Two Little Secrets From My Boss

Chapter 66

The house had settled into an uneasy quiet.

The girls were asleep when I checked on them, exhausted from the emotional weight of the past few days even if they didn't fully understand it. I'd checked on them twice already—Nina sprawled across her bed with one arm dangling off the edge, Lisa curled tight under her covers with her stuffed unicorn pressed against her chest.

They looked peaceful in a way that felt almost miraculous given everything they'd been through.

I found Daphne in the living room, sitting alone on the couch in the dark. She hadn't turned on any lights; the only illumination came from the city beyond our windows, casting long shadows across the floor. Her knees were drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them, her gaze fixed on something I couldn't see.

My first instinct was to fix something. To offer solutions, make plans, take action. That's what I knew how to do—identify problems and solve them. But standing in the doorway, watching my wife sit alone with her thoughts, I understood that this wasn't a problem I could solve with money or influence or force of will.

So I didn't try to fix anything. I just sat down beside her.

The cushions shifted under my weight, and Daphne glanced over briefly before returning her gaze to the window. She didn't speak, and I didn't push. We sat in silence for several minutes, the only sound the distant hum of traffic far below and the soft tick of the clock in the hallway.

"I've been thinking," I said finally, my voice low in the darkness. "About what you said to your parents."

Daphne didn't respond, but I felt her attention shift toward me.

"I've been thinking about all the ways I haven't been what you needed," the words came slowly, each one requiring effort to form and release. "Not just years ago, when I disappeared, but since then too, since we found each other again."

"Xander, you don't have to—"

"Please, let me say this." I turned to face her more fully, though I could barely make out her features in the dim light. "I need to say it, and I need you to hear it without trying to make me feel better about it."

She fell silent, waiting.

"I know I haven't always been what you needed emotionally. I've been present physically—in this apartment, in your life, in the girls' lives. But being present and being truly available are different things, and I haven't always managed the second one."

I ran my hand through my hair, a gesture of frustration directed at myself.

"When things got hard at work, I retreated into that. When the pressure from the board mounted, I pulled away instead of letting you in. When Bianca started her threats, I kept secrets instead of trusting you with the truth." My voice roughened. "I told myself I was protecting you, but I was really protecting myself. From vulnerability, from having to admit I didn't have everything under control."

Daphne remained still, her eyes reflecting the city lights, her expression unreadable.

"I don't have a model for being better," I continued. "My father wasn't around. My mother—well, you've seen what she is. I grew up learning that emotions were weaknesses to be exploited, that showing vulnerability invited attack, that the only way to survive was to build walls high enough that no one could climb them."

"And then I met you," I reached for her hand in the darkness, found it cold, and wrapped my fingers around it. "You, who'd been abandoned by everyone who should have protected you, and still somehow remained open. Still somehow trusted. Still somehow believed that people could be better than their worst moments."

"I wanted to believe that too," Daphne said quietly. "Sometimes I still do."

"You were right to believe it," I squeezed her hand gently, "but I haven't given you much evidence lately, have I? I let my pride and my fear put our daughters in danger."

"You didn't know what Bianca would do."

"I should have told you the moment she started threatening me. I should have trusted you enough to face it together instead of trying to handle it alone," I shook my head slowly. "That's what I'm trying to say, Daphne. I know the ways I've failed you. I can see them clearly now, even if I was blind to them before."

The silence stretched between us, heavy with everything we'd been through and everything still left to navigate.

"I don't have a roadmap for this," I admitted. "I don't know how to be the husband you deserve, the father our girls need. I only have the intention to learn. To be better than I've been, to show up in the ways that matter, even when it's uncomfortable."

"What does that look like to you?" Daphne's voice was soft, curious rather than challenging.

"Listening when every instinct tells me to solve instead, staying present when it would be easier to retreat into work or silence. It looks like speaking the hard truths when keeping quiet feels safer," I turned her hand over in mine, tracing the lines of her palm. "It looks like being here, really here, even when I don't know what to say or do."

"That's a lot of promises."

"They're intentions," I met her eyes in the darkness. "Promises are things I can break. Intentions are what I have to work at every single day. I'm not going to be perfect at this. I'm going to fail sometimes, probably more often than I want to admit. But I'm going to keep trying."

Daphne didn't interrupt. She didn't reassure me and didn't promise forgiveness or tell me everything would be okay. She just sat there, listening, her hand warm in mine now from the contact.

I continued, my voice dropping lower. "I heard how your parents abandoned you when you needed them most. And I know I did something similar, even if the circumstances were different. I left you alone to face the hardest thing you'd ever been through."

"You didn't know I was pregnant."

"That doesn't matter. I made it impossible for you to find me," the guilt I'd been carrying for months pressed against my chest. "Your parents made a conscious decision to walk away. I made a different kind of decision, but the result was the same. You were alone when you shouldn't have been."

"I survived," Daphne said simply.

"You did more than that. You thrived and raised two incredible daughters, built a life and became the strongest person I've ever known," I lifted her hand to my lips, pressing a kiss against her knuckles. "But you shouldn't have had to do it alone, and I can't change that. I can only try to be different now."

She was quiet for a long moment, and I let the silence stretch without trying to fill it.

Then, slowly, she leaned into me. Her forehead came to rest against my chest, her body curling toward mine with a trust that felt fragile and precious. I wrapped my arms around her carefully, holding her like she might break, like we both might break if I squeezed too hard.

Her breath was warm through my shirt, her heartbeat a steady rhythm against my ribs. We stayed like that in the darkness, two people who had hurt each other and been hurt, trying to find their way back to solid ground.

This wasn't a resolution, and I understood that clearly. The wounds were still too fresh, the trust still too fractured for everything to be healed by one conversation in the dark. But it was something—a beginning, a foundation, a first step on what I knew would be a long and difficult road.

I held my wife carefully, breathing in the scent of her hair, feeling the warmth of her body against mine. Outside, the city hummed with life and noise and chaos. Inside, there was only silence and stillness and the fragile hope that effort might be enough.