Page 70 of Angels Are Falling

Within the next heartbeat, Kai drew me against him, cocooning me in his warm chest like a protective glove. He didn’t coo me with encouraging words or ask me what was wrong. Instead, he simply wrapped his arms around me with a slow, certain movement, the kind that made me feel that the ground beneath me might still hold. His arms crossed my back firmly, one hand spreading flat against the nape of my neck, the other cupping the back of my head. He let my sobs shake through him, an immovable presence, while I pressed my wet face to his chest and left a translucent salt stain on the fabric of his ridiculously expensive shirt. His fingers moved through my hair in slow, meditative strokes, as if untangling my corded emotions.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled against his chest, absorbing the faint traces of detergent and his own, clean scent. The phrase was insufficient, but it was all I had. I felt terrible that he waited for me all night. That I had been ignoring him for days when all he wanted was a wife to come home to. I was intimately familiar with waiting around, never knowing whether my loved one would show up. I had done it throughout my childhood, and now I did it with Stefan. I realized, in a shattering moment of clarity, that the very thing I’d suffered, the slow starvation of unmet expectation, was the same pain I was inflicting on Kai.

No one deserved to feel abandoned. We might have our differences, but I didn’t want to hurt Kai like that.

Maybe it was better that he held me, wordless and inexhaustible, while the tears drained from my body. Because I had no excuses, just a pathetic apology. “I am so sorry,” I repeated.

During this very dramatic moment, my stomach growled loudly, making him chuckle. “Come on, hangry.” He grabbed my hand, guiding me to his side of the wing. “Let’s feed you.”

He escorted me to his living room, as if afraid I’d bolt. I wiped my tears with my hand, stopping short upon noticing that the entire side of his house was lined with my cheap possessions. My vintage mirror with cracks hung on the wall. The cupboard with Bella’s height measurements was in the kitchen. Our old couch and the gray armchair with tattered fabric sat across the fireplace. Kai had moved his designer couches, tables, and rugs in favor of my plain furniture. The room was a replica of my old house.

“This.” I looked around, searching for the right words. “It’s our old furniture. When did you do all this?”

“My assistant dropped them off a few days ago. I didn’t know where you wanted them⁠—”

“It looks perfect.”

“You think so?”

“Yes.” I watched as Kai walked to his kitchen and unwrapped the lasagna pan resting on the stove. “Kai?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

I had no other profound words to express my gratitude. He had returned a piece of my missing heart. I had no idea that I’d been as homesick as the kids. Nothing on the other side of this door felt like me, but everything here screamed my name. A calm that I hadn’t felt in weeks washed over me, and I sank into my old, slightly stained, gray couch.

Mm.

It was the first true breath I had taken inside this house. I might never leave.

Kai didn’t make me move off the couch as he fixed our plates. That’s where we ate, in comfortable silence. It was informal, like a TV dinner, but it tasted like heaven.

The tap of cutlery against porcelain and the hush of the fire’s slow collapse seemed like a better filler than unnecessary small talk. Occasionally, Kai asked if I wanted more food or water, and when he noticed my wine glass was nearly empty, he went to fetch another bottle. After we finished, he cleared the plates. No drama, no performative tidying up, just a quick stacking and a rinse under the tap. It was like everything else about Kai—steady and efficient.

I watched the way he wiped his hands, and I wondered if he cooked often or if tonight was an exception. He had made me a sandwich the day he came to the hospital. He returned to the living room and refilled my wine glass. We lingered by the fireplace, the only illumination now the dying embers and the moon outside.

I traced the rim of my wine glass with my finger. “Where did you learn to cook?” I asked.

“When I went to boarding school in Switzerland.”

“Are you telling me that your pretentious school didn’t have a cafeteria with a vegan station and a smoothie bar?”

His upper lip quirked. “They had two.”

I raised my brows. “Yet you cooked your own meals.”

“I hate cafeteria food. And so do you,” he pointed out.

It was true. “So, you decided to take matters into your own hands.”

His shrugged. “If you’re unhappy with your circumstances, it only makes sense to change them.”

The insinuation ran deeper than food. “You sound like a man who doesn’t believe in fate.”

“Sure I do, but only if I get to create it.”

I shook my head with a laugh. Figures that Kai didn’t leave his life up to chance. He was the kind of man who’d change his very destiny if he didn’t like the one written for him. “What must that be like—creating your own fate?” I asked somewhat sullenly since I no longer had control over mine.