**Chapter 53 — There Is Only One Bed**
*I Ended Up Living Next Door to My Ex-Husband*
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I couldn't help it. I laughed.
*Our divorce may be a secret, but surely it doesn't have to go this far.*
I fixed Cedric with a look that made my feelings abundantly clear. He returned it with a smile of perfect serenity, then turned to Chief Devon.
"Isn't that right, Devon?"
Devon startled slightly at being addressed, his eyes darting between us.
"Yes? Ah — yes, of course... I suppose so...?"
He sounded genuinely uncertain, and I couldn't blame him. As head of the Twins household for years, Devon had had a front-row seat to the long, painful history between Cedric and Rebecca — Rebecca's desperate, consuming devotion on one side, Cedric's cold discomfort on the other. Hearing Cedric speak of sharing quarters as the most natural thing in the world must have felt like watching a play where someone had switched the scripts halfway through.
It felt that way to me, too.
Only Cedric appeared entirely untroubled. He rose from his seat with the bearing of a man who has just concluded a matter satisfactorily.
"I'll go have a look at where my wife and I are staying."
He said it as though he'd rehearsed it — or rather, as though he wanted to say it before I had a chance to say anything at all. I watched him begin moving toward the door.
"Devon—" I started.
Devon, apparently not hearing me, stood and followed Cedric.
*How is this happening?*
I grabbed Chief Devon's sleeve and turned to address both of them at once.
"That arrangement won't work. I'll share a cabin with my maids. Cedric, you take the other one alone."
Cedric paused at the doorway and looked back, unhurried.
"The available cabin is quite small. Chief Devon — would there really be room for the Grand Duchess and all her ladies?"
Devon, caught between them, blinked slowly and nodded with a somewhat dazed expression.
"Well... yes, it would be... rather tight..."
One corner of Cedric's mouth lifted.
"I thought as much."
---
We rode for about five minutes before pulling up in front of a small cabin at the edge of the village, where the trees began to thicken on all sides.
"Here we are, I think."
Cedric dismounted and extended his hand. I took it and stepped down, then looked around.
Forest in every direction. The nearest building was a distant smudge through the trees. We were, by any reasonable measure, entirely alone out here.
*Chief Devon, of all the locations in this village — why here?*
I turned to Cedric with a look that conveyed my thoughts precisely.
"Why did you agree so readily? The moment Devon suggested we share a cabin, you just — accepted."
"What was I supposed to do?"
"Use common sense," I said. "Even when we were actually married, we never shared a room. We could sleep separately now and no one would think twice about it."
"Hmm. That's true, I suppose."
He tapped his chin with a thoughtful expression that I didn't trust for a moment.
"But that was then."
"...What does that mean?"
"It means that right now —" He paused. "I don't have it in me to turn down an arrangement that puts me in the same room as you."
"I genuinely don't understand what's gotten into you lately."
"I wish it were a passing mood. Unfortunately, it isn't."
I looked at him for a moment longer, decided I wasn't going to win this particular exchange, and pushed the cabin door open.
---
The interior was less than half the size of the smallest guest room in the Grand Duke's castle. But it was clean — surprisingly so, considering it had apparently been sitting empty — and the main room was furnished simply but adequately.
"I've stayed in rougher places," Cedric said, stepping in behind me. "Though I'm not sure about you."
"I'm fine." I moved through the space, glancing around. "You said you've stayed here before?"
Something shifted slightly in his expression. "Yes. When I wanted to be alone."
The implication settled quietly between us. He'd come here to escape Rebecca — to find a space she couldn't reach. I didn't point that out, and neither did he.
"Right. I just need to check the—"
I crossed to the far wall where a long curtain hung, and drew it back.
My expression went flat.
*I can't believe I didn't account for this.*
One bed.
A single bed, neatly made, squarely in the center of the room. I stood in front of it and stared at it as though staring long enough might produce a second one.
"Ah — did I forget to mention?"
Cedric appeared at my shoulder, entirely too composed.
"That's the only one."
I turned to look at him.
One bed. The two of us. A man who, for the better part of our marriage, had treated sharing a room with me as something to be avoided at all costs.
*Absolutely not. If I end up in that bed with him, I'll spend the entire night in mortal fear of being accused of deliberately trying to—*
I stepped back and produced what I hoped was a casual smile.
"Haha. Cedric — do you truly need to stay here? Really?"
"What do you mean, all of a sudden?"
"I came here for my own reasons. You don't have any pressing reason to be in Gray Zone Village." I made a small shooing gesture. "You can go back. I'm sure there's a great deal of work waiting."
He was quiet for a moment, watching me.
*Is he annoyed? Did I go too far?*
Then his expression shifted into something gently surprised.
"Rebecca... are you worried about me?"
His eyes had taken on a warmth I was not prepared for.
I held my awkward smile in place.
"...Something like that."
*I'm worried about myself, if we're being precise. I'm worried about being accused of throwing myself at you and spending the rest of my days in a tower.*
Cedric, blissfully unaware of my internal monologue, appeared genuinely moved.
"It makes me happy to know you still worry about me. It really does." He smiled — warm, unhurried. "But I'm fine, truly. A few days here won't cause any problems. I have capable people."
I stared at that smile and felt my eye twitch slightly.
*That is not why I said it.*
Before I could correct the misunderstanding, Cedric's brow furrowed with sudden seriousness.
"Besides — without me here, the villagers won't be particularly gentle with you."
"......"
"Mixed-blood demons can be quite protective of their own. The restraint they've shown today may not last."
I could not argue with that. I had read enough of the original story to know that the ending Rebecca had met — consumed by the rage of half-blood demons — was not a gentle one. The image was vivid enough to produce a genuine chill.
I pressed my lips together and let out a slow breath.
*He has to stay. Fine.*
Which meant we were sharing this cabin. Which meant, inescapably, that we were sharing—
"Are you going to take the sofa?"
I asked it as innocuously as I could, making it clear, I hoped, that I very much expected the answer to be yes.
Cedric snorted immediately. "Me? Why would I do that?"
"Because we're divorced and sharing a bed under these circumstances would be—"
"I was raised with a certain standard of comfort," he said, without a trace of irony. "I'm afraid the sofa doesn't meet it."
I looked at him.
"Fine. Then I'll take the sofa."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I can't in good conscience sleep in a bed while you're curled up on a sofa." He paused, appearing to reconsider. "Well — I could, technically. But comfortably? No."
I stared at the sofa. Then at the bed. Then at Cedric.
"You realize neither of us is offering a solution here."
"There is a solution."
"Which is?"
"We go back to the Grand Duke's castle right now."
The corner of his mouth curved up with the expression of a man who has been holding that card the entire time and has finally decided to play it.
He knew perfectly well that I couldn't go back. Not yet. Not before I'd done what I came here to do.
I closed my eyes briefly.
"...Fine. We share the bed." I pointed at him. "But I need you to clearly understand one thing."
The words I'd prepared evaporated. I stood there for a moment, realizing that the obvious warning — *don't cross the line* — was so absurd in context as to be almost physically painful to say. Cedric had spent years ensuring no such line would ever be in danger.
And yet here we were.
I squared my shoulders.
"I have absolutely no intention of touching a single hair on your head. So don't get any ideas, and don't — don't make it strange."
It came out louder than I intended, and the moment the words were out, my dignity quietly folded itself up and left the room.
*I cannot believe that sentence just came out of my mouth.*
A sound reached me — quiet, barely there, but unmistakably amused.
I looked up.
Cedric had his mouth pressed into a line that was doing very little to conceal the smile behind it.
"You have nothing to worry about on that count."
His eyes met mine and narrowed slightly, something glinting in them.
"Though if you happened to touch even the tip of my hair..." He tilted his head, considering. "I might be slightly put out."
A beat.
"As for anything beyond that..." His gaze lingered on my face for just a moment too long.
"...I honestly can't say."
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