Chapter Fourteen
CADEN
The ocean is the color of molten sapphire—deep, endless, unbroken.
From our private villa, all you could hear is the hush of the waves and the occasional call of a distant seabird.
Three days of perfection. Three days where Kamiyah smiled freely, without the weight of her aunt shadowing every gesture.
Three days where she fell asleep in my arms instead of flinching at every vibration from her phone.
And three days where I pretended this world was permanent.
I watch her now, wrapped in one of the resort’s light robes, standing barefoot in the sand as the wind tugs at her curly chestnut hair. The late afternoon sun paints her skin a lush golden bronze. She looks… peaceful. Almost fragile in that peace, like one wrong word might shatter it.
This is why I brought her as far away as I could. Somewhere Priscilla couldn’t reach. Somewhere Kamiyah could remember what it feels like to breathe.
I step off the shaded deck and walk toward her. She doesn’t hear me at first, too lost in the horizon. But when I slide my hands around her waist, she leans back into me without hesitation. “You okay?” I murmur into her hair.
She nods. “Just memorizing,” she says softly. “Everything. The sound, the heat, the way it smells. I don’t want to forget any of it.”
My chest tightens. “You won’t.” But she would. We both would. Reality has teeth, and it’s waiting for us the moment we set foot back in Starlight.
She looks down at my hands on her stomach, tracing small circles with her thumb. “I didn’t expect any of this,” she whispers. “Not the chapel, not the vows, not… this.”
I swallow. “I know the wedding wasn’t what you dreamed of.”
She turned in my arms, lifting her face to mine. “Caden. It was perfect.”
“It wasn’t,” I say, brushing a stray strand behind her ear. “Not the way you deserved.”
“You were there,” she says simply. “That’s what mattered.”
And damn it, the sincerity in her voice nearly brings me to my knees. I kiss her forehead, letting my lips linger. “At least tell me this part feels right.”
She smiles—slow, soft, unguarded. “It feels like a dream.”
Good. Because I wanted to give her every dream she never got to have. For three days, I tried. Sunrise swims, candlelit dinners, massages that left her melting against me, long nights tangled in sheets where nothing existed but us. Every moment felt like a stolen miracle.
But miracles have expiration dates, I remind myself. At least for now.
“Kamiyah,” I say, tightening my grip just slightly. “We have to talk.”
She stiffens. Not much—just a shift of breath. She knows what’s coming.
“We can’t stay here,” I say quietly. “Not much longer.”
She looks away, down at the sand curling over her toes. “I know.”
“The longer we disappear, the more it looks like you’re being manipulated by me. Like you’re not fit to make decisions, which is exactly what Priscilla wants people to think.”
Her throat bobs. “Just a little longer?”
God, I want to say yes. I want another three days. Three weeks. Three years. But the world wouldn’t let us. “I wish we could escape forever,” I admit, pressing my forehead into her curls. “But we need to go back. We need to face this.”
She nods slowly, turning into my chest until her breath brushes my lips. “Okay. Tomorrow?”
“No.” I brush my thumb along her jaw. It kills me to deny her this simple ask. “Tonight.”
She looks surprised, hurt even, until I add, “We have one more stop to make.”
Her brows knit, but she doesn’t question me.
Hours later, the landscape outside the windshield shifts from lush coastal green to quiet, rugged mountains. Kamiyah fell silent the moment we turned onto the old forestry road—a path hardly anyone used now. The air grows colder. The trees are taller. More watchful.
I slow the car as we approach the clearing and hear her breath hitch. I feel her eyes flick to me, questioning.
“Caden…?”
“We’re here,” I say gently.
She stares out at the small brass marker partially hidden under shrubs, the single weathered bench nearby, the faint outline of a memorial wreath long since claimed by the wind and weather.
Her hand covers her mouth. “No… Caden, why—”
I reach for her hand and hold it firmly. “Honey, listen.”
She turns to me, tears already gathering in her lashes.
“You’ve been carrying this weight for years,” I say, every word steady, deliberate.
“You keep blaming yourself for something that wasn’t your fault.
For not being in that plane. Arguing with your parents—something all teenagers are guilty of.
For surviving when they didn’t. Or for things no one should carry alone. ”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand—”
“I do.” My voice comes out rougher than I intended. “Because I’ve watched you punish yourself over it. Every time you talk about them, every time you flinch when someone mentions the crash, every time you walk past their pictures at Haven Crest but never stop to look.”
Her tears fall freely now, silent and painful.
“Kamiyah,” I whisper, brushing one from her cheek with my thumb, “I brought you here because you deserve peace. You deserve to stop running from this place.”
She swallows hard, her lips trembling. “And because this is the only way you knew how to include them in our wedding.”
My breath hitches. She understood before I could speak the words.
“Yes.” I took both her hands now. “They should have been there to witness our vows. And I know it’s not the same…God, I know it’s not, but I want them to be part of our lives in the only way they still can be.”
A broken sound escapes her.
I pull her into me, holding her as tightly as she needs as she buries her face in my chest, sobbing in a way she’s never let herself before. I don’t speak. I don’t rush her. I just hold her while the wind whispers through the trees and the last light fads behind the ridge.
Minutes, or maybe hours pass before she finally lifts her head. Her eyes are red, her cheeks wet, but for the first time since I’ve known her, she looks unburdened.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
I brush her hair back tenderly. “There’s nothing to thank me for.”
“There is,” she insists. “You gave me something I didn’t know I needed.”
I don’t trust myself to speak, so I kiss her forehead instead.
“Come on,” I say softly. “Let’s go home.”
We walk back to the car hand in hand. Before she reaches the car, she pauses once more to look at the marker and her grip tightens around mine. “I’ll come back,” she whispers. “Next time… with flowers.”
I nod. “Whenever you’re ready.”
We reached the car. I open her door, but just as she slides inside, my phone buzzes.
Ethan.
“Give me a second.”
I press the voicemail and hold the phone to my ear.
His voice explodes from the speaker—urgent and strained.
Caden, it’s happening. Priscilla’s making her move to sell Haven Crest. She’s pulling strings I didn’t even know she had. You need to get home. Now. I mean it—drop everything and come back before she signs anything. Call me when you get this.
The message ended.
I froze.
Kamiyah stares at me, worry instantly tightens her features. “Caden?”
I don’t waste a second. I hit speed dial. My lawyer answers on the second ring. “West? What’s—”
I quickly fill him in on Ethan’s voice mail. “I need you to place an offer for a Haven Crest,” I say, my voice sharp, commanding. “Anonymous. High enough that Priscilla accepts it without question.”
He hesitates. “How high are we talking?”
“As high as it takes,” I snap. “Make it a number she can’t ignore.”