Page 69 of The Yoga Teacher

And then, without turning around, she asked, “How many times?”

Daniel’s heart stopped. His breath caught hard in his throat.

“Hannah...” he said, soft and hoarse, like her name alone might undo the question.

She turned.

Her face was pale. Her expression unreadable. But her eyes—God, her eyes—were wide and full of hurt.

“How many times,” she asked again, “did you sleep with her?”

There was no heat in it. No fury.

Just devastation.

She deserved an answer. She deserved all of them.

Daniel’s fingers curled tighter into the comforter. He looked down at the floor, jaw clenched so hard it ached.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, voice shaking.

“That’s not up to you anymore,” she replied.

Her voice didn’t rise. She didn’t move. But it knocked the breath from his lungs anyway.

He swallowed hard.

“Seven,” he said. Quiet. Broken.

The number landed like a weight between them.

She flinched—just barely—but it was enough. Her breath caught. Her arms wrapped around her midsection like she was trying to hold herself together.

And Daniel saw it all.

Saw what he’d done. Saw her coming apart from the outside in.

And all he could think was:I used to be the one who made her feel safe.

Now, I’m the reason she has to protect herself.

She didn’t look away. And he knew what she wanted from him. She was asking him to tell her.

All of it.

She wanted the ugliness.

She wanted the truth that would make it real.

His chest caved around it.

“It started at the studio.”

No reaction.

Just her standing there. Breathing. Braced.

“The first time, I told myself it didn’t count. That it was just one time.” He let out a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “And then it happened again.”

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