Chapter 8

Atlas pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaustion pressing down on him like a weight he couldn’t shake.

He returned to the estate. Everything was exactly as it had always been.

My books still lined the shelves. My favorite mug sat on the kitchen counter. The faint trace of my perfume lingered in their bedroom.

It was as if I had never left. As if the past twenty–four hours hadn’t shattered everything.

He sank onto the leather couch, his gaze locking onto the enormous wedding portrait that hung in the center of the living room.

The image had always been there, but tonight, for the first time, he really saw it.

The bride and groom stood side by side, facing each other, their hands entwined.

To an outsider, they looked like the perfect couple. But if one looked close–there was something else.

A quiet sorrow lingering in both of their eyes. I hadn’t understood it before. But now, I did.

The sadness in his gaze? It was because he had married a woman he believed he didn’t love.

In the beginning, we had treated each other like old friends. Polite. Respectful. But always with an invisible wall

‘between us.

Until that night.

That night when Atlas had come home reeking of whiskey, his composure undone, his defenses lowered.

uneven, his voice raw as he murmured my name over and over again

like a prayer.

Celeste.

Celeste.

Celeste.

Instead,

turned desperate. That night, something between

no

so close together it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other

22:33

Years of Love,

70.5%

Chapter 8

on, we had become what the world believed them to

husband and wife who belonged together.

himself that what he felt for me was

planned, every moment he spent by my side, every time he looked at me and felt

guilt. Nothing

Atlas clenched his jaw, his

moments of our life together, in the small intimacies we

hadn’t

mind flooding with images of me. The way I laughed, eyes crinkling at the corners. The way I looked in

surfaced–my face, pale with

trembled as he looked down at the medical report still clutched between his

sharp, unbearable pain tore through his chest, unlike anything he

don’t be sad,” a soft voice cooed from behind him. Slender arms wrapped around his shoulders, a

filling the

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