He Came Back Running (Maya and Mason) novel Chapter 2

I stayed until the last possible minute.

Not because there was work left. Because I needed time to rebuild the mask.

By the time I stepped into the executive hallway leading to the private parking garage, my heels clicked with deliberate calm.

My makeup was fresh, concealer over the red rims of my eyes, lipstick the exact shade of controlled power I’d worn on our wedding day. No one would guess I’d spent the last three hours staring at balance sheets without seeing a single number.

Mason was already there.

He stood beside the glass doors that separated the polished corporate world from the concrete garage below, scrolling through his phone with that bored, impatient flick of his thumb. Black suit, crisp white shirt, cufflinks glinting under the recessed lighting, every inch the untouchable billionaire. Not a hair out of place. Not a flicker of warmth in his posture

He didn’t look up when I approached.

I stopped a few feet away, clutching my leather portfolio like it was armor.

“Mason”

His eyes lifted slowly, the way someone glances at a mildly irritating delay. No smile. No softening. Just the flat, assessing stare he’d perfected over the last eight years.

“What?”

I swallowed the acid rising in my throat. “Do you remember what tomorrow is?”

His brow creased for half a second, genuine confusion before smoothing out again into indifference. He slipped the phone into his pocket.

“Should I?”

The question wasn’t cruel. It was worse. It was careless.

I forced my voice steady. “It’s our eighth wedding anniversary.”

He exhaled through his nose, a short, impatient sound. The sigh of a man who’d already mentally checked out of the conversation before it began.

“Right,” he said, as though I’d reminded him of a minor tax filing deadline. “That.”

No wonder.

No wonder he could kiss Selina in the boardroom like she was oxygen. No wonder he could build an entire future inside her while I stood outside the door like a ghost.

I kept my face blank. The pregnancy stayed locked behind my teeth. He didn’t deserve to know I knew….not yet.

Instead I asked the question that had been clawing at me for years, the one I’d always swallowed because pride is a luxury a convenient wife can’t afford.

“What did I do wrong, Mason?” My voice came out quieter than I intended. “What did I do that made you hate me so much?”

He looked at me then….. Not with anger. Not with pity. With the detached curiosity of someone examining a mildly interesting artifact.

“Nothing,” he said simply. “You didn’t do anything wrong”

The hallway lights buzzed faintly overhead.

“Then why?” I pressed, stepping closer despite every instinct screaming to run. “Why do you look at me like I’m something you’re forced to endure? Why do you touch me like it’s a chore?”

He tilted his head, studying me the way he studied quarterly projections….cold, clinical, searching for the line item that didn’t add up.

“Because this….” he gestured loosely between us, “……was never supposed to be more than what it is. A transaction. Our fathers needed the merger to survive. We were the signature on the contract. That’s all”

My chest tightened until breathing felt optional.

“I know that,” I said. “I’ve always known that. But I thought… I thought if I tried hard enough”

He cut me off with a small, humorless laugh.

“You thought what? That devotion would turn into love? That if you learned every shipping route, charmed every investor, hosted every dinner party with perfect poise, I’d suddenly wake up and feel something for you?”

I felt the sting of it everywhere, cheeks, throat, chest…like I’d been stripped naked under fluorescent lights.

But beneath the humiliation, something colder was taking root. Something sharp and final.

I lifted my chin.

“So that’s it?” I asked softly. “Eight years, and the verdict is I’m boring?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “You asked.”

I nodded once.

Then I turned and walked toward the elevator without another word.

He didn’t call after me.

Why would he?

The doors slid closed between us, and I watched his silhouette blur and vanish behind frosted glass.

Alone in the metal box, descending into the garage, I pressed my palm flat against the cool wall and let out one long, shuddering breath.

He thought he’d just ended something.

He had no idea he’d only just begun it.

Tomorrow was our anniversary.

Tomorrow I would smile for the cameras if there were any.

Tomorrow I would let him think I was still the same predictable, devoted wife he could discard at his leisure.