A tangled knot of frustration and helplessness tightened in Alex’s chest as Chris ambled into the kitchen, the morning light casting an all-too-cheerful glow around him.
Chris, with a wide yawn, made his way to the coffee machine. The man was a casual intruder in what had once been Alex’s personal sanctuary.
“Morning,” Chris murmured, his voice groggy, after a sip of the rich, dark coffee.
The casual greeting echoed like a discordant note in the symphony of his life, disrupting the harmony he’d once shared with Ava in this room.
“Hey,” Alex replied, his voice tight, struggling to mask the surge of frustration.
How was this man still standing in his kitchen?
The answer was painfully clear yet obnoxiously complex. Chris wasn’t just the houseguest from Hell, he was steadfastly linked to Ava. Despite being Alex’s wife, she was also engaged to Chris.
Their marriage, a delicate tapestry of convenience and unspoken emotions, was unraveling at the seams, threatened by the very presence that now casually sipped coffee in his kitchen.
In a desperate attempt to win her over and keep her married to him, he’d drawn her to his Hamptons homes for the weekend–sans Chris.
With a penny-skimming scheme brewing at his tech company, StoneCorp, he’d lured Ava to him with the promise of solving a mystery. She’d accepted, eager to help out her “old friend.”
The weekend, designed to shower her with gifts, remind her of their past, and effectively make her forget Chris, had fallen flat.
And now, Alex was desperate to rewrite the ending and sway the narrative in his favor. But he still stood on the brink of losing her forever.
