my life, too? You made a unilateral decision to go public about our marriage, and you didn’t give me any warning. Everyone at my hospital knows about us now.”

“Correct.”

I turned to look at him, practically shaking with anger. He was driving with the composed attention he gave to everything, jaw set, eyes on the road. He wasn’t going to apologize. I understood by now that Kai didn’t apologize for things he had done deliberately, because an apology implied that he wished he hadn’t done them.

“Why?” I asked.

A long pause. “Because people were going to find out anyway. I wanted to control the narrative.”

It was one of the most honest things he could have said, and that was the most infuriating part.

I turned back to the window. “These are my colleagues, my reputation. You announced my second marriage to them, and to the entire town, without giving me any warning whatsoever.” My voice threatened to rise, and I controlled it. Barely. “You paid one of my coworkers to never look at me again. You paid the rest of my colleagues to call me Mrs. Cavendish. You had someone go through my personal things and pack a bag for me⁠—”

“I packed your bag.”

I paused. “How would you even know what to pack for me?”

“I made an educated guess. But we can go shopping for anything else you need. That’s the best part of a vacation,” he said, even though I hadn’t asked him where we were going. I was too busy trying to sear him with my eyes. “Don’t worry. I packed a sweatshirt for the plane ride.”

“I—” I stopped. He packed a sweatshirt because I had mentioned exactly once, in passing, that I got cold on planes. He had filed it and retrieved it. That was the thing about Kai. The details. The relentless, suffocating, devastating attention to detail. “Where are we going?” I asked because blasting Kai for his antics was hopeless. Fighting the trip was even more pointless because his prenup stated I was to accompany him on trips if he requested it. I only agreed because, at that time, he’d stated that he never took anyone with him on his business trips.

Kai didn’t answer. I recognized the private aviation road from when we returned from our honeymoon. He pulled into the terminal, parked, and retrieved our bags from the back seat.

I was still seething over the article, the thousand-dollar name change, Ricky, and the collective erasure of Stefan from my professional life when I saw the placard.

The flight attendant was standing at the foot of the steps, holding it as they did, the destination printed in clean black text.

Beirut.

I stopped walking.