My Lover Protected the Woman Who Destroyed My Sister

I waited until Leonel left for the night before I called him.

That sounds strange, I know. But I needed the distance of a phone line between us. I needed to not see his face while I asked.

I sat on Brooke's floor with the photo in my lap, running my thumb over the faded pencil on the back. *Tatum.* I'd looked at it so many times the edges had gone soft.

He picked up on the second ring. "Hey, you okay? You should be asleep."

"I will be." I kept my voice light. Easy. The voice I always used with him. "Random question. Do you know anyone named Tatum Bell?"

There was a pause.

Not a long one. Maybe two seconds. But I'd spent three years learning the rhythm of his voice, the way he answered things he cared about fast and things he didn't care about even faster. This was neither. This was a pause where something recalculated.

"Doesn't ring a bell," he said. "Why?"

"No reason. Saw the name somewhere." I pressed my palm flat over the photograph like I could keep it from moving. "Never mind. Goodnight."

"Naomi—"

"I'm tired," I said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

I hung up before he could say anything else. Before the warmth in his voice could reach through the phone and talk me out of what I already knew.

He'd lied. Clean and easy, like it cost him nothing.

I called Wren next. She answered on the first ring, because Wren always answered on the first ring, day or night, like she was perpetually braced for bad news.

"Hey. It's late. What's wrong?"

I told her everything. The photo. The ballroom. His arm around a woman's waist like he'd done it a thousand times. The name on the back. The two-second pause on the phone just now, and the easy, flat lie that came after it.

Wren didn't say anything for a second. I could hear her moving around, a drawer sliding open, papers shifting.

"Say the name again," she said.

"Tatum Bell. She's Brooke's department chair."

Another pause, shorter this time, more like she was writing it down than processing it.

"Naomi." Her voice had changed. Flatter. More careful. "Don't tell him we talked. I'm going to look into some things."

"Wren, what—"

"Just don't tell him." A beat. "Please."

I didn't ask again. That wasn't like Wren, to ask twice for anything, let alone please. So I just said okay, and we hung up, and I sat there in Brooke's apartment a long time, listening to the vanilla candle hiss where it had burned down to nothing.

—

The next morning I went to Leonel's penthouse like nothing had happened.

I don't know if that makes me weak or just smart. Probably both. I let him open the door in his socks, let him kiss the top of my head, let the smell of his coffee — dark roast, too strong, the way I used to think was charming — pull me into the kitchen.

"I got you the croissants from that place you like," he said, sliding a plate across the island. "The ones with the almond filling."

"Thank you." I took one. I even smiled. It wasn't hard. I'd had a lot of practice smiling through things lately.

He reached across the counter and took my hand, turning it over like he was checking for something. "You look tired."

"I didn't sleep much."

"You should let me take you somewhere this weekend. Somewhere quiet. You need to breathe." His thumb moved over my knuckles, slow, familiar. Once, that gesture would have loosened something in my chest. Now I just watched his hand instead of feeling it.

"Maybe," I said. Then, casual, like it was nothing, like I was just making conversation over croissants: "The district finally called back about the review. They want to schedule a meeting next week."

His hand went still on mine.

Then, without seeming to notice he was doing it, his other hand drifted up to his wrist. To the watch. His grandfather's watch, the one he never took off, gold and heavy and scratched along one edge from years of wear. His fingers touched the face of it, just for a second. Just a small, absent brush of his thumb against the glass.

I'd seen him do it a hundred times before and never thought anything of it. A habit. A tic. The kind of thing you don't notice about someone until you're looking for reasons not to trust them.

"That's good," he said, and his voice was warm and even, the voice that used to make the noise in my head go quiet. "I'll come with you. We'll figure it out together."

"Okay." I took a bite of the croissant. It tasted like nothing.

He kept talking — about the meeting, about lawyers, about how he'd handle it, how I didn't need to worry, how he'd take care of everything the way he always did. I nodded in the right places. I let him hold my hand across the counter.

But for the first time since Brooke died, I wasn't leaning into him.

I was watching him. Filing away the pause on the phone, the flat lie, the way his thumb found that watch the second the word *review* left my mouth.

And some small, cold part of me — a part that used to be soft, that used to need him to be good — started keeping a list of its own.