Page 89 of The Prime-Time Experiment

She had spent weeks convincing herself that the balance was holding. Training sessions with Declan existed separately from her life with Dee, and yet somehow the two had begun to overlap without immediate consequence. The arrangement had appeared stable enough that she stopped actively monitoring it.

Now she wondered whether she had mistaken the absence of failure for evidence of success.

Across from her, Dee shifted slightly and turned toward the window. The movement was small, but Riley felt it instead of saw it.

Dee was hurt. Riley couldn’t separate that fact from herself, because Dee hadn’t arrived at the event independently. Riley had brought her and asked her to come there, she had introduced the overlap. Riley had assumed that the people who mattered to her could occupy the same space without consequence.

The thought settled heavily in her chest.

Dee had always been the constant. Through every version of Riley that existed over the past eight years, Dee remained. The idea of being responsible for introducing instability into that relationship felt fundamentally wrong.

By the time Riley started the engine, the shape of the conclusion had already begun to form. If maintaining both environments created risk for Dee, then maintaining both environments was no longer an acceptable option.

The logic arrived naturally after that.

The contract could end, the Montgomerys would return to being a separate part of her life rather than an overlapping one.

The variables could be separated again.

It was a clean solution, and yet as Riley pulled away from the curb, a persistent pressure remained lodged somewhere beneath her ribs, resisting the conclusion despite all evidence supporting it.

For the first time, the correct answer did not feel like relief.

Chapter 19

Declan

The first time she cancelled, Declan didn’t question it. The message was short, which wasn’t unusual for Riley when she was focused on function rather than explanation.

Unable to attend. Rescheduling not required.

He read it, locked his phone, and got on with his day. Riley always had a reason for what she did. She wasn’t impulsive, and she certainly wasn’t careless with other people’s time. If she said she couldn’t make it, then she couldn’t make it. That was enough for him.

The second cancellation felt different, although he spent most of the afternoon pretending it didn’t.

By the time the message arrived, training had already started. He’d unlocked the gym, set everything up, and gone through the first part of his morning before realising he’d been looking towards the entrance every few minutes without meaning to. It wasn’t something he’d consciously noticed until his phone lit up and he found himself expecting her name.

Unable to attend.

Declan stared at the screen for a moment before typing back.

All good. Let me know when you’re back.

Then he put the phone away and got on with things. The problem was that he kept catching himself looking at the door afterwards anyway.

By the third day, there wasn’t even a cancellation. What unsettled him wasn’t the missed session itself so much as the silence around it. Riley wasn’t exactly known for emotional transparency, but she was consistent. Even when she was blunt, distracted, awkward, or operating entirely on efficiency, she communicated.

The silence felt different. Once he’d noticed it, he couldn’t stop noticing it. He made it through most of the day before finally sending a message himself.

Hey. You okay?

The text sat there unanswered. Declan told himself not to be ridiculous. Riley was clearly busy. She had a life outside of him, outside of the project, outside of the strange little routine they’d built over the last few months.

That explanation made perfect sense. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop him checking his phone every time it buzzed.

It also didn’t stop him thinking about her. The memory of their kisses had a habit of showing up whenever he wasn’t expecting it. Halfway through a client session. Standing in line for coffee, as he was grocery shopping.

As the days stretched into a week, he started wondering whether she’d gone home from the AFL gala, analysed their relationship from every conceivable angle, and reached a conclusion he wasn’t part of.