Chapter 57 Drunk confrontation
Timothy
I glanced at the clock again.
The soft tick of it felt louder than it should have, each second stretching, pressing against my skull. My jaw clenched, my foot tapping against the floor in a sharp, impatient rhythm I couldn’t seem to stop.
She was late.
No, worse.
I was being stood up. I was so sure of it.
The thought was so absurd it almost made me scoff out loud. Me. Timothy fucking Blackwood, sitting in my own dining room, dressed for dinner, waiting like an idiot. Being stood up for dinner in my own house. By my own wife.
The word hit me sideways.
Wife.
I stilled, irritation momentarily eclipsed by something more unsettled. I almost never thought of Hannah like that. Technically, yes; legally, absolutely but in practice? The word felt foreign in my mouth and head . We didn’t use it. We didn’t acknowledge it unless we were outside, in public, playing our assigned roles.
Still. Wife or not, we had made a plan.
I checked the clock again.
Lisa passed through the doorway, heels quiet on the polished floor. She slowed, glanced at the clock, then at me, one perfectly groomed brow arching.
“Aren’t you eating?” she asked mildly.
“No,” I said immediately, jaw tight.
She hummed, clearly unconvinced. “Sir… I don’t think she’s coming.”
I shot her a glare. “She is.”
Lisa held my stare for a long moment, then sighed like someone indulging a stubborn child. “If you say so.” She turned and walked away.
I stayed seated for another ten minutes.
Ten long, miserable minutes.
Then I stood abruptly and began pacing, running a hand through my hair as irritation curdled into something sharper. I pulled out my phone and called Hannah.
It rang.
And rang.
No answer.
I called again.
Straight to ringing.
Again.
Nothing.
My chest tightened in a way I didn’t like. I stopped pacing long enough to call her guards.
“She’s safe,” one of them assured me. “At a bar. With her friends and colleagues. They’re having drinks.”
A bar.
I felt my mouth flatten into a hard line. “Fine,” I said curtly and ended the call.
So that was it.
She stood me up to go drinking.
I told myself I didn’t care. I told myself this was exactly the kind of behavior I’d come to expect from her. I sat back down, opened my tablet, and forced myself to work.
Emails. Contracts. Numbers.
Time passed, but none of it stuck. Words blurred together. Figures meant nothing. Every few minutes, my eyes drifted back to the clock without my permission.
An hour passed.
She still wasn’t home.
My chest felt tight now, uncomfortably so. I stood again, pacing like a caged animal. Lisa reappeared, tray in hand.
“You really should eat,” she said.
“I’m fine,” I snapped.
She gave me a look that said she absolutely did not believe that and walked away again.
Another stretch of time crawled by before my phone rang. The guards.
“We’re on our way back now, sir. Hannah’s with us.”
Finally.
Relief flared, sharp and unwelcome. I straightened, suddenly restless, and called Lisa to have dinner arranged. Then I headed toward the front, composing myself, schooling my expression into something neutral.
The door opened.
Hannah stumbled in, half-supported by one of the guards.
She was drunk.
Not tipsy. Not buzzed.
Drunk.
Her hair was slightly askew, her movements loose, her eyes glassy as she laughed softly at something no one had said. For a second, I just stared, at a complete loss.
“I’ll take her,” I said, stepping forward.
The guard handed her over carefully, relief clear on his face. Hannah sagged against me immediately, mumbling something incoherent.
I carried her upstairs, irritation and concern tangling in my chest. She was lighter than I expected. Or maybe I just noticed it more this time. I laid her on the bed, slipping off her shoes as she squirmed.
“Water,” I said firmly, helping her sit up.
She pouted. “Don’ wanna.”
“Hannah.”
She scowled at me but drank anyway, spilling a little down her chin. Once the glass was empty, she flopped back onto the pillows with a dramatic sigh.
I exhaled through my nose. “I’m mad at you.”
She blinked slowly. “What?”
“I’m mad at you,” I repeated. “You stood me up. You made a promise. We made a plan to have dinner tonight, and you just…ditched me.”
She pushed herself upright suddenly, wobbling, and jabbed a finger into my chest. “Oh you’re mad?”
“Yes, I’m very much mad, in fact.”
Her face twisted, anger bleeding through the haze. “You’ve been such a dick to me,” she slurred. “Mixed signals. Hot and cold. Making my life miserable since the start of this sham of a marriage.”
I opened my mouth, but she barrelled on.
“You were nice to me and then you snatched it away like it meant nothing. If anything, I’m mad at you.”
Guilt squeezed something deep in my chest.
“Look, I know…” I started.
“No,” she snapped weakly. “You don’t trust me. You don’t believe me. You think I did something awful and I didn’t.” Her voice wavered. “I swear I didn’t.”
Her lower lip trembled. Tears welled in her eyes, and something in my chest cracked open.
I gently took her hand, lowering it. “I know,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
She blinked at me, eyes unfocused. Then she groaned and flopped face-first into the pillow.
“Hannah?”
No response.
She was out.
I stared at her for a long moment, incredulous. “Are you sleeping?” I muttered.
A soft snore answered me.
I scoffed quietly. “I’m not that boring.”
I tucked her in, brushed a strand of hair from her face, and lingered longer than I meant to. Then I straightened and left the room.
Lisa was waiting in the hallway, arms crossed, eyebrow raised.
“I’ll have that dinner now,” I muttered, marching past her.
Her soft scoff followed me down the hall.