For a moment, I just stood there.
The water kept running over me, warm and steady, but the space felt different now.
Quieter.
Empty in a way that had nothing to do with the room itself.
I stared at the place where Alexander had been standing, my chest tightening slowly as everything caught up with me.
That hadn’t gone the way I wanted.
I exhaled softly, tilting my head back as the water slid over my face.
Of course it hadn’t.
The moment he said it—
“I’d rather be your husband.”
I felt it.
Not the teasing part.
The truth underneath it.
Alexander didn’t say things like that carelessly. Even when he dressed them up lightly, there was always something real beneath it.
And I had known that.
I had felt it in the way he looked at me.
In the way his voice had softened just a little
