Page 21 of My Only

Highly educated. Graduated from Parsons School of Design. Well-traveled. Studied abroad in Milan.

She was good on the eyes and on paper.

But she was no Ayla.

Not by a mile.

No one was, in my eyes.

I still loved my wife. Still couldn’t keep my eyes—or hands—off her after all these years.

Before I took on this project, everything between us had been great.

Now though? Everything was not.

Harper smirked. “I would’ve thought that after you ditched me last night…” She dragged out the last few words like an invitation. “You would have gone home to get some rest.”

I scoffed a quiet laugh.

“I was a little bummed about that, Hassani,” she added, voice soft, sweet.

I forced a polite smile.

That dinner—if you could even call it that—was nothing like what I imagined. But looking back, joining Harper was probably not my brightest idea.

Just us two.

And at that hour.

Especially when I knew that by the time I got home, long after leaving dinner, I would be returning to an angry wife.

A part of me had hoped Ayla would be asleep when I got in.

She often was.

Usually, I’d find her in bed, waiting for me—our bodies molding together in the dark, my hands tracing familiar paths, my lips waking her before the sun did.

But last night… she was awake.

Waiting.

And what she said?

That shit hit different.

But what hurt even more?

Waking up alone.

I rolled onto my back, eyes still closed, body moving on autopilot, the way it always did in the morning.

Reaching over, I lifted my arm, expecting warmth. Expecting her.

Instead, I felt cold sheets.

The second my fingers met empty space, it all came back to me in a rush.

I didn’t have to open my eyes to remember. To know that Ayla hadn’t come back to bed, choosing to spend the night in the guest bedroom.

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