The guilt arrived before the morning did.
Annabel felt it the moment she opened her eyes—heavy, immediate, unrelenting. Not regret. Not shame. Something worse: awareness. The kind that doesn't let you pretend yesterday didn't alter the architecture of your life.
Downstairs, the house functioned like nothing had changed.
Her mother hummed while setting the table. Richard's father read the news aloud, commenting on things that didn't matter. The normalcy was suffocating. Annabel sat there, spine straight, hands folded, playing her role with surgical precision.
Every laugh felt dishonest.
Every shared glance felt dangerous.
Richard barely looked at her.
Not out of indifference—out of control. His restraint was so deliberate it hurt to witness. When their knees brushed under the table, he shifted immediately, jaw tightening, eyes fixed anywhere but her.
That hurt too.
After breakfast, Annabel retreated to the hallway, heart racing, mind spiralling. This was the cost they hadn't been able to simulate last night. Not the kiss. Not the honesty.
The after.
Richard followed her minutes later, closing the door with more force than necessary.
"We underestimated this," he said.
Not accusatory. Not panicked. Just brutally honest.
Annabel crossed her arms, grounding herself. "Say it."
"We crossed a line that affects more than us," he continued. "And I don't get to pretend my guilt doesn't exist just because what I feel is real."
There it was. The fracture.
"I'm not asking you to feel nothing," Annabel said, voice low but firm. "But don't make this sound like a moral failure."
Richard dragged a hand through his hair. "It feels like one."
The words landed hard.
Annabel inhaled sharply. "Loving you isn't the problem," she said. "But living in a house where everyone trusts us—and not acknowledging the weight of that—that is."
They stood there, the truth uncomfortably exposed. No romance to soften it. No fantasy to hide behind.
"We need boundaries," Richard said again—but this time it sounded like a warning.
"Define them," Annabel replied.
"Distance," he said. "More than we want. Less contact. No private spaces. No moments that blur."
"And if that breaks us?" she asked.
Richard didn't answer immediately. When he did, his voice was quieter. "Then we accept that loving someone doesn't automatically entitle us to keep them."
That was the most painful thing he'd said yet.
Annabel felt the sting behind her eyes but refused to let tears turn this into weakness. "I won't be your secret mistake," she said. "If we do this, we do it with integrity. Or we don't do it at all."
Richard met her gaze—finally, fully.
"I don't regret you," he said. "I regret the position this puts everyone in."
The distinction mattered. And it didn't.
That night, Annabel lay awake, staring at the ceiling, realising something no one warned her about: choosing honesty didn't simplify her life—it demanded constant accountability. Love wasn't freeing her. It was asking more of her than silence ever had.
Down the hall, Richard sat at his desk, elbows on his knees, replaying every decision that led them here. He had wanted to be responsible his whole life. Now he understood that responsibility didn't mean avoiding harm—it meant standing inside it without running.
They didn't touch again that day. They didn't speak again either.
But the boundary they drew wasn't empty.
It was heavy. Deliberate. And terrifying in its permanence.
Because now, they weren't just in love.
They were accountable for it.