Page 41 of Her Possessive Dominant Fake Husband

This was supposed to be simple. I was stupid enough to believe it would be. Contracts are all well and good, but not when feelings were involved.

It wasn’t just my ego that stopped me. It was knowing I couldn’t keep hurting her. I’d seen the disappointment on her face, heard it in her voice when she’d asked what we really were to each other. And I’d told her, hadn’t I? I’d told her something she didn’t want to hear. Now I was the one stuck with the words, like glass shards cutting deeper every second.

But hell, I wanted her back. Even if it meant admitting I was wrong. Even if it meant becoming something other than what I was. A few months ago, the thought would have been impossible. Now, it was the only thing I could think about.

My feet moved before I had a chance to stop them, taking me through the house, past rooms still filled with memories of her. Her laugh, her scent, the goddamn calm she brought with her that gave way to chaos in her absence. My heart pounded like I was twenty again and falling for something that could never be mine.

I reached the study once more, and the phone glared at me, a harsh reminder of how close I’d come. I could hear her voice, telling me to let go of my pride. Telling me to just be the man she knew I could be. I wanted to listen. I wanted to tell hershe was right. Instead, I was here, alone, with nothing but the sound of my own stubbornness to keep me company.

“Call her.” My conscience. My heart. My shame. But I resisted, leaving the study and trying to escape her presence that still lingered, making the decision feel more wrong with each passing second.

I was twenty minutes late to dinner. Late enough for my mother to lift a perfectly penciled brow, but not enough to ignore the fucking charade of it all.

Family was family, after all, and there was a damned expectation. Show up, sit, and endure the company of those who could drive a man insane. But tonight, their usual bullshit held an extra edge. Because Claire wasn’t beside me, and everyone saw it. Her absence at the table burned like a cigarette to the skin.

“Where’s Claire?” my mother asked, concern layered under politeness.

It hit harder than I wanted to admit. I hadn't even sat down before the interrogation began.

With a glance at her, I swallowed words I wasn’t ready to say. “She’s not here.”

My mother’s eyes flickered with something I couldn’t quite decipher. Sympathy? Disappointment? I looked away before it could dig in too deep.

Of course, Allison chimed in. She never could resist a moment like this. “Oh, you haven’t heard?” she drawled, like she had rehearsed this exact line. “It seems the marriage fell apart.” She paused, savoring each word, her gaze flicking back to me as she spoke slowly. “What. A. Surprise.”

My grip tightened around the back of the chair. I kept my mouth shut. Responding would mean she’d gotten to me. And if I’d learned anything, it was to never give her the satisfaction.

“Shame, really,” Allison said, her eyes sparkling with toxic amusement. “But I’m sure she’ll bounce back without you—she’s good at that, after all.”

I finally sat, not trusting myself to speak. Allison’s words were the only sound in the room, and my family said nothing.

The reality was, everyone had expected this. They saw Claire as the girl who didn’t belong. The sweet, selfless woman who could never last in a world like mine. And here they were, jumping to conclusions that made my blood boil. But the truth—that I had let her go, that I was the one fucking miserable now—was something I wouldn’t give them.

I downed the whiskey in front of me, savoring the burn in my throat, a welcome distraction from the silence. Silence that was both a judgment and a relief.

“I really liked her,” my mother said finally, her voice quieter, as if that could soften the impact. “Are you okay?”

I was a statue at that table, hard and unyielding, because if I wasn’t, I might actually crack.

“She left him,” Allison said under her breath to my father, not bothering to lower her voice enough to not be heard by the whole table.

He grunted in reply, already moving on to a different conversation, the kind that didn’t involve the personal failures of his eldest son.

“No one has filed for divorce and all marriages hit rough patches. Pretending otherwise is foolish,” I said, the wordsbiting as I forced them out. I needed this dinner to end. I needed the looks of pity and triumph and subtle glee to be over.

But I couldn’t ignore the way my mother watched me. Like she saw something in my eyes that I hadn’t said.

“You let her go?” she asked, probing deeper. Always probing.

“I let her—” I said, the words tangling in my throat. How the hell could I explain that this was the choice I had to make, that this was supposed to be the right decision? Instead, it felt like I’d ripped out my own heart and handed it to them on a silver fucking platter. “Of course, I let her go. She’s not a prisoner. She needs time and space, and I’ll respect that.”

My mother’s lips pressed into a thin line, her disapproval tempered by something else. Something that looked too much like care.

“I’m sure she’ll be just fine,” Allison said, twirling around one finger, basking in the moment she’d waited for since the day Claire first appeared at my side.

The conversation shifted after that, thank God. Moved on to safer topics like my brother’s latest business venture or who was screwing who in the city’s socialite circle. I nodded at the right times, refilled my glass with practiced ease, and let them believe whatever they wanted. Let them see me as the ruthless man they expected, not the one shattered by his own choices.

When dinner finally ended, and the last insincere goodbye was uttered, I left feeling hollow. They thought I was the same bastard who could let a woman like Claire go without a backward glance. Maybe I was. But it didn’t stop the dull, constant ache of missing her, and the damn truth that I was the reason she was gone.

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