He came and came for an impossibly long while. And by the time he was finally emptied, he fell onto his back, drained and wrecked—the very opposite of powerful.

Somewhere in the distance, he sensed her tugging on the bed’s top cover. Dragging it from underneath him and tossing it somewhere he couldn’t see before climbing back into the bed with a heavier quilt to cover them both up.

They lay in the dark. Breathing together but no longer touching.

“I was afraid when you didn’t show up today. I was afraid you were…hurt.” Her voice was a soft knife in the pitch black.

Afraid.

The word squeezed around his heart. She’d been worried about him. And he was so defeated, so exhausted. He couldn’t fight it when the old feelings arose.

But then he remembered her sitting on the couch. Her eyes widening as he made his marriage proposal. The way she’d knocked him over with her yes, as if she’d been overjoyed.

It had been a lie. An act orchestrated by her father. She was a good actress, the best he’d ever known. He had to remember that.

Disgusted with himself, he climbed out of bed and left as abruptly as he’d arrived.

And the next day, he didn’t disenroll her from RhIDS, as he’d so maliciously planned.

He’d failed the test for the seventh year in a row. He still didn’t deserve that particularly sweet vengeance.

The eighth year went no better. He made plans to leave the country for the week, somewhere far away, where he couldn’t possibly change his mind within twenty-four hours. But at the last moment, he turned around and called one of his men to come to get him at the airport. Less than an hour later, he stormed into the Providence house. He hadn’t even made it on the plane.

The ninth anniversary found him at her home bright and early, rutting her desperately before she even had a chance to fully wake up.

He kept her in bed all day again for that anniversary, but it still went by too fast. One moment he had just gotten there, and the next, it was May 26th and time to return to his own world.

Their anniversaries always went this way. The 364 days between May 25ths dragged. A slow and steady accumulation of enemies, partners, money, and power. But the day of their anniversary passed in the blink of an eye. Fleeting moments of bitter weakness and sweet lust as he gave in to all the demons and emotions that had destroyed him in the past.

He had thought a decade would be more than enough to overcome this weakness. To overcome Dawn. But here he was.

One more year, he thought as he left the house after his ninth anniversary failure. One more year, and then he would be honor-bound to let her go.