Chapter 5 Chapter 5: Did I Try to Leave You?

The note remained folded inside my handbag for the rest of the afternoon.

I attended two more classes, answered questions when professors called on me, and even managed to take several pages of notes, yet none of the information stayed in my head for longer than a few minutes.

'Ask your husband what happened the night you tried to leave him.'

Every time I read those words, the memory of Alexander's mouth against mine returned with humiliating clarity.

So did the flash of cherry blossoms.

The ring on my finger.

And the name that had escaped me without thought.

Xander.

By the time my final class ended, rain had begun tapping softly against the tall windows of Auremont. Students rushed through the hallways under umbrellas as the sky outside grew dark far earlier than usual.

Victor waited near the staircase.

I ignored him. Instead of heading toward the main entrance, I turned toward the administrative wing.

"Miss Beauchamp."

I continued walking.

Victor caught up. "Your driver is waiting."

"He can continue waiting."

"Mr. Beauchamp expects you back at the condominium after class."

His words sparked instant irritation.

"Fortunately, I'm twenty-eight. Uncle Richard doesn't decide what time I go home."

His expression tightened, but he stopped following when I reached the security doors separating the executive wing from the public corridor.

This time, I did not need someone else to open them. The identification card Nadine had quietly slipped into my hand after class unlocked the door.

Alexander's private office occupied the highest floor of the building. That discovery alone told me Uncle Richard had lied about more than he admitted.

A bronze plaque beside the elevator listed several names beneath AUREMONT UNIVERSITY EXECUTIVE BOARD.

Alexander Laurent Devereux was among them.

I stared at it for several seconds before entering the elevator. University business, apparently.

The doors opened onto a silent floor lined with dark wood and floor-to-ceiling windows. Alexander's office stood at the far end.

I found him behind an enormous desk, his jacket discarded over a chair and the sleeves of his white shirt rolled to his forearms. Several documents lay open before him, but his attention lifted the moment I entered.

He did not appear surprised.

"Did you know I was coming?"

"I knew you hadn't left campus."

My mouth flattened. "That's not creepy at all."

A subtle smile played at his lips.

My attention fell to the unopened cigarette packet resting beside his laptop. "You aren't smoking."

Alexander followed my gaze. "You told me to put it out."

"That was hours ago."

"You still wouldn't like the smell."

The ridiculous warmth that moved through my chest irritated me enough that I immediately reached into my handbag. I dropped the anonymous note onto his desk.

His expression changed before he even touched it.

"Did I try to leave you?"

For several seconds, Alexander said nothing. Then, he picked up the paper. "Where did you get this?"

"Inside my handbag."

His eyes sharpened. "When?"

"After you walked me to class."

Alexander looked toward his computer as though calculating something before returning his attention to me.

"You left our house."

"That isn't what I asked."

"No." He placed the note down. "You asked for space from me."

My stomach tightened. "Why?"

His jaw tightened. I expected another carefully constructed answer.

Instead, Alexander leaned back in his chair and looked directly at me. "Because I was suffocating you."

I hadn't expected that. "You admit it?"

"I tracked your phone. I assigned security without your permission. I interfered with meetings when I believed someone there might be dangerous. Eventually, you discovered how much I had been monitoring you."

I folded my arms. "So, you were exactly like you are now."

His expression remained perfectly calm. "Worse."

A hollow laugh slipped out. "That's reassuring."

"It wasn't meant to be."

I watched him more carefully.

Uncle Richard had portrayed Alexander as a manipulative man incapable of recognizing boundaries. Until now, Alexander had denied nothing about his possessiveness, but hearing him admit that it had once driven me away changed something.

"What happened that night?"

Alexander looked toward the rain streaking across the windows. "You were angry."

"I gathered that."

"You had discovered I placed security on you after you explicitly told me not to."

"And?"

"You told me you needed one night away from me." Something dark passed over his face. "You said if I loved you, I would let you breathe."

The room suddenly felt colder.

"What did you do?"

"For the first time in months, I listened." His gaze returned to mine. "I ordered everyone to stand down." A terrible understanding began forming before he finished. "An hour later, your car went off the road."

My irritation faded.

Alexander's fingers curled against the edge of the desk. "The one night I gave you exactly what you asked for was the night I almost lost you."

There was no accusation in his voice.

That made it worse.

I looked down and noticed a pale scar running diagonally across his palm. I had seen it before without questioning it. "How did you get that?"

Alexander followed my gaze. "It doesn't matter."

"Apparently, everything matters when ten years of my life are missing."

His silence answered before he did. "Your windshield."

My eyes lifted sharply.

"I reached the crash before the paramedics," he added.

"You were there?" My brows slightly lifted.

"I broke the passenger window trying to get you out."

Something inside my chest tightened. Without thinking, I stepped around the desk and took his hand.

Alexander froze in place. The scar was rough under my thumb.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, rain became deafening.

Shards of glass sparkled under the glow of the headlights.

Blood covered a man's hand.

Someone was shouting my name with a desperation that tore through the darkness.

"Cornelia!"

I sucked in a breath and released Alexander.

He stood immediately. "What did you see?"

"You."

His face changed.

"You were bleeding." I touched my temple, trying to hold onto the image before it disappeared. "You were calling me."

Alexander's expression hardened with something that looked too much like guilt. "I was too late."

"No." The answer left me before I considered it.

His eyes met mine.

"You came."

For a moment, neither of us moved. Then, his computer chimed.

Alexander's attention snapped toward the monitor. Whatever softness had existed between us vanished. He sat down and opened a security application.

Several camera feeds filled the screen.

My stomach dropped. I recognized the kitchen immediately.

My kitchen.

"What the hell is that?"

Alexander did not answer. One of the feeds showed a man dressed in black moving through my condominium. He opened cabinets, checked beneath furniture, and rifled through drawers with practiced efficiency.

"Alexander."

His hand moved across the keyboard, switching camera angles.

The living room.

The hallway.

My bedroom.

The stranger entered it and began searching my bedside table.

"How are you watching my apartment?"

Silence.

I stared at Alexander. Realization landed with nauseating clarity. "You put cameras inside my condominium." It wasn't a question, but a statement.

"Yes."

No hesitation.

No apology.

Anger surged through me. "You installed hidden cameras in my home without telling me?"

"You can hate me for that later."

"I hate you for it now."

"Good." He enlarged the bedroom feed. "Hate me while you look at the screen."

I almost slapped him. But then, the intruder removed one glove. A heavy silver ring gleamed on his finger.

My anger disappeared. I leaned closer. The crest engraved into the metal was unmistakable.

A crowned lion surrounded by laurel leaves.

The Beauchamp family crest.

"I know that ring."

"So do I."

Only male members of Grandfather Sebastian's direct family line received one.

Uncle Richard owned one.

So did Damien.

My cousin.

The man pulled the glove back over his hand and continued searching.

"How did he get inside?"

Alexander opened another window. "The lock recorded an authorized access code."

"Whose?"

"Not mine. Not building management."

He turned the monitor toward me.

The access classification showed up just below the timestamp.

BEAUCHAMP HOUSEHOLD SECURITY.

My stomach twisted.

Someone from my own family had entered the condominium.

Someone who apparently believed I would not discover it.

Alexander reached for his phone. "I want every exit covered. Do not engage until we identify him." He ended the call and reached for his jacket. "You're not going back there tonight."

I turned toward him. "You don't get to decide that."

His jaw tightened. For one second, I saw the instinctive command rise behind his eyes. Then, he stopped himself.

The change was subtle, but I noticed it.

Alexander placed his jacket over his arm. "You can stay with Nadine. I'll put security outside her building, nowhere inside unless you request it. I can arrange a hotel under another name and reserve the entire floor." He paused. "Or you can come home with me."

I stared at him. "Home?"

His gaze held mine. "Ours."

The word landed differently than wife ever had.

"Is that the house I left that night?"

"Yes."

"Do I still have things there?"

Something almost painful passed across his face. "Everything."

"My clothes?"

"Yes."

"My books?"

"Every one."

I swallowed. "You didn't move anything?"

"No."

Three weeks.

He had spent three weeks waiting while I lived in a condominium I hadn't known belonged to him, keeping an entire home untouched for a wife who looked at him and saw a stranger.

I thought about the wedding photograph inside my handbag.

The cherry blossoms.

His scar.

The kiss.

The man currently searching through my bedroom.

And Alexander, who had invaded my privacy in ways that should have terrified me but had also just given me proof that someone inside my own family was lying.

"Take me there."

He did not move. "Cornelia..."

"You said you wouldn't choose whether I came back to you."

"I won't."

I picked up my handbag. "Then, I'm choosing to see it."

Alexander watched me for several seconds before reaching for his coat. "All right." He walked around the desk and opened the office door, but something in his expression had become strangely guarded.

Before I stepped into the corridor, his voice stopped me.

"There is something you should know."

I looked back.

"Your room is exactly the way you left it."

For reasons I couldn't explain, those words frightened me more than the stranger inside my condominium.