Chapter 2When the Heartbeat Lied

I didn’t text him back. I called a ride myself.

On the way home, I had the driver take a brief detour past his boutique hotel on the waterfront.

“Just idle by the curb for a second, please,” I said.

The floor-to-ceiling glass of the lobby lounge was bathed in amber light. Bennett was sitting in one of the plush corner booths. Across from him sat a young woman with a sharp, pixie haircut and a bright, animated smile. She was leaning forward, talking with her hands, and Bennett had his head tilted down, laughing.

I knew that laugh intimately. It was the exact expression he wore when he was sixteen, trying to catch my eye in the hallway.

He reached across the small marble table and gently tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

That gesture—from the time we were teenagers until tonight—had only ever belonged to me.

“You can drive now,” I told the driver quietly.

When Darcy answered my call, the background was filled with the rhythmic clatter of her closing down her boutique bakery.

“Nora? What’s up?”

“I saw him with a woman.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know her. Short hair. Dimples when she laughs.”

Darcy went dead silent for two seconds. “Where is he? Where are you? I’m getting in my car right now.”

“Don’t. I’m already home.”

Bennett walked through the front door at eleven thirty, carrying a bakery box tied with a satin ribbon. My favorite pistachio crepe cake.

“Baby, I am so, so sorry,” he started, his voice heavy with performative exhaustion. “That event proposal was an absolute train wreck—”

“Who were you fixing it with?”

His hands paused on the knot of his shoelaces. “Just the core operations team.”

“Was Piper Hughes there?”

“Piper? Yeah, she’s the lead coordinator on the project. Why?”

I looked at him, searching the familiar planes of his face. “Nothing. Put the cake in the fridge.”

He walked over and wrapped his arms around me from behind, burying his face in the crook of my neck. My back was pressed flat against his chest.

Piper. Piper. Piper. Nora. Piper. Piper.

Ten beats. Seven of them belonged to her.

I pulled away from his grip.

“Nora? What’s wrong?”

“I’m just exhausted. I’m going to sleep.”

I walked into the master bedroom and clicked the door shut. He stood in the hallway for a long time, but he never turned the knob.

The next morning, I packed a thermos of homemade chicken soup and drove to his hotel, using the excuse that he hadn’t eaten breakfast.

The front desk clerk greeted me warmly and keyed me up to the executive floor. When the elevator doors slid open, Piper was just walking out of Bennett’s corner office. She recognized me immediately, flashing an open, radiant smile.

“Hi! You must be Mrs. Reynolds. I’m Piper. Bennett mentions you all the time.”

I took her in.

Clean-cut hair, wide, bright hazel eyes, and an unmistakable aura of effortless, youthful vitality. Twenty-four, maybe twenty-five. Glowing with the unearned confidence of someone who hadn't yet been broken by the world.

“Hello,” I said evenly.

She turned and pushed open the heavy wooden door for me. “Bennett, your wife is here!”

Her tone was breezily domestic, the casual familiarity of someone who felt entirely at home in his space.

Bennett looked up from his laptop. Surprise flickered across his eyes before settling into a warm smile. “Nora? What brings you downtown?”

“Brought you some soup. You skipped breakfast.”

Piper gave a little laugh. “I’ll leave you two alone and grab fresh coffee from the breakroom,” she said, slipping out and pulling the door shut behind her.

I set the thermos on the polished mahogany desk.

“You two seem close.”

“She’s my project lead, Nora. We work twelve-hour shifts together. Of course we’re close.”

“She knows you skip breakfast?”

“So does my executive assistant. What does that prove?”

“Your assistant doesn’t call you Bennett with that particular inflection.”

He set his Montblanc pen down and rubbed the bridge of his nose, an edge of frustration creeping into his voice. “Nora, what is going on with you lately? You’ve been so paranoid.”

“Let me listen.”

“Listen to what?”

“Your chest. I told you about my gift years ago.”

He stared at me, then let out a dry, incredulous chuckle. “Are you serious? You’re bringing up that childhood game again? You don’t actually believe that nonsense, do you?”

“If it’s nonsense, why are you scared to let me close?”

Bennett stood up, walking around the desk until he stood directly in front of me. “I’m not scared of anything.”

He pulled me against his body, resting my head against his left breast pocket.

Piper. Piper. Piper. Piper. Piper.

Not a single beat for me.

I stepped back, feeling a chill settle deep into my marrow.

“Who were you thinking about just now?”

“You,” he said without missing a beat, his voice perfectly smooth. “Always you.”

“You’re lying.”

His face hardened, the warmth vanishing completely. “Nora, that’s enough. If you’re determined not to trust me, then there’s nothing left to say. Piper has a serious boyfriend. Stop turning innocent work relationships into something disgusting.”

He brushed past me, sat back down, and aggressively flipped open a leather-bound folder.

“Leave the soup on the credenza. I’ll eat it later. You should head home.”

I looked at the top of his bent head. “Bennett, in fifteen years, when have I ever made a scene out of nothing?”

He didn't look up. “You used to be different.”

I turned and walked out. As the elevator doors sealed, I saw Piper emerging from the kitchenette carrying two steaming mugs, stepping effortlessly back into his office.

That night, he didn't come home until midnight.

By then, I was lying in bed, pretending to be asleep. He slid under the covers, his breathing soon evening out into the heavy rhythm of sleep.

I shifted across the mattress, slowly lowering my ear against his sternum.

Piper. Piper. Piper.

Every single beat.

Not a single Nora. Not one.

I slipped out from under the duvet, gathered my pillow, and moved into the guest bedroom.