Chapter 50 #2
“Don’t do that. Don’t act like I wanted to hurt you. I did it to help—to make the board understand the truth. Without me, they’d have filled in the blanks with fiction, and the fallout would be way worse.”
“Did you help build the scaffold too?”
“First of all, ouch.” I folded my arms so he wouldn’t see my hands shake.
He looked at me but didn’t flinch.
“And I’m the one trying to take the damn thing apart before they hang you from it.”
He exhaled—long, barely audible. “I see.” A silence opened, and at first, I thought it was anger—some unspoken rebuke. But instead of erupting, he just slouched into his desk chair, spine bowed, hands dangling between his knees. “And did you?” His voice softened a touch.
“I did everything I could. I gave Dr. Monroe the screenshots and told her about every time I saw Sloane Cartwright being…Sloane,” I said. “And I told her…what really happened between us last spring.”
He narrowed his eyes. “The whole truth?”
I nodded. “Everything.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and sucked in a sharp breath. “And?”
“She didn’t ask for details—just wanted to know if I felt pressured, or if you’d ever used your position to influence me.
I told her ‘absolutely not.’ That if anything, you’d gone to absurd lengths to keep things appropriate.
” I tried to laugh, but it stuck in my throat.
“I made sure she understood I’m an adult with a backbone and a full set of executive functions—not some na?ve eighteen-year-old fresh out of high school.
And that this”—I gestured between us—“is the long-term real deal. Not some silly infatuation or fling.”
He looked at me as if seeing a ghost version of himself. “And did it make a difference?”
“I think so.” I pictured Dr. Monroe’s steady gaze, the way she’d met my eyes after I finished. It was a look I recognized—not judgment, but clinical curiosity. Maybe even empathy. “She said she’d bring it to the full board. But it’s out of my hands now.”
He raked a hand through his disheveled hair, then dragged both palms down his face. “It won’t change anything,” he muttered. “They’ll protect the institution, not the truth. That’s how these things always go.”
He leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands slack between them—his whole body curved like he was bracing for impact.
“And you—” His voice caught. “You shouldn’t have had to go to them. That should have been me.”
“How? You can’t talk to them and expect to be believed. It’s your word against—how many? It’s shitty, but it’s the truth.”
That almost made him smile, but it collapsed before it could form. “You think you’ve helped me, Gabrielle, but all I see is that you stepped in front of a firing squad I was meant to face alone.”
I crossed the room slowly, the tension between us stretching taut. He didn’t move when I perched on his desk, my knee brushing his. “But we’re in this together, Cal. Isn’t that the whole point? I did it for you.” I touched his knee. “And I’d do it again.”
He stared down at the rug. “They’ll still twist it. You know they will.”
“Maybe.” I swallowed. “But it won’t be because I stayed silent.”
When he finally lifted his head, he looked wrecked. His eyes focused on me for a second, then went distant and glassy. “Protect the family at all costs.” He recited it like scripture. “This is Claire all over again.”
The lines on his face carved deeper. His jaw ticked as he clenched and unclenched it. He looked older than usual. Not in years, but in history—a man trapped in the sedimentary layers of his past.
I winced at his words. “Cal…that’s not fair.”
He looked through me. “Isn’t it?” His voice went thin and sharp, like wire pulled too tight. “When Claire died, the truth was messy—disgraceful. My father couldn’t bear to acknowledge that his reckless, idiotic son was stupid enough to get a girl killed.”
“You didn’t—”
“So he spun a clean story, wrapped it in silk, and handed it to the press. He wrote it for me, and I had no say. I never got a vote.” He let out a soft, brittle bark of a laugh. “You see it now? The pattern?”
I leaned in. “It’s not the same. You keep saying it is, but it’s not.”
“You don’t see how you’ve gone and done exactly what my family did?”
I squeezed my eyes shut and drew in a sharp breath to tamp down the sting beneath my ribs.
“I didn’t write your story for you, Cal.
I refused to let someone else do it while you stayed gagged.
That’s the difference.” I dropped to my knees in front of his chair and pressed my forehead to his.
“I didn’t lie to protect you. I told the truth because you weren’t allowed to. ”
“You’re right. You didn’t lie,” he said quietly. “But you still went into that room and spoke for me.”
“Because no one else would.”
He flinched—not because it wasn’t true. But because it was.
I took his hands in mine. “Remember when you asked me to marry you?”
“Vividly.”
“You said you got into that cockpit with me because you trusted your life in my hands. And you asked me to trust you with mine in yours.”
He was quiet for so long, I thought I’d lost him. That he’d receded into the spiral stairwell of his mind and I’d never get him back. But then he tightened his fingers around mine, anchoring me to his plane of reality.
He dragged in a breath. “I also recall promising never to let you fall.”
“I haven’t.” I nudged him with my nose. “Except in love with you.”
He laughed. And finally meant it. “That’s rather sappy for you, love.”
“Maybe I read too much romance while you were gone.”