"Thank God you're home."

Angela's breath caught when Tony greeted her. When she saw the light on, she'd assumed it would be one of the kids. She took a step back against the closed door as he flew over from the couch. For a second, she'd followed her impulse to spend the night in a hotel.

"Hi…" she said after several seconds.

"I was… uh… starting to worry."

Glancing at her watch, she said, "It's ten past nine."

"I know," he said, looking at the floor. "It's just, last I saw you…"

When he didn't finish, she said, "I'm going to bed."

Her foot had only grazed the bottom step when he said, "Angela, wait."

She sighed, not moving.

"We can't end the day like this."

"How?"

"With you so upset with me."

Finally turning to look at him, she said, "I'm not upset with you. I'm tired." It was mostly true. She was powerless against what happened. It seemed fruitless to hold a grudge. Did it feel fair? Not really, but maybe that was on her.

"I don't believe you," he said.

"Do you want me to be mad?"

"No, I just want you to be honest with me."

"It's stung. There's nothing else to say."

"I mean it, Angela, I never planned on any of this."

Surrendering to the fact he wasn't going to let her go upstairs, she walked down to the bottom step and leaned on the railing. "I've already told you that I believe you. Why can't we just leave it at that?"

"Because I feel terrible."

"I can't help that."

His voice starting to sound desperate, Tony said, "I just… I dunno. I just want to make sure things are okay between us."

Looking to the side, she took a breath. "They will be."

He frowned. "Meaning, it's not right now."

Shaking her head, Angela said softly, "I have a lot I need to sort through. I'm not angry with you, but you have to understand that I'm not able to just brush it off and move on like nothing's changed. Not tonight." Feeling the surge of her emotions, she quickly turned away. "Look, I have an early meeting tomorrow. I've got to get some sleep."

"With Peter?" His tone turned accusatory, surprising them both.

She froze. "If you must know, yes."

"I thought he was your client." His brow furrowed. "What was he doing with his hand on your shoulder?"

"Under the circumstances, I don't feel I need to explain myself."

All evening he'd told himself he wouldn't bring it up. He knew he had no right to question. As soon as he'd mentioned Kathleen, he'd lost all prying privileges. He thought he'd kept a decent hold of himself up until now. But, as always, his jealousy won over, irrational as it was thanks to his own actions.

"Didn't you hear me calling after you?" he asked.

She looked back and stared at him a moment. She almost replied but stopped herself at the first sting of tears. Nothing was going to be accomplished tonight. She started up the stairs again.

He took this as her answer. "You did."

Angela paused. "I wasn't going to further the discussion with someone else in the room."

"He could have waited outside."

Hesitantly turning around again though didn't walk back down to him, Angela said, "I needed to leave. I was in rough enough shape when I answered the door that Peter and I had to push things back to tomorrow."

He gave a nod. "So… where did you guys go if you weren't working?"

"I cannot believe you're interrogating me about this."

Innocently, he threw up his hands. "I'm not interrogating, I'm wondering."

"Frankly, Tony, it's no longer your concern if I decide to go out for coffee with a man. If this is something we have to go through, it's going to go both ways."

"It just seems awfully fast. Less than a minute after you left the den?"

"I'm not doing this. Clearly, you're not going to be satisfied until I'm angry with you. I'm not having this fight. It's not my problem if the only way you're going to feel better is if I yell and scream at you."

"How long have you been attracted to him?" he said, completely ignoring her.

Heat rose to her cheeks, but she refused to give him the satisfaction. Gripping the railing until her knuckles were white, she tried steadying her pulse. With a couple of breaths, she started sucking on her bottom lip. She only spoke when she thought it would come out smoothly, inwardly cursing when her voice ended up breaking.

"Since he gave me a shoulder to cry on." Not giving him the chance to respond, she ran upstairs and locked herself in her room.

Tony kicked the leg of the couch and let out a low growl.

What the hell was he doing?

Two days ago, everything was wonderful. It was Angela and no one else. Things had been stressful lately, sure, but she was the relief from it all. Really, the past year had been among the happiest. He knew that was due to her and due to the underlying promises ahead. So what possessed him to mess it all up… to keep messing it up when she'd more or less let him off the hook?

Everything about the last forty-eight hours seemed to have happened at sonic speed. One minute he couldn't stand Kathleen, the next they were in bed. One minute he felt like he'd betrayed Angela, the next he was agreeing with Mona about wanting it to happen. One minute he decided to come clean to Angela, the next he was telling her he the affair wasn't finished. One minute he was telling himself it's good that Angela has someone else to be with right now, the next he's shaming her for finding someone so quickly – all the while holding onto someone else for himself.

The lack of control he felt terrified him. And for the first time in a long while, he couldn't see what lay ahead of him in the future. All he knew was that he didn't want to lose Angela, but he also wasn't ready to let things go with Kathleen…