Their reconciliation had been awkward, almost forced. It had been plain to both of them just how greatly the time had changed him. Neither of them could pretend with any ease that he was the same man she'd married. But in many ways he was still the same—an ambitious man, a powerful man, important. It had been, in part, what attracted her to him in the first place. That part attracted her still, even if many of the other passions that had once simmered between them had grown cold and dead with their separation. They'd labored for months, their efforts sometimes delicate sometimes brutal, attempting to rekindle the spark that had warmed their marriage bed.

It had all fallen so flat, so far from their expectations.

They continued to play their parts, smiling and false, for his image, for their children, each resigned to bland, mutual dissatisfaction.

Then, over the past few weeks he had become aware of an abrupt change in her. Had? He had returned his flagging attention to the ailing bond between them, hopeful that she had somehow caught hold of what they'd been searching for. But whatever she had found for herself it lingered painfully beyond his grasp. It had not been difficult for him to infer the cause…

"Who is he?"

He supposed it was the lot of adulterers to live with suspicion. To suffer jealousy and the niggling fear that their mates were subject to the same weaknesses. After all, what a man could believe of himself, he could easily believe of other people. That didn't make it truth, of course, but he'd been so certain. It had come together slowly, like he was seeing how each piece fit together. He thought he could see the shape of the missing piece as clear as day. What he saw was a younger man, very different from himself. He considered Peter with a flash of anger, but discarded the thought. This was someone new to her, someone exciting who made her feel alive again. Someone dangerous.

And yet…

Her blue eyes held his firmly, her voice a tense, fragile whisper as she answered, "There is only you."

And while he felt with a conviction he did not understand that she wasn't lying, some part of him still believed she was not telling the truth. Not completely. It confused him all the more because he was never uncertain of things like that these days. But his heart was pierced by a sliver of doubt, and he was forced to abandon his accusations. Left confounded. Left frustrated. It bothered him to no end.

At night as he lay next to her his thoughts often dwelt upon that other, the stranger whose presence he felt sharing their bed. While she slept on peacefully, the consuming wrath would boil violently under his skin until he felt he would burst. It was in the deepest pits of his rage that Nathan sometimes imagined he could feel the other's intrusion, his essence drawing closer as though physically lurking in the darkness beyond his sight. So close… On the very edge of sleep, he would hear a dark chuckle or a mocking voice whispering in his ear. It was only ever as his consciousness ebbed away into devouring black oblivion that, for the span of a heartbeat, he could manage to grasp the truth, always forgotten upon waking.

He had no one to blame but himself…