Chapter Ten
Edwina
The car slowed as we turned into my street, and the familiar shape of my apartment came into view beneath the streetlights.
For a moment, I let myself breathe a little easier.
After everything that had happened tonight, seeing the place I had built for myself and Helena felt almost enough to pull me back into my own life.
“We’re here,” Daniel said.
I nodded, already reaching for the door handle. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to rush,” he said, watching me carefully. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I gave him a small smile, though it felt more practiced than real. “I’m fine. Just tired.”
He looked at me for a second, as if deciding whether to ask more, then nodded. “Alright. Text me when you’re inside.”
“I will.”
I stepped out into the cold air and pulled my coat tighter around myself, waiting until his car disappeared down the street before turning toward the apartment. That was when I felt it, a small shift around me that made me pause with my hand near my bag.
I looked back down the street. It was nearly empty, with only parked cars, wet pavement, and streetlights reflected in the road. Nothing was out of place, nothing I could point to, yet my pulse still quickened.
It felt as if someone was watching me. I stood there for another second, listening to the distant hum of the city, then forced myself to move.
You’re imagining things.
Of course I was. Tonight had been too much, filled with memories I was not ready to face and the shock of being too close to Hayden again.
Still, the feeling did not leave at once.
It stayed with me until I forced myself to turn away and step inside.
Warmth met me as the door closed behind me, cutting off the cold and the unease that had followed me from the street.
I exhaled and went upstairs, each step carrying me closer to the only part of the night that felt real.
The lock clicked under my hand, and before I could step fully inside, small footsteps rushed down the hallway.
“Mommy!”
Helena came running toward me, her silky straight hair tied into two ponytails that swung with each step, her arms already reaching for me. My heart softened at once.
“Hi, my love,” I murmured, dropping my bag as I bent to catch her.
She climbed into my arms and wrapped herself around my neck. “You came late.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“You said story.”
“I did.” I kissed her hair. “And I always keep my promises, don’t I?”
She pulled back and looked at my face with sudden seriousness. “Why are your cheeks red?”
I almost laughed. “Because it’s cold outside.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Hmm.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means maybe.”
I brushed a loose strand away from her forehead. “What did you do with Mrs. Graham while I was gone?”
“We watched the penguin movie,” she said, brightening at once. “And I had popcorn.”
“How much popcorn?”
She looked toward the kitchen, then whispered, “A lot.”
From the kitchen, Mrs. Graham called, “A perfectly reasonable amount.”
Helena leaned closer to my ear. “She says that because she helped me eat it.”
I smiled despite the heaviness still sitting in my chest. “Did she?”
Mrs. Graham appeared from the kitchen with a towel in her hand, smiling. “I’m being accused unfairly, I see.”
“You ate some,” Helena said.
“One handful.”
“Two.”
Mrs. Graham laughed. “Maybe two.”
“And we drew a castle,” Helena added quickly, as if remembering the most important part. “Mine had a princess with very long hair.”
“Very long,” Mrs. Graham said. “Almost longer than the castle.”
Helena lifted her chin. “Princesses can have long hair if they want.”
“That is true,” I said. “I fully support princess freedom.”
Mrs. Graham smiled and reached for her coat. “Well, I should let you two get to that story.”
“You can stay tonight,” I said quickly. “It’s late. I don’t want you going home alone.”
“Oh, sweetheart, don’t worry. My son is waiting outside.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” She came closer and touched Helena’s cheek. “Good night, my baby.”
“Good night,” Helena said, waving. “Thank you for popcorn.”
Mrs. Graham gave me a look. “She means the reasonable amount.”
“Of course,” I said, trying not to smile.
After Mrs. Graham left, I locked the door and stood there for a moment with Helena’s weight against me, letting the quiet of the apartment settle around us. The night outside, Hayden, the wedding, the kiss, all of it felt far away for one fragile second.
Helena touched my cheek again. “Still red.”
I closed my eyes briefly and held her closer. “Then I definitely need that story.”
She rested her head against my shoulder again, her small hand playing with a strand of hair near my collar, and somehow that small touch changed everything. The tension, the confusion, the heat of a kiss I should never have allowed, all of it softened beneath the weight of her in my arms.
This was my reality. This was the life I had built.
As I held her there, standing at the entrance of the home I had created far away from the man who once unraveled me, one thought settled in my mind with painful clarity.
I would not let Hayden destroy this. My body had betrayed me tonight, and some part of me had still answered him, but that weakness would not cost me the life I had fought to protect.
He had sensed something. He had seen enough to make him curious.
Still, he could not come any closer to the truth.
I carried Helena to her room, holding on to the quiet comfort of her weight against me. When I pushed the door open with my shoulder, the soft glow of her nightlight spread across the walls, and the sight of it pulled me back into a world that felt separate from the one I had just left behind.
“Story,” she reminded me, her voice already sleepy.
“I know,” I murmured, setting her down on the bed and pulling the blanket over her. “I wouldn’t dare forget.”
She curled into the pillow, her silky straight hair slipping across the fabric, and for a moment I only looked at her. The same onyx eyes she had inherited from him were heavy with sleep now, the same dark brown hair softer beneath my fingers, familiar in a way that made my chest ache.
Some days, the resemblance comforted me. Tonight, it felt harder to carry.
“Which one?” I asked, reaching for the book on her bedside table.
“The princess one,” she mumbled.
I smiled. “Again?”
“She’s brave,” Helena said, already half-asleep.
My fingers paused on the edge of the page.
Brave.
I looked at her, at the little girl who had become the center of every choice I made.
“I think you’re the brave one,” I whispered, brushing a strand of hair away from her forehead before I began to read.
My voice filled the room in a gentle rhythm, familiar to both of us as Helena’s breathing began to slow. Her hand stayed curled around the edge of my sleeve, loose now, though still holding on as if she needed proof that I was there.
And I was. I always would be.
By the time I reached the end of the story, she was asleep, her chest rising and falling beneath the blanket.
I stayed beside her longer than I needed to, watching her small face soften in sleep before I finally stood and left the room with the door half open, letting a thin line of light spill into the hallway.
The apartment felt different after that. The room settled into silence, though peace did not come with it. Once Helena’s voice and the small sounds of our bedtime routine were gone, there was nothing left to keep my thoughts from finding him again.
I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes, but his voice returned before I could stop it.
I’m not married.
The words replayed in my mind with the certainty he had carried when he said them, a force that had made me pause despite everything I had believed for years.
I broke it off.
Something in me reacted before I could bury it. A small, unwanted pull low in my stomach, a feeling I recognized and hated almost at once. Some part of me had felt relief when he said it, and that made me angrier than the lie itself.
I pressed my lips together and shook my head.
“No,” I whispered.
It did not change anything. It did not erase the way I had found out, or the humiliation and I realized I had existed outside the life he showed the world. It did not undo the silence, the hidden future, the way he had taken my trust and left me with half-truths.
He had lied.
He had chosen silence when I deserved honesty.
He had taken everything I gave him, every first, every promise, every piece of trust I had placed in his hands, and built our love on something incomplete.
My fingers curled against my palm.
“Nothing changes,” I said, firmer this time, as if the words could become true if I held them hard enough.
Hayden
At least now I knew where she was. The thought settled in my mind as I leaned back in the seat, the engine humming beneath me while my gaze stayed on the apartment one last time.
For years, she had been nothing but absence, a name I could not bury, a memory that followed me no matter how far I went.
Now that distance had a shape. A street.
A door. A life I could finally place on a map.
I exhaled and lit a cigarette. I had not always smoked.
That habit had come after Edwina left, somewhere between sleepless nights, unanswered questions, and silence so heavy it made a man desperate for something to do with his hands.
She was not gone anymore. She was here, and that changed everything.
I dragged smoke into my lungs and let my thoughts turn darker than the patience I had been pretending to have all week.
Knowing where she lived did not mean I could walk to her door and demand answers.
I knew exactly how she would react. She had made it clear enough that letting me back into her life was not part of whatever careful little world she had built here.
She would not invite me in. Not after everything.
And I had no interest in standing outside her life, playing the restrained man, waiting for permission she would never give.