Chapter 4: The Truth He's Hiding

Elena's POV

The lock screen didn't open.

I assumed I'd been careless and typed the wrong digits, so I entered the passcode again. Same result — the phone stayed locked.

I sat there for a few seconds, genuinely doubting my own memory, then tried everything I could think of: my birthday, Lucas's birthday, every combination that had ever meant something to us. None of them worked.

I sat on the edge of the bed staring at the darkened screen, turning the question over in my mind without getting anywhere. Why would Lucas change his passcode? What possible reason could he have? The answer that kept surfacing was the one I didn't want to examine too closely — that he had something to hide, something he was afraid I'd find.

In the year since we married, we had always been open with each other. Neither of us had ever gone through the other's phone, but that was because we hadn't needed to. Trust had made it unnecessary.

Things were different now. Too much had gone wrong between us in recent weeks, too many misunderstandings had piled up, and I could feel the certainty I'd once had in Lucas — in his honesty, in his love — beginning to crack under the weight of all of it.

Then the screen lit up again. Another notification from that account with the rose profile picture. Whatever the message said was hidden behind the lock screen, visible only as a banner I couldn't fully read. I picked the phone up, my fingers moving toward the screen with some half-formed idea of trying another unlock method, when footsteps came down the hall. I looked up. Lucas was already at the bedside.

"Baby, what's wrong?"

When he sat down and pulled me into his arms, I turned the phone face-down against the mattress in one quick motion. I didn't want him to know I'd been looking. Part of me felt guilty about it — caught between my own anxiety and a stubborn need to know the truth before I said a word.

"You were in the shower forever," I said, letting a little playfulness soften my voice. "I almost fell asleep waiting for you."

I tilted my head back to look at him. His throat moved as he swallowed, and when our eyes met, I could see the heat in his dark gaze, that familiar hunger he never quite managed to conceal.

"Elena." His voice came out low and careful. "Daisy told me how badly you were hurt. I'm not going to do anything that makes it worse."

He said the words, but his hand had already slipped inside my bra, cupping my breast, his palm warm and unhurried. Once, I would have let myself sink into this without a second thought — I had always loved what we did together in bed, the closeness of it, the way it felt like proof of something real between us. But tonight there was a distance inside me I couldn't close. Something hollow, something guarded, and underneath it, a faint but unmistakable resistance.

I closed my fingers around his hand and tried to pull it away. He pressed me back against the mattress without effort; I was never a match for him when he decided he wanted something.

"Let me take care of you," he murmured. "I need you."

I started to say I wasn't in the mood, but he kissed me before the words formed. His tongue parted my lips and found mine, and the taste of him — cool mint, clean and familiar.

He drew my bra off and kept his mouth on mine while his hands moved over me, and I heard myself make a sound that disappeared into the kiss. His eyes stayed open, watching my face with that mix of possessive amusement and naked tenderness that he had never learned to hide, and something in my chest went soft without my permission.

Maybe I had it wrong. Maybe I was reading shadows into things that weren't there. A man who looked at his wife the way Lucas was looking at me right now — how could that man be lying?

I let myself believe it, just for a moment. And in that moment he stripped away the rest of my clothes and drew me upright against him.

"Baby — come on."

I looked down at him, at the thick, hard length of him rising from the hair at his groin, desire radiating off him in waves. "Lucas," I said softly. "I love you."

I meant it completely. I always had. Whatever he asked of me, I would give it — I always had, because loving him had never felt like a sacrifice. I closed my eyes and leaned toward him.

"Baby — no, no." He stopped me with a hand on my shoulder, gentle but firm. "Not like that. Not tonight. Let me take care of you instead."

He laid me back against the pillows, and his hand traveled slowly up the inside of my thigh before coming to rest at the crease where my leg met my hip, stroking in small, deliberate circles. I was already flushed, already wanting him, even with everything else sitting heavy in my chest. When I spread my legs, he lowered his head between them, and the first press of his lips against my sex made me gasp and clap a hand over my mouth.

"My love." His voice came up from between my thighs, rough and warm. "You don't have to do that. I want to hear you."

I let my hand fall. He worked slowly, reading every sound I made, his mouth achingly gentle against skin that was still tender, and the care he took undid me faster than anything rougher ever could. My thighs began to tremble, and then I was coming apart against his mouth, soaking the sheets beneath me before I could do anything to stop it.

He kissed his way back up my body and pressed his lips to mine, and I could taste myself on him. He was smiling — that quiet, self-satisfied smile — when he pulled back to look at me. "Feel good?"

I cupped his face in both hands. My voice had gone rough. "So good. I love you so much."

"I love you just as much," he said, and folded me into his arms.

I pressed my face to his chest and listened to his heartbeat, steady and strong, and let myself imagine — the way I sometimes did when everything felt right between us — that it would always be like this. That we would grow old together. That this was permanent.

But when my eyes drifted to his phone, still lying face-down on the mattress where I'd left it, the fear came back without warning. A cold, specific dread: the image of Lucas lying like this with someone else, his arms around a different woman, his voice saying the same things he'd said to me tonight. The thought was so vivid it made my eyes sting.

I pressed closer to him, my lips moving against his chest. "Lucas. Promise me you won't leave me."

"What kind of thing is that to say?"

"Promise me. Promise you'll only love me — the way I love you."

He laughed softly, and it was the gentlest sound I'd heard from him in weeks. "I'll love you more than that. More than my own life."

He hadn't noticed anything off about me tonight. He'd held himself back, too — hadn't pushed further than he had, because he was worried about hurting me. He carried me to the bathroom and washed my hair and my body himself, careful with every touch, and afterward he pulled me into bed and tucked me against him with my head on his pillow, the way he always did.

He was asleep within minutes. I could tell by the change in his breathing, the way the tension left his face and he became, in sleep, someone younger and unguarded. I lay there watching him and couldn't make myself close my eyes. I was afraid to waste the moment. Afraid that moments like this were numbered.

"Are we going to be okay?" I whispered to him, too quietly to wake him. "I'm so scared of losing you. I'm scared you don't love me anymore."

Then something shifted on the nightstand and fell — a soft thud against the hardwood floor. I rolled over. It was Lucas's phone. The screen had come on when it landed, and two notification banners from that rose-icon account sat glowing at the top of the display, impossible to ignore, cutting straight through me like something sharp.

I picked the phone up and looked back at Lucas. He hadn't moved.

I knew he had fingerprint unlock enabled. Moving slowly, barely breathing, I lifted his right hand and pressed his index finger to the sensor. The screen opened.