The drive back from the Blackwood estate stretches like a punishment, forty minutes of pure silence and personal hell.
Adrian's hands grip the steering wheel with mechanical precision while I stare out the window, the weekend's almost-everything hanging between us like a blade waiting to drop.
Neither of us speaks. What would we say? That last night meant something? That it meant nothing? Both feel like lies.
The familiar turn onto my street should bring relief, but as Adrian's Bentley rounds the corner, my blood turns to ice.
Henri stands outside my building, holding an enormous bouquet of peonies, their pink heads bobbing in the breeze. He looks like something out of a romantic movie.
"Your Frenchman's persistent," Adrian says, his voice cold enough to frost the windows. His knuckles are white on the steering wheel, that muscle in his jaw jumping the way it does when he's fighting for control.
"Don't you dare," I hiss, already unbuckling my seatbelt. "Don't you dare interfere, Adrian. Just help me get the twins out and leave. Please."
"Of course," he says, but there's something in his tone that makes my stomach clench with dread.
Adrian doesn't argue, getting out and unbuckling Gatsby's car seat with practiced efficiency while I grab Catrice.
It reminds a horrible parade—Adrian and I with our babies, Henri watching from the sidewalk, his expression shifting from anticipation to confusion.
That's when Adrian does something unforgivable.
He leans in close, ostensibly to whisper something about Gatsby's blanket, but instead his lips find my cheek, so close to my mouth it might as well be a kiss.
He lingers there, his breath warm against my skin, just long enough to ensure Henri sees everything, understands everything.
"Sweet dreams, Elena," Adrian murmurs, loud enough to carry, then he's back inside in his Bentley with that satisfied CEO stride, leaving me standing there with both car seats while my world implodes.
I watch him drive away, wanting to scream, to throw something, to slap that satisfaction off his face. But Henri is already walking toward me, and his expression has gone from confused to hurt to something cold I've never seen before.
"Henri," I start, but he wordlessly takes both infant carriers from my hands, his fingers careful not to touch mine. He walks into my building without invitation, without waiting for me, his back rigid with barely controlled anger.
I follow on trembling legs, my heart hammering so hard I'm sure the neighbors can hear it. The three flights to my apartment feel like a mountain.
Henri sets the carriers down gently inside my door, careful with the babies despite his fury, then turns to face me. The apartment feels smaller with his anger filling it, pressing against the walls, making it hard to breathe.
"No more games, Elena." His usual warmth is gone, replaced by steel. Even his accent sounds sharper, less romantic, more like an interrogation. "I want the truth. Now."
"Henri, I can explain…"
"Can you?"
He laughs, but it's bitter, nothing like the warm chuckle I've grown to love.
"I've been very patient, Elena. I've ignored the inconsistencies, the way your stories never quite add up. I've done this because I'm half-mad for you, because I thought perhaps you had good reasons for your secrets."
His words are bullets, each one finding its mark. I open my mouth, but he continues, pacing my small living room like a caged animal.
"But I cannot build a future with someone who lies to my face every time we meet. I cannot love someone who thinks I'm too stupid to notice that nothing about your situation makes sense."
My heart hammers as I scramble for another lie, another explanation that might save this.
"My sister was called into work," I say desperately. "An emergency at the hospital—she's a nurse. It's my turn with the twins now. Her ex-husband gave us a ride because it was on his way."
Henri's laugh is sharp enough to cut. "Ex-husbands kiss their former sisters-in-law like lovers? Nearly on the mouth? With such intimacy?"
"He's... Adrian is eccentric," I fumble. "He's peculiar, inappropriate sometimes. But I have to tolerate him for the children's sake. For my sister's sake. She's trying to make things work with him."
"So you leave babies with an unstable, inappropriate man?" Henri's voice rises slightly. "You let someone you describe as peculiar and eccentric drive them around? Care for them?"
The trap of my own lies closes around me. I have no answer that makes sense, no explanation that doesn't contradict something else I've said.
"I... It's complicated. Family situations always are—"
"Stop." The word cracks like a whip. Henri stands perfectly still, looking at me with something worse than anger—disgust. "You're still lying. Even now, even when I'm begging you for the truth, you give me more fiction."
"Henri, please…"
"Whatever you're hiding, whatever the real story is, you'd rather lose me than reveal it." His voice breaks slightly on the last words. "And that tells me everything I need to know about what I mean to you."
"That's not true!" I move toward him, but he steps back, maintaining distance like I'm contaminated. "You mean everything to me. You saved me when I was drowning. You made me feel alive again."
"But not enough to trust me with the truth," he says quietly, and somehow that's worse than yelling. "Not enough to believe I might understand, might accept whatever situation you're really in."
He moves toward the door with that European grace that first attracted me, every movement controlled despite his anger. I follow, desperate, tears streaming down my face.
"Henri, please... Please don't go. Let me explain."
"With more lies?"
He turns at the door, and for a moment I see the hurt beneath the anger, the man who opened his heart to me only to find deception.
"I fell in love with someone who doesn't exist, didn't I? The real Elena is someone else entirely, someone who doesn't trust me enough to know her."
"Henri…"
But he's already gone, closing the door with a quiet click that sounds like an ending. I stand there for a moment, frozen, then collapse onto the floor, my legs giving out completely.
The sobs come in waves, ugly and raw, my body shaking with exhaustion and loss. The twins start crying, picking up on my distress, but I can't move.
All I can do is to lie on my dirty floor and weep for the one pure thing I had, the one relationship not poisoned by the past.
I've destroyed it all. I chose the lie over the truth, chose protecting myself over trusting Henri.
And now he's gone, taking with him the fantasy of starting over, of being someone new, of having a love that wasn't complicated by history and hurt and two babies who aren't his.