Page 65 of His Surrender

I clear my throat. “Right. They’re fine. Just send them over.”

He gives me a curious look before gathering his tablet. “You sure everything’s okay?”

“I’m fine. Just need to get home to my daughter.” I told him the truth about Liana on Monday.

Brady nods his head in understanding before he leaves my office, quietly closing the door behind him.

The silence settles over the room.

Floor-to-ceiling windows stretch across one wall, giving me a perfect view of Manhattan below, but I barely notice it.

Instead, my mind drifts back to the apartment.

Back to Aubrey.

The first few days after I’d decided to put distance between us were easier than I’d expected. Uncomfortable but necessary.

I kept conversations short. Stopped lingering in the kitchen over coffee.

Every interaction became exactly what it should have been. I convinced myself that was what I wanted.

So, why did the apartment suddenly feel … quieter?

I’m not lonely. At least, I don’t think I am. But I’ve started noticing the absence of things I never realized mattered.

The way Aubrey asked how my day was before I even loosened my tie. How she somehow convinced Liana that diaper changes were the greatest event of the day by narrating them in dramatic movie-trailer voices.

I haven’t heard that laugh directed at me in a week.

That was my doing.

More than once, I found myself standing just outside the family room after getting home, watching the two of them without announcing I’d arrived. Liana would be sprawled across her play mat while Aubrey lay on her stomach beside her, making exaggerated faces until Liana squealed so loudly that it echoed through the apartment.

It has become easier to observe from a distance than risk getting pulled back into the comfort we created together.

Comfort is dangerous; it blurs lines. I know exactly where blurred lines lead.

The memory of the day in the rain still creeps into my thoughts when I least expect it. Or walking into Aubrey’s bedroom and seeing her half naked in her bathing suit. The split second where every instinct I’d spent years cultivating simply … disappeared.

Followed by an entire night of trying—and failing—to stop thinking about her.

No. I’ve done the right thing.

But somewhere over the last week, distance has quietly transformed into avoidance.

There is a difference.

Avoidance means pretending she isn’t there. Pretending I don’t enjoy talking to her. Pretending the apartment doesn’t feel noticeably colder without her easy conversation filling the empty spaces.

I’m not fooling anyone. Least of all myself.

The moment I open the buildings front entrance door to the sidewalk, Louis is waiting for me by the SUV.

I slide into the back seat while Manhattan glows with the warm amber light that always settles over the city just before sunset.

Traffic inches forward.

Louis glances at me in the rearview mirror. “Long week?”