Today was going to be agonising.

At least Cora’s shirt had been kind of see-through from the coffee.

* * *

“It just looks bad when even my own wife doesn’t come to a meeting I call.”

“Alec, I know—I’m sorry. I had to change my shirt and have a quick shower. By the time I was done, I figured I’d miss it.”

Eyes flashing a hard blue, Alec leant back in his chair. “It’s not my problem if you can’t organise your personal routine like every other staff member. If you want to go out drinking all night, you still have to be an adult like everyone else.”

Her head throbbed. Cora closed her eyes for a moment before opening them to stare him straight in the eye. His gaze didn’t even waver. At the other side of his desk, she felt oddly like a teenager in front of a particularly bitchy principal.

“Someone ran into me in the corridor, and I was covered in coffee. I had to change.”

“Or you were hung-over and clumsy and spilt it all over yourself.”

On a good day, it was hard to get through a conversation like this. Today was not a good day. “I don’t know what you want me to say. You call this many meetings, and people are bound to miss some.”

Alec’s entire body went still, and Cora knew instantly she shouldn’t have said that.

But she did not have the energy to carefully pluck out words that would appease him. When she had woken up that morning, Alec had already left, his blanket neatly folded at the end of the couch and the smell of his aftershave in the air like a reminder of something that started pleasantly but then began to burn.

Apparently, her lack of appearance in the meeting meant he didn’t feel the need to hide away as he normally would after an argument like last night’s.

“It’s not important, Cora. Just don’t do it again.”

Cheeks burning, she nodded. “Is that all?”

He eyed her. She’d once found his gaze comforting, passionate, consuming. Now it still bordered on consuming, but the rest didn’t linger. Dismissive: was that what he saw when she looked at him?

He shook his head. “No. I think we should continue the conversation we started last night.”

Cora’s gaze dropped to the floor, and her stomach turned over. There was no way she wanted to continue that conversation. It was one he had started to bring up again and again, and it left her panicked and unable to put sentences together. He quickly flared into anger anyway, leaving her trying to back-pedal out or else flare up alongside him, his flames fuelling her own. Then he would just walk away, taking away all her power to say what she wanted to.

Eggshells filled her house, and Cora was constantly walking over them. Sometimes, she tried to walk over them on tiptoes, other times on her heels. Big strides or ballerina steps—nothing helped. They still shattered under her feet.