"I am not a child. I am not a damsel in distress. I am your wife, whether you like it or not, and I deserve to know when a man who tried to kill me is working in the same building!"
"You think I don't know that?" Adrian's voice rose. Finally. Finally, he was matching my energy instead of trying to calm me down like I was a spooked horse. "You think I don't know that I should have told you? You think I don't lie awake every night replaying every single decision that led to this moment?"
"Then why didn't you?!"
"BECAUSE I WAS SCARED, ALEXANDRA!"
The words echoed off the walls.
Adrian stood there, chest heaving, hands clenched at his sides, looking at me like he had just admitted something that cost him a piece of his soul.
"I was scared," he repeated, quieter now. "I was scared that if you knew, you would leave. I was scared that you would look at me the way you looked at me when you found out about Alexiou. Like I was a monster. Like everything I touched turned to ash."
