When Her "Death" Couldn't Break Him (Cecilia and Nathaniel)

Later that evening, after dinner, Cecilia stepped into the vast living room of Rainsworth Manor and was greeted by a wall of raw, pungent alcohol fumes.

Cecilia paused in the doorway, a tight furrow pinching the space between her brows. "What on earth happened here?"

She hurried across the room. Only then did she see Nathaniel sprawled bonelessly across the couch, his jacket half-open, his tie twisted in his fist like a tourniquet.

He kept yanking at the silk, muttering words lost in a fog of liquor.

After setting the grocery bags on a side table, she leaned in and spoke his name as gently as she could. "Nathaniel."

He slept fitfully, head lolling against the cushions, too drunk to register the voice that had guided him home for years.

The reek of whiskey hit her hard. Cecilia grimaced and turned toward the hallway, ready to call for Theresa and have a pot of sobering soup started.

Before she could move, Nathaniel's fingers shot out and closed around her wrist, startlingly strong despite the stupor.

"Ceci... Ceci..." Her name spilled from him again and again, each syllable sticky with slurred devotion.

She felt the vowels of her own name melt in his mouth, turned to honey by need.

"I'm right here," she murmured, shifting closer so he could feel her presence rather than merely hear it.

The chant continued. Then, abruptly, his voice scraped into a

Cecilia blinked, completely thrown. Did he seriously just ask that? That's the sort of insecurity teenagers wrestle with during first dates. We've been married for years with four children, joint mortgages, and shared insomnia. Love

the words more placating than tender. "Now sit up and take a

knitted even tighter. "You don't

speechless. Unbelievable. This pitiful drunk is the CEO of Imminence Corporation. If his

to resist, she fished out her phone, thumbed the camera into record mode, and pointed the lens at

that for me. What

said you don't love me...

slurred yet eerily precise, the tragic clarity of a

the recording was rolling, Cecilia patted his shoulder. "All

"You do."

pry his eyelids open, but they remained stubbornly shut, as though weighed down

"Ceci, I feel awful."

heard you. Who asked you to

.n

Be good. I'll have someone simmer a

closed like a

She landed square against his chest, breath knocked from her lungs, the scent

to rise, but his arm, heavy as an iron

go now."

only tightened,