The revelation didn’t end our relationship—it metastasized through it like cancer, killing everything healthy and leaving only twisted remnants behind.
I’d expected Sterling to rage, to demand explanations, to treat me like the enemy I’d been raised to become. Instead, he did something worse. He withdrew.
The change was subtle at first—a hesitation before he touched me, a careful distance in conversations that had once flowed like water. He still held me when nightmares jolted me awake in the predawn darkness, still brought me coffee the way I liked it, kissed me goodbye when business called him away from the penthouse.
But the warmth was gone. The easy intimacy we’d built through months of partnership and conflict had been replaced by something clinical and watchful. He was studying me
