Chapter Two
Edwina
I didn’t know when I woke that morning that by evening the distance I’d kept so carefully between my past and present would collapse in a single breath.
The day had started simply. I followed the same routine I’d built over the last five years, the one that kept everything in place, everything under control.
London felt familiar beneath my feet, its autumn air cool but easy to move through, the gray sky settling over the city in a way that never quite bothered me.
I went over my presentation again in the stillness of my apartment, adjusting a few citations, changing phrasing where it felt off, making sure the transitions between slides held together.
The work grounded me, clear and dependable in a way I needed.
In that space, things made sense. Work stayed where it belonged. Feelings didn’t get in the way.
I had believed that was enough. Changing my surname had been one of the first decisions I made after leaving Washington, and it had never been driven by sentiment or impulse, nor by any need to assign meaning to the act itself.
The choice had come from necessity, shaped by the understanding that some parts of a life had to be left behind entirely.
Carter carried the weight of who I had been, traces still easy to follow, and paths leading back to a version of myself I could no longer afford to inhabit.
It kept me exposed in ways I had spent years learning to avoid.
Rhodes gave me distance. It stood apart from everything that had come before, untouched, unclaimed, something that belonged only to me.
It created a separation I could live within, a boundary between the life I had built and the man who had once known it too well.
I changed it so he would not find me.
And yet he stood there.
When I heard his voice behind me in that narrow corridor, my body reacted before my mind allowed recognition to settle.
The papers slipped from my hands, scattering across the floor in a chaos that felt embarrassingly symbolic, and for a second I could not reconcile the image in front of me with the reality I had constructed so carefully.
Hayden looked older, not aged, refined in a way that suggested time had sharpened him rather than softened him.
A few strands of gray had appeared at his temples, subtle and impossible to ignore, and there was a leanness to him now, as if the years had stripped away anything unnecessary and left something harder beneath.
The restless intensity I remembered had become contained, held behind a restraint that unsettled me far more than anger ever could have.
His presence filled the space without effort. His gaze carried weight.
Seeing him did not bring a single emotion, it brought a collision of them, shock arriving first and cutting through everything else, followed by a slower, heavier sadness that rose from a place I had kept buried for years.
Anger surfaced with it, contained yet unmistakable, shaped by the memory of what loving him had cost me and the silence that came after.
Beneath it all lingered a familiarity I could neither ignore nor fully understand, making him feel far more dangerous than he should have.
Over the years, I had imagined this moment more times than I cared to admit, constructing conversations in which I remained collected, clear, untouched by anything he might say or do.
The reality unraveled that certainty with ease, my pulse rising despite every effort to keep it from showing, his voice still carrying the same power to disrupt whatever balance I had built.
When my phone rang, I took the interruption without hesitation, letting it pull me away from him before the moment could stretch any further. The name on the screen anchored me at once, drawing me back into the life I had built here, into the present I had chosen.
I heard the softness in my own voice when I answered, heard the warmth that had once belonged to him and now belonged somewhere else, and I felt no need to explain it.
“Yes, baby,” I said, turning slightly away, unwilling to let that tenderness exist between us. “I just finished. I know. I miss you too.”
I felt Hayden’s gaze on me without needing to meet it, aware of the shift in my tone and certain he would recognize the intimacy there.
Something in me allowed it, perhaps even wanted him to hear it, to understand that my life had not remained untouched, that affection had found its place elsewhere.
When the call ended, I turned back to him, gathering myself into something firm and self-contained. I told him things had changed because they had. I told him I was no longer naive because that part of me no longer existed.
I told him to go back to his fiancée, or his wife, or whatever version of a life he had chosen to build, and I kept my voice level, knowing that calm words have a way of settling deeper than anger ever does.
Mentioning his engagement was a decision I made without hesitation.
He had moved forward in ways the world could see, and I had seen it from a distance I chose not to question.
Walking away from him again required more strength than I expected. The first time, I had left because I believed I had to. This time, I left because I refused to lose myself in him again.
I felt his presence behind me as I moved through the congress hall and out into the cold evening air, the awareness of him following me as far as the parking structure. I didn’t turn back. I had learned what looking back can do.
Reaching my car settled me more than I expected.
After the accident, the thought of sitting behind a steering wheel had once felt impossible, as if the body remembered terror more faithfully than the mind ever wanted to.
The memory of twisted metal, shattered glass, and the suffocating panic of being trapped had stayed with me long after the bruises disappeared.
There had been nights when I woke with smoke caught in my throat, mornings when even reaching for the keys made my hands tremble.
Learning to drive again had taken time, patience, and a stubbornness I had not known I still possessed.
Now my hands rested on the wheel without shaking.
The city lights moved across the windshield as I drove home, and each familiar turn drew me deeper into the present.
London had never been an escape. It had become a life I built with my own hands, street by street, routine by routine, until the city stopped feeling temporary and began to feel mine.
I was no longer running. There was something else now, a truth he could not find, one that had shaped every choice I made after leaving.
It lived beneath my days, woven through the address I guarded, the privacy I protected, and the careful boundaries around the life I had made.
Hayden could not know. The thought of him discovering it sent a colder fear through me than seeing him again ever had.
When I reached my building, I stayed in the parked car for a moment, my eyes closed, my breath slowing to carry me back into myself.
The air was cold when I stepped outside, sharp against my face after the warmth of the car.
Inside, the hallway glowed with soft light, quiet in a way that made the world feel smaller and safer.
I slipped the key into the lock and pushed the door open, still carrying the cold of the evening on my coat. Before I could step fully inside, her voice reached me from somewhere beyond the hall, bright, breathless, and full of joy.
“Mommy!”
The word struck deeper than anything Hayden had said that evening.
All the anger, fear, and confusion I had carried home with me shifted into a stronger conviction, one that knew exactly where it belonged.
Hayden’s presence in London, the history that had followed me into that corridor, and the ache left behind by seeing him again could not change one truth.
My life was no longer only mine. And I would protect it at any cost.
She came running toward me before I could close the door, her small steps quick and uneven, her smooth straight hair slipping around her face with the wild energy she carried everywhere.
“Mommy!” she shouted again, launching herself into my arms with complete trust.
I bent just in time to catch her, and she collided with me, warm and solid against my chest, her arms locking around my neck as if the whole world had narrowed down to this moment.
I held her tighter than usual, breathing her in, letting the scent of strawberry shampoo, crayons, and home pull me back into myself after everything that had happened in that corridor.
“Helena,” I whispered into her hair.
She pulled back to study my face, suspicion gathering in her eyes as her brows drew together with the seriousness only a child could make so complete.
“Why are you squeezing me like that?” she asked.
“Because I missed you.”
“You were gone only one presentation,” she replied, entirely sure of herself. “That’s not long.”
“It felt long.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, the way she always did when she sensed something hiding beneath my words.
“Did someone make you sad?”
The question was too soft, too perceptive, and for a moment I could only look at her. I brushed a few strands away from her forehead and gave her the best smile I could manage.
“No one makes me sad when I get to come home to you.”
She accepted the answer with the cautious generosity of a child who understood more than she should, then slipped from my arms and took my hand.
“I made you a surprise,” she announced. “But you have to pretend you don’t see it even if you see it.”
“I would never ruin your surprise,” I promised.
She led me into the living room, placed me on the sofa, then removed a cushion from the coffee table to reveal a drawing filled with uneven hearts and bright color.