He Made Her Queen, Then Took Her Crown

 THE smell of burnt rubber still hung in the air when Rowan Kane stepped outside.

 It wasn’t the smell that made him pause—it was the car.

 Low-slung. Pearl white. Chrome accents gleaming like a fresh cut. It hadn’t been there this morning. His breath hitched as he eyed the logo: Asterion V9. A luxury model, only five of which existed in the country. 

 Only five!

 And one was parked in his driveway. His driveway. How?

 Inside the house, laughter floated out from the hallway—her laugh. Lena Aston. His wife. The woman he’d bled himself dry to support through every late-night pitch, every dead-end meeting, every ugly corporate rejection.

 He pushed the door open, the hinges groaning like they were as tired as he was. The air hit him first—new leather, expensive perfume, a whiff of something citrusy that didn’t belong in their cramped two-room world.

 Lena stood in the middle of the lounge, twirling a set of keys around her finger, definitely the key to the car parked outside. But again, how?

 Lena’s heels clicked on the scuffed lino. A sleek black handbag—probably worth his year’s rent—spilled out tissue paper and receipts. Behind her, a pile of glossy shopping bags leaned against the sagging sofa, names he’d only seen in ads: Gucci, Prada, some French nonsense he couldn’t pronounce.

 “Bloody hell,” Rowan said, wiping rain from his brow. His voice rasped, rough from a day hauling crates at the warehouse. “You hit the jackpot or what?”

 She didn’t answer.

 Instead, Lena dropped her bags on the Italian marble floor and pulled out her phone. Her perfectly manicured nails clicked across the screen like she was scratching the surface of a new world she’d stepped into without him.

 “You bought a car?” he asked, softer this time, stepping forward.

 Still no response.

 He saw it then—the faint flicker of annoyance behind her lashes, like his voice was static interrupting a symphony, like an annoying child crying into the ear of a misopedist. She wanted him to leave already. There was disgust clearly written on her pretty face, smeared with makeup.

 “I um… I saw it outside,” he added quickly, trying not to sound like a man grasping at straws. “That Asterion—babe, that’s not just a car, that’s an—”

 “It’s leased,” she cut in coldly. “Through the company.”

 Her tone slapped more than her words did.

 “Oh,” Rowan murmured softly.

 Silence fell again, stretched thin by the distance between them. She walked past him like he was just another wall in the house she no longer saw.

 He followed, slow, careful. “So, things are um… going well, then? I guess?”

 Lena turned, just slightly, raising a single sculpted brow. “I landed the Obsidian Tech contract. Full backing. Media rights. Seven figures. Signed it this morning. So yes, things are going well.”

 Rowan blinked. “That’s… that’s incredible.” He stepped forward with a faint smile, reaching out to touch her arm, maybe hold her hand. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve opened some wine, celebrated—”

 She flinched. Just barely. Like his touch was something cold she didn’t want on her skin anymore.

 “Rowan,” she sighed, tired already. “Can we not do this right now? Please?”

 He froze.

 “Do what?” he asked, voice tight.

 “This... ‘aww honey, congrats’ shit. You don’t get it. You’ve never been in those rooms. You don’t know what it takes to land something like this.” Her voice wasn’t angry—it was pitying. Somehow, that cut deeper. “I don’t need a celebration from you. All I want from you is to give me some space to sleep. My–head–hurts.” she added.

 Rowan shook his head and let out a soft sigh.

 “I was with you every night you practiced those pitches,” he said, a quiet thunder in his throat. “I printed your proposals, edited your decks, ran your mock interviews. I was in the room, Lena. Just not the one with the glass walls.”

 She looked down at her phone again.

 He stepped back, his eyes dull. “Right.”

 Her eyes snapped up. “Look, I appreciate everything you’ve done, I really do. But I’m at a level now where... I need more. I need someone who gets it.”

 “Gets what?”

 “This.. this life.” She gestured vaguely around the minimalist living room. “Power. Deals. Reputation. You—you’re still... chasing little hardware gigs. Freelance repairs? Working in a goddamn warehouse? Come on, Ro. You’re better than that.”

 He stared at her like she’d grown another face.

 “I fix things, Lena,” he said flatly. “That’s what I do. Including when your laptop crashed before that Everhart pitch. Remember that?”

 She waved a hand. “Look, let’s not live in the past.”

 He looked at her differently now. Like he was seeing her reflection instead of her face. All shine. No warmth.

 “I still remember the day you walked in crying because no one would take a chance on you,” he said quietly. “I told you to hold on. That your time would come.”

 Her jaw tightened. “Yeah, well. My time came. And I made it on my own.”

 “Did you?” he asked. The words were flat, but something behind his eyes cracked. “Guess I was never really here then.”

 He felt it then—something inside folding in on itself. Not anger. Not jealousy. Just exhaustion, disappointment. The kind that didn’t come from the body, but from the soul.

 She scoffed. “Rowan, stop making this so dramatic. You act like you're gonna walk out the door or something. I’m the only person you have. You can barely even survive on those pennies you make off of your menial jobs.”

 He didn’t answer. Just turned away slowly, like the weight of staying finally outweighed the pain of leaving.

 He walked to the hallway, picked up his old jacket—the one with the ripped lining and grease stains from years of hard, invisible work—and slid it on without a word.

 “Where are you going?” she asked, mildly annoyed, not even looking up from her phone.

 He opened the door. Evening air brushed against his face like a quiet goodbye.

 “I don’t know yet,” he said. “But not here.” He stepped out. And closed the door behind him. 

 Lena stared at the door for a long second, lips curled in mild amusement. “He’ll be back,” she said to herself with a smirk. “He always does.”

 She had no idea…That this time, Rowan Kane wasn’t just walking out.

 He was never coming back