TOWARD THE DISTANCE Chapter 4

The next morning, Cade's phone started ringing before six.

He silenced it, then rolled over and pulled Elena close. "Forget it. Go back to sleep."

The phone buzzed again. And again. Cade groaned, sat up, and answered it with an irritated edge. "It's not even time to be awake yet. What is so urgent that you need to call me three times before sunrise?"

He listened. His jaw tightened.

"Fine," he said, and hung up. He turned back to Elena with a softer expression. "Go back to sleep, sweetheart. I'll handle it."

He grabbed his phone and left the bedroom.

Elena lay still, listening. She heard the front door open. She heard him step outside.

A few minutes passed. Then Cade came back in, but his hands were empty. He'd been carrying something when he left — she was sure of it — and now it was gone.

"Everything okay at the company?" Elena asked when he returned to the kitchen.

"It's fine. Nothing to worry about." He smiled, bright and reassuring. "I'm going to make you breakfast. A proper one. You shouldn't eat out when your stomach's been acting up."

He made eggs, toast, warm milk, oatmeal with honey. He set it all out like he was staging a photograph. Elena watched him move around the kitchen — efficient, attentive, performing the role of perfect husband with such practiced ease that if she hadn't seen the chat messages, she might have believed it.

"I'll find someone to come cook for you every day," he said, sliding a bowl toward her. "A proper housekeeper. So you're eating well while I'm at work."

"That's not necessary."

"Please. I worry about you when I'm not here."

Elena set down her fork. "Cade. Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"The seven-year itch. Do you think it's real?"

Cade's face contorted with exaggerated disgust. "That's just an excuse other men use when they want to cheat. I'm not like that. I will love you and only you for the rest of my life."

"Only me. Forever."

"Yes."

"And if you ever loved someone else?"

"Then God strike me down. I wouldn't deserve to live."

Elena smiled — a thin, bitter thing. "That's a heavy oath. Aren't you afraid it might actually come true?"

"Why would I be afraid? Everything I say to you is the truth."

Elena picked up her fork again and spread jam on her toast.

"You need to believe in me, Elena," Cade said.

"Eat your breakfast," she replied.

"You still don't trust me? Do I need to cut my heart open and show it to you before you'll believe me?"

"The company needs you. Don't be late."

Cade finally relaxed, settling into the chair across from her. "Let them wait. They're useless anyway. I should fire all of them."

"Fire her? You can afford to do that?"

Elena said "her." Not "them."

She didn't know if Cade caught it. All she heard him say was: "Besides you, there's nothing I can't let go of."