Chapter 140

Chapter 140
Anna POV


The car rolled to a stop outside my building as the sun began its slow descent behind the skyline, painting the streets in shades of amber and rose gold. I unbuckled my seatbelt, the click of the release mechanism somehow too loud in the quiet interior, and turned toward Edward with what I hoped was a casual smile.

"You should go," I said, keeping my voice light, but even to my own ears it sounded stiff, unnatural, like I was reading lines from a script I hadn't quite memorized.

The words had barely left my lips when my stomach let out a long, unmistakable growl that seemed to echo in the enclosed space. Heat flooded my cheeks instantly, and I pressed a hand against my abdomen as if I could somehow silence the betrayal, my face burning with mortification.

Edward's lips twitched—just barely, but I caught it—before he schooled his features into something carefully neutral. "When was the last time you ate?" he asked, his tone gentle but pointed, and I realized with a start that neither of us had consumed anything since that hurried coffee this morning before we'd left for the mountains.

"I'm fine," I started to say, but my traitorous body chose that exact moment to produce another embarrassing rumble, and I wanted nothing more than for the leather seat to swallow me whole.

"We should get dinner," Edward said, and there was something almost tentative in the way he phrased it, as if he were testing the waters. "I'll take you somewhere, and then I'll bring you back. Deal?"

I stared at the dashboard, at the sleek lines of expensive engineering that somehow felt less intimidating than meeting his eyes in that moment. My mind flashed back to another time, another evening, when I'd stood in the kitchen of the Frost Estate—that massive, echoing space that had never quite felt like mine—and cooked a bowl of noodles for him. I'd heard him come in late, exhausted from another marathon day of meetings and negotiations, and something in me had wanted to do something, anything, to show him I cared, that I saw his exhaustion, that I wanted to help ease it in whatever small way I could.

I'd waited in that kitchen, the steam from the bowl rising in the cold air, my heart doing this stupid hopeful thing in my chest as I heard his footsteps approaching. And then he'd walked in, taken one look at the offering I'd prepared with such care, and said in that flat, distant voice that had become so familiar: "I don't need this. Don't waste your time on things like this."

The noodles had gone into the trash, still untouched, still warm. And I'd never cooked in that kitchen again.

"I haven't cooked in a while," I heard myself say now, the words coming out before I'd fully thought them through. "I was thinking maybe I could pick up some groceries. Make something at my place."

I watched Edward's expression shift, saw something bright and almost vulnerable flash across his features before he could hide it. "So I get to taste your cooking tonight?" he said, and there was a warmth in his voice that made my chest tighten.

I turned to look at him fully then, forcing my features into what I hoped was an appropriately annoyed expression. "I never said you could stay for dinner."

The words came out sharper than I'd intended, carrying an edge of defensiveness that I hadn't quite meant to reveal. But as soon as they were out there, hanging in the air between us, I couldn't take them back. And maybe I didn't want to.

Because I was thinking about those noodles again, about the careful way I'd arranged the green onions on top, about how I'd timed everything so they'd be perfect when he came home, about the small, pathetic hope I'd harbored that maybe, just maybe, he'd appreciate the gesture, that it might soften something between us.

And I was thinking about his face when he'd dismissed it all, about how thoroughly he'd crushed that fragile thing in my chest without even seeming to notice he'd done it.

"That night," I continued, my voice quieter now but no less pointed, "when you came home late and I'd made you noodles. You told me not to waste my time. You didn't even try them. Just... threw them away like they were nothing."

I watched his jaw tighten, saw the way his fingers flexed against the steering wheel.

"So forgive me if I'm not exactly eager to put myself through that again," I finished, and hated how much my voice wavered on the last word, how close I was to revealing just how much that moment had hurt, how many times I'd replayed it in my mind during our marriage, each replay adding another layer to the wall I'd built around myself.

The silence that followed felt heavy, weighted with things unsaid. Edward's hands remained on the steering wheel, his knuckles white with tension, and for a long moment I thought maybe he wouldn't respond at all, that he'd just start the car and drive away and we'd pretend this conversation had never happened.

But then he turned to look at me, and his expression was strange—caught somewhere between regret and something that looked almost like amusement, though there was no humor in his eyes.

"Which bastard said that to you?" he asked, his voice carefully measured. "Because when I'm done eating tonight, I'm going to find him and teach him a lesson about basic human decency."

I blinked at him, momentarily thrown by the response, by the way he'd somehow managed to acknowledge the hurt while simultaneously distancing himself from it, as if that Edward—the one who'd dismissed my offerings so carelessly—was a completely different person from the man sitting beside me now.

And despite everything, despite all the reasons I had to stay angry, to maintain my walls, I felt a laugh bubble up in my throat, unexpected and genuine. It came out as a small, slightly watery sound, and I had to blink rapidly to keep the moisture gathering in my eyes from spilling over.

"You're ridiculous," I said, but there was no heat in it, just a sort of helpless affection that I couldn't quite suppress.

Edward unbuckled his seatbelt then, the movement fluid and deliberate, and shifted in his seat to face me more fully. Before I could process what was happening, his hand came up to cup my jaw, his thumb brushing across my cheekbone with a gentleness that made my breath catch.

"I want to eat your cooking," he said, his voice low and rough, and there was something almost desperate in it, something that reminded me of the way he'd held me on that hilltop, like I was something precious he was afraid of losing. "I want it so badly, Anna. I've wanted it for so long, and I was too stupid and too wrapped up in my own bullshit to see what you were offering me."

His breath was warm against my face, and I could feel my resolve crumbling, could feel all the carefully constructed defenses I'd built starting to crack under the weight of his words, under the intensity of his gaze.

"Please," he added, and the single word carried so much weight, so much vulnerability, that I felt my own walls beginning to fracture.

I didn't trust myself to speak, didn't trust that my voice wouldn't break completely if I tried, so instead I just reached up and wrapped my hand around the back of his neck, pulling him closer until our foreheads touched. His arms came around my waist immediately, pulling me against him as much as the center console would allow, and I buried my face in the curve of his shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent of his cologne mixed with something that was purely him.

We stayed like that for a long moment, the windows beginning to fog around us as the evening air cooled, our breathing gradually synchronizing as we held each other in the dimming light. And for the first time in longer than I could remember, I felt something in my chest that might have been hope.