The Bed You Make
Chapter 20, concluded
Stefan went about his daily practice of checking Wyndemere and its inhabitants. The routine was so ingrained in him that he traveled to each of the current day's checkpoints totally by habit. He was distracted by thoughts of the previous day.
It had been an awkward evening, followed by an awkward night. Dara had been silent most of the flight home from Manhattan. It was not difficult for Stefan to conclude that his wife's sudden distance was a result of their… disagreement regarding Russell Lee's motives for his distasteful behavior. Dara's feminine ego had been bruised by Stefan's insistence that Lee was not truly interested in her.
They had dined in near silence before retiring for the night. Sheer curiosity drove Stefan to pose several questions to Dara as they dressed for bed. She answered each question as briefly as possible.
The distance between them had been most notable during sleep. Over the two months of their marriage Dara had unknowingly grown more comfortable with Stefan's presence beside her in bed. Inevitably each night she moved closer to him as they slept, eventually nestling with satisfaction against his back. Each morning he forced himself from the bed to give her the opportunity to move unaware back to her side of the massive bed.
Last night, Dara had maintained the distance between them. As a result, Stefan found he'd been unable to accomplish even the light sleep that he enjoyed so easily.
The fact that his sleep was disturbed by her absence worried Stefan greatly. Somehow he had lost sight of his goals. He had grown too accustomed to Dara's presence. He had allowed her wit and intelligence to distract him.
Stefan chided himself. Though Dara Jensen wore the title of Mrs. Stefan Cassadine, she was, in truth, nothing more than a component of the plan he had put into play to assure Nikolas' future as head of the Cassadine family. He could only be grateful that Dara hadn't made the same mistake of forgetting that he had.