Xander’s POV
The charity gala is unavoidable. My assistant reminded me three times this week, increasingly concerned that I might actually skip the annual event that has my name on half the sponsorship materials.
The Hale Foundation Winter Benefit—a night where the city's wealthy pretend their checkbooks can solve systemic problems while drinking champagne that costs more than most people's monthly rent.
I can't skip it. Board members will be there, investors, business partners who need to see that everything is fine with the Hale empire. That I'm still in control, still focused, still the man they trust to make the right decisions.
So I agree to go. And because maintaining appearances is the only thing Daphne and I do successfully anymore, she agrees to attend with me.
We prepare in separate rooms. I dress in my study, fumbling with cufflinks and tie while staring at my reflection and seeing a stranger. The man looking back at me has dark circles under his eyes and a tension in his jaw that never quite releases.
When I descend to the foyer, Daphne is already there.
The sight of her stops me mid-step.
She's wearing the emerald gown—the one I bought her last year for another gala, the one that makes her eyes luminous and her skin glow like she's lit from within. It fits differently now, her body still changed from pregnancy, curves where there weren't curves before.
She's breathtaking. Devastatingly, impossibly beautiful. And completely untouchable.
She glances up when she hears my footsteps, her expression carefully neutral. "Ready?"
"You look beautiful." The words escape before I can stop them.
Something flickers across her face—surprise, maybe, or pain. "Thank you."
The driver opens the door. We slide into the car in silence, maintaining careful distance on the leather seat. The space between us feels like miles.
At the gala, we perform perfectly. My hand finds the small of her back as we enter the ballroom—a gesture so automatic I don't even think about it until I feel her tense under my palm.
But she doesn't pull away. Just holds herself rigid while we work the room together, smiling at the right people, laughing at mediocre jokes, accepting endless congratulations on Hope's birth.
"She's doing well," Daphne tells Linda Smith, wife of one of our biggest investors. "Growing stronger every day. We feel very blessed."
"And you look wonderful," Linda gushes. "Absolutely glowing. Motherhood suits you."
Daphne's smile doesn't reach her eyes, but Linda doesn't notice. No one notices. They see what they want to see—the happy couple, the successful businessman and his beautiful wife, the family that has everything.
We move through the crowd in careful choreography. I keep my hand on her back or her elbow or occasionally her waist, maintaining the physical contact that signals unity to everyone watching.
But I feel every muscle in Daphne's body tense when I touch her. Feel the way she holds herself rigid when my fingers brush her waist, the way she leans slightly away even as she maintains the appearance of closeness.
I want to pull her against me. Want to kiss her temple like I used to, whisper something inappropriate in her ear that makes her laugh and blush. Want to forget we're in public and just hold her the way I did before everything broke.
Instead, I maintain the careful choreography of a marriage that exists only for cameras.
Harrison corners us near the bar, already three drinks in and expansive with false bonhomie. "Xander! Daphne! The golden couple. Tell me, how does it feel to have it all?"
Daphne's laugh sounds almost genuine. "Exhausting, actually. Three children under six. I haven't slept a full night in weeks."
"But worth it, surely."
"Of course." Her hand finds mine, squeezes once—performance, not connection. "We're very grateful."
The evening drags on. We dance when expected, my hand on her waist while she rests hers on my shoulder with the lightness of someone touching something unpleasant.
She's so beautiful it physically hurts to be this close and this far away simultaneously. Every brush of her dress against my leg reminds me of what I've lost. Every moment her hand rests in mine before pulling away is a reminder that touching her is now a performance, not a privilege.
By the time we finally make our excuses and escape to the car, I'm wound so tight I might shatter.
I dismiss the driver with a wave—I need to drive, need something to control with my hands. I pull out of the venue parking lot myself, merging onto the highway.
Daphne stares out the window at passing streetlights, her reflection ghostly in the glass.
"Well, we did it," she says finally, her voice flat. "Another successful performance."
"Is that all this is to you?" The words come out harsher than I intend, my hands tightening on the steering wheel. "A performance? Pretending we're still married because it's convenient?"
She turns to look at me, her eyes hard. "What do you want me to say, Xander?"
"I want you to acknowledge that this isn't fair. That I made an impossible choice out of love, that I can't keep living like this!"
"We're not doing this now."
"When, then? When are we going to actually talk about this instead of just existing in the same house while pretending the other person doesn't exist?"
"I said not now." Her voice rises. "Pull over."
"What?"
"Pull over the car. I want out."
"Daphne, we're on the highway,"
"I don't care! Pull over. Now."
"We're not stopping in the middle of nowhere because you're angry at me."
"Pull over the fucking car!" The profanity is so unlike her that it shocks us both. "Pull over or I swear to God I will open this door while you're still driving."
I glance at her, seeing she means it. Seeing the desperation in her eyes, the need to escape—not just the car but me, this conversation, the impossible situation we're trapped in together.
I take the next exit harder than I should, tires squealing slightly. Find an empty stretch of road lined with streetlights casting orange pools of light onto cracked pavement. The moment I shift into park, Daphne throws open the door and gets out.
I kill the engine and follow, because what else can I do?
She walks away from the car, her heels clicking against asphalt, the emerald gown incongruous against the industrial landscape. I catch up to her under a streetlight, my hand catching her elbow.
"Don't touch me." She yanks her arm away.
"Daphne, please."
"Please what?" She spins to face me, and the anger radiating off her is palpable. "Please pretend everything's fine? Please smile for the cameras? Please keep acting like we have a marriage worth saving?"
"We do have a marriage worth saving!"
"Do we? Because from where I'm standing, we have a house where we avoid each other and three children who are confused why Daddy doesn't sleep in Mommy's room anymore."
"I made one choice," I say, my voice breaking. "One impossible choice when the doctors gave me seconds to decide and no good options. And you're punishing me for it every single day."
"I'm not punishing you, I'm trying to survive knowing my husband was willing to let our daughter die!"
"I was trying to save you!"
"I didn't ask you to save me!" The words explode out of her, raw and jagged. "I didn't ask you to play God! I didn't ask you to decide my life was worth more than hers!"
"Your life is worth more! To me, your life is worth everything."
The admission tears out of me.
"And I know that makes me selfish and ruthless and exactly the kind of man people warn you about. But it's the truth. Losing you would destroy me, would destroy the twins, would leave us all broken in ways we could never recover from. So yes, I chose you, and I'd choose you again. Every single time."
She stares at me, breathing hard, tears streaming down her face that she doesn't bother to wipe away. Years of love and grief and resentment are written across her features, and I don't know which will win.
"I hate you," she whispers. "I hate you so much right now."
"I know."
"I hate that you chose me. I hate that you love me so much it made our daughter expendable. I hate that I understand why you did it and that I can't forgive you anyway."
"I know."
"I hate—"
I stop her talking the only way I know how. Pull her against me mid-sentence and kiss her—hard, desperate, swallowing whatever she was about to say.