Chapter 17
The penthouse was still wrapped in calm when Cassian’s phone rang.
It wasn’t the polite vibration he usually kept during quiet hours—it was sharp, insistent, cutting through the soft hush of the living room like a blade. Mira looked up from the couch where she’d been half-curled, a throw draped loosely over her legs, watching the light creep slowly across the marble floor.
Cassian glanced at the screen once.
Just once.
Something in his expression shifted—not alarm exactly, but focus. The kind that snapped into place when he was needed elsewhere.
“I have to take this,” he said, already moving.
Mira nodded automatically. She was used to this side of him. The man who belonged to rooms she never entered, conversations that happened behind closed doors, decisions that changed things quietly and permanently.
He spoke in low tones near the window, his back half-turned to her. She didn’t try to listen. She didn’t need to. His posture said enough—shoulders squared, jaw tight, mind already several steps ahead of the present moment.
When he ended the call, he didn’t sit back down.
“There’s an emergency meeting,” he said, reaching for his jacket. “Something came up. I’ll be late p>
“Oh.” Mira straightened slightly. “How late p>
Cassian hesitated just long enough for her to notice.
“It’s being held near my private residence,” he said carefully. “Two days. Possibly longer. It wouldn’t make sense to commute back and forth from Draymond Tower p>
The words were reasonable. Logical. Perfectly Cassian.
“So… you’ll stay there,” she said.
“Yes p>
He watched her face as she processed it—how quickly she nodded, how smoothly she masked the small flicker of disappointment behind a calm expression.
“I’ll be fine,” she said before he could ask. “Really. You don’t need to worry p>
Something unreadable crossed his eyes.
“I’ll have the staff check in on you,” he said. “If you need anything—anything at all—you tell them p>
She smiled, light and practiced. “I’m not made of glass p>
“I know p>
He stepped closer, close enough that she could smell his cologne—familiar now, grounding. For a brief second, she thought he might touch her. A hand on her shoulder. Her arm. Something simple.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he adjusted his cufflinks, the faint clink of metal sounding louder than it should have.
“I’ll call,” he said.
“Of course,” she replied.
He left minutes later, the doors closing softly behind him.
Too softly.
The quiet settled in slowly, like dust after something heavy had been moved.
Mira remained where she was for several minutes, staring at the space he’d occupied, her fingers twisting absently into the fabric of the throw. The city outside hummed—distant horns, muted voices—but inside the penthouse, everything felt suspended.
She exhaled.
“It’s just two days,” she murmured to herself, rising from the couch. “You’ll survive two days p>
She wandered toward the kitchen, stopping midway as her hand drifted—without thinking—to her stomach.
Nothing had changed.
No visible curve. No movement. Just the same body she’d always had.
And yet.
A strange ache bloomed in her chest, sharp and unexpected, as if something inside her recognized the absence before her mind could rationalize it.
Get a grip, Mira.
She shook her head lightly and squared her shoulders. There were things to do. No reason to sit around missing someone who had important matters to attend to.
She called one of the housemaids over, asking politely if everything was in order. When the woman offered to prepare something special for dinner, Mira declined with a smile.
“I’ll eat later,” she said. “But thank you p>
She walked through the penthouse slowly, touching familiar surfaces—the cool marble counter, the smooth back of the dining chair—grounding herself in the physicality of the space.
Cassian’s space.
She reminded herself, not unkindly, that this arrangement had never promised comfort. Or closeness. Or permanence.
This is temporary, she thought. All of it is.
The evening stretched on. She tried reading, but the words blurred together. She tried watching something mindless, but the silence between scenes pressed in too tightly.
Her body felt… restless. She felt sensitive down there.
Not in any specific way she could name. Just an awareness. A sensitivity under her skin that hadn’t been there before. When she shifted on the couch, it lingered. When she hugged her arms around herself, it didn’t help.
She sighed, tipping her head back against the cushions.
“Pregnancy hormones,” she muttered. “That’s all p>
The explanation felt thin, but she clung to it anyway.
She didn’t need him here. She wasn’t helpless. She could take care of herself.
The words echoed hollowly in her mind.
Later that night, as she stood by the window, watching the city lights flicker like distant stars, the truth slipped through the cracks of her resolve.
She missed him.
Not in a dramatic, sweeping way. Just in small, irritating moments—when she reached for her phone and realized there was no new message. When she heard a noise and instinctively expected his presence behind it.
Her fingers curled against the glass.
He doesn’t need to be here to comfort me, she told herself firmly.
The sigh that followed betrayed her.
It wasn’t just comfort she craved. She was needing physical touch, affection—something she could crave now.
It was the quiet certainty of him. The way his presence anchored the room. The way he looked at her like she was something he was assessing—and protecting—at the same time.
She pressed her palm lightly to her stomach again, her touch gentler now, more conscious.
“I’m fine,” she whispered. “We’re fine p>
The words were for herself as much as for the tiny, impossible life she carried.
Somewhere across the city, Cassian was immersed in meetings and strategy and decisions that mattered.
And here she was, learning—slowly, quietly—that silence could be louder than any argument.
Mira turned away from the window, switching off the lights one by one, letting the penthouse settle into darkness.
Two days, she reminded herself as she headed to bed.
Just two days.
Still, as she lay alone beneath the covers, the space beside her cool and untouched, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something had shifted—that the distance, however temporary, had already begun to leave its mark.
And deep down, beneath her practiced calm and whispered reassurances, she knew she was lying to herself.
Not because she was weak.
But because wanting him—needing his presence—was becoming harder to deny.
And this time, silence didn’t soothe her.
It lingered.