Page 42 of Atlas Uncharted

I had picked up my phone on the way to the bathroom. Without hesitation, I dialed Ashlen’s number, praying she’d pick up. Relief flooded through me when I heard her voice on the other end.

“Where in the fuck are you?” I hissed, my voice trembling with panic. “You left your husband, and now he’s lost his mind! He thinks I owe him children and a life. Bring your ass back here, Ashlen.”

A pause. Then, her voice came through, cold and detached. “No.”

“No?” I repeated, disbelief shaking my voice.

“This is what you two deserve,” she said, her tone flat—eerily calm for the same woman who sobbed through swollen eyes, begging me not to leave her alone with the grief. “Each other. This is what you’ve both wanted all along, isn’t it? Now you candeal with his mood swings, his anger, his brooding. I’m done. I’ve sent the divorce papers.”

“Ashlen, what the hell? You married him!” I snapped, pacing the small bathroom, my voice rising in desperation. “You don’t get to just walk away from this!”

“I married him so I’d never have to live below my means,” she replied, her voice sharp. “But he’s broke now too. So, you deal with him.”

The line went dead.

I stared at the screen in disbelief, my pulse thudding in my ears. Ashlen was really gone. She had left, and now... now it was just me and Atlas. No one else.

My mind spun in a hundred different directions, and I couldn’t grab onto a single thought. I took a deep breath, trying to calm the storm raging inside me. I needed to go out there. I needed to face him. But how?

With shaky hands, I pulled the robe tighter around me and stepped out of the bathroom. The living room felt smaller, darker, as if the walls were closing in. Atlas was still there, standing in the same spot I had left him, his eyes never leaving me. His presence filled the space—suffocating and demanding all at once.

“Why did you ask me out the night after the party just to end up with Ashlen hours later?” I asked, my voice drained as I sank onto the sofa across from him.

He sighed, running his hands through his hair as he sat across from me. “Mike got in my head,” he admitted. “He confronted me right after I left you in the coffee shop, asking if there was something going on between us. There wasn’t. But I wantedthere to be. Then he told me you’d just accepted a date with him. I got... unreasonably mad. I was a stupid boy, pulled in too many directions, and I fucked up. And you... you were so indifferent, Kairi. You didn’t even try to change my mind.”

A dry chuckle escaped my lips. “You live in victimhood too much, Atlas. I wasn’t supposed to fight Ashlen—my best friend at the time—over a boy who probably would’ve picked her anyway.”

He winced at that, regret flashing briefly in his eyes, but it wasn’t enough to change anything. I sighed, rubbing my temples, exhausted.

“Ashlen said she’s sending you divorce papers. I called her in the bathroom, hoping she’d talk some sense into you, make you remember you’re married.”

“I don’t care,” he said, sinking back into the chair, his voice dull and empty.

“This is such a twisted triangle we have here,” I muttered, shaking my head in disbelief.

“It is,” he agreed, his voice calm, like he was unbothered by the fact.

“And you want to make it more complicated by doing all this?” I gestured to the ovulation tests scattered across the table and sofa. “This three-year-long revenge plan?”

“Yes,” he answered simply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I opened my mouth to argue, but he cut me off, his voice low and possessive. “Because I know three years will turn into a lifetime, Kairi. I’m forcing us both to do what we should’ve done in the beginning.”

“And what’s that?” I whispered, my heart pounding as I braced myself for his answer.

“To claim each other,” he said, his eyes boring into mine with a fierce intensity that made my breath catch. “No more running, no more hiding. You and me, together. It was always supposed to be that way. That’s why nothing else worked out for me. Why you kept answering my calls. Now, I’m making sure it happens.”

“I have a life, Atlas. It’s too late for this.”

His shoulders rose, then fell. “I don’t care about your life apart from me. I’ll burn it all down if you make me,” he said, staring me directly in the eyes.

I couldn’t look away. My throat was dry, and my thoughts were scrambled as I tried to come up with something—anything—to break the hold he had on me. But nothing came. Because deep down, as much as I wanted to fight him, some part of me—the part I had buried for years—wanted everything he was offering.

Atlas wasn’t just asking for a second chance.

He was demanding everything.

And I wasn’t sure I had it in me to say no.

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