“You can’t just leave.”
She looked at him then. For the first time since he had come through the door, she let him see her eyes. Not anger. Not devastation. Something much harder to argue with.“I can,” she said.
Ryan’s mouth tightened. She had seen that expression dozens of times and had spent years learning to soften herself before it arrived, to pre-apologize, to find some way to make herself smaller so his displeasure would have less to land on. His father made the same face when a waiter was too slow. His mother made the same face when Claire said she was too tired to host Sunday lunch. In the Calloway family, disappointment was not a feeling. It was a tool, and they had all learned to use it with precision.
He shifted sideways in the doorway. Not enough to block her. Just enough to remind her that he could.
Claire held her son closer and looked at her husband steadily.
