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I wait.

For him to soften it. For him to say this is harder than he thought it would be. For him to admit that something here has changed for him too.

He doesn't.

"It's better for both of us," he says, "if we don't get too comfortable pretending this is anything else."

For one terrible second, I just stand there in my thin robe and bare feet and try to act like those words didn't land exactly where they were meant to.

Then I nod once because I'm not about to beg him for honesty he clearly doesn't want to give me.

"Right," I say. "Of course."

His face doesn't change.

"Goodnight, Aria."

And there it is.

The clean ending.

The dismissal wrapped in control.

The point where I realize the conversation is over, not because we ran out of things to say, but because he decided it was.

So I turn and walk back toward the villa without another word, the robe dampening at the hem from the terrace stone, my pride gathered around me like armor.

I don't look back.

I make it to the open door before I hear the splash behind me.

Then another.

Then the relentless rhythm of his strokes cutting through the water again.

Harder than before, somehow.

As if there's something in him he's trying to punish out of existence.

I slide the terrace door shut behind me and stand there for a second in the dark, hand still on the glass, listening to the muffled sound of him swimming.

Then I go back upstairs alone.

Chapter Eighteen

EVERETT

It's been three days.

Three days of not sleeping properly because Aria is too close and my body has apparently decided that proximity to my wife is now its favorite form of torture.

Three days of her leaving the villa in soft sundresses with her leather satchel over one shoulder, humming under her breath like she isn't dismantling my peace one French melody at a time.

Three days of her coming back with paint on her fingers and sunlight in her hair and a smile still caught at the edge of her mouth, like France has reached into her and dragged something long-buried back into the light.

Three days of seeing her at night in one of my T-shirts, bare legs, damp hair, and sleep-heavy eyes, moving around the bedroom like she belongs there.

Three days since the pool.