Chapter 14 #2
Her vision blurs so quickly, it shocks her. Tears spill before she can stop them, hot against her cheeks, humiliating in their honesty.
She presses a hand to her mouth, as if she can hold the sound inside.
Keir’s expression in the photograph is nothing like the man she’s imagined her entire life. There’s no distance. No avoidance.
His face is soft with wonder, eyes dark and intent as he studies the tiny bundle in his arms like she’s the most fragile, miraculous thing he’s ever seen.
Like he can’t look away.
Callum inhales sharply beside her.
“That,” he says slowly, voice rough, “is not the look of a man who never wanted to see his daughter again.”
Isla’s throat tightens painfully.
She can’t speak. She can barely breathe.
All the stories she’s carried, careful explanations, tidy conclusions, the narrative her mother fed her so she could swallow the past without choking, fracture under the weight of this single image.
He held me.
He looked at me like I mattered.
Isla swipes at her cheeks angrily, furious with herself for crying, furious that she can feel the grief of a moment she never remembered.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she whispers. “None of it does.”
Callum shifts closer. Not touching. Just close enough that his presence steadies the air.
“No,” he agrees softly. “It doesn’t.”
Isla clutches the photograph to her chest, pressing its corners against her sternum like it can anchor her. Like proof can replace memory.
The castle presses around them, stone and silence and secrets, too solid, too old, too full of things that were never spoken.
And the kiss still hums in her blood.
That’s what terrifies her most.
Because she is not only unraveling in front of Callum, she is aware of him in a way she has never allowed herself to be aware of any man.
She notices the way he watches her. The way his breathing changes when she cries.
The way he looks at the photograph like he wants to destroy whoever made that moment end.
Isla squeezes her eyes shut.
This is not safe.
Nothing here is safe.
Not the past.
Not the truth.
Not Callum.
She draws a shaky breath and forces her voice steady. “If he felt that… then why—”
Callum’s answer is quiet but firm. “Something happened. Something stole him away from your mother. Maybe it’s time she answered some questions.”
Isla opens her eyes and looks at him, the tears drying on her cheeks, anger building beneath the grief.
“My mother told me the story was finished,” she says. “End of story. He didn’t come back.”
Callum’s gaze hardens. “And yet…”
She holds up the photograph again, shaking slightly. “And yet.”
The room feels smaller. The locked door at their backs feels heavier. The shelves feel like they’re leaning in, waiting.
Isla stares at the photograph of Keir holding her. Staring down at her like she was something sacred.
Then she looks at Callum. His eyes are on her with an intensity that makes her breath catch again.
The past is between them.
The castle is between them.
And still—her body remembers his mouth.
“Fine,” she says, voice hoarse. “Then we keep looking.”
Callum nods.
They return to the boxes with renewed purpose, the laughter gone but something else in its place now, something sharper. Determination.
Isla opens another box and finds more photographs, more fragments of a life she was never allowed to witness. Keir laughing with his bandmates. Keir in a studio, headphones around his neck. Keir leaning over a mixing board, face focused, eyes alive.
Alive.
The word slices through her.
Then she finds something folded beneath the photos: a thin envelope, unsealed, with Keir’s handwriting on the front.
Not her name.
Not Alisa’s.
Just a single letter.
A.
Isla’s pulse stutters.
Callum’s gaze snaps to it. “That’s…”
“I know,” Isla whispers.
She turns it over with trembling fingers.
It isn’t open.
It isn’t read.
It’s just there, like a final breadcrumb, like a dare.
Isla looks up at Callum. “Again, we have the letter A.”
Callum’s expression is grim. “Someone who mattered enough to stop him. Honestly, I think it’s your mother.”
Isla’s stomach twists. Alisa.
She grips the envelope until the paper bends slightly. “We’re not leaving this room until we know what this is.”
Callum’s voice is low. “Then we better figure out how to get out first.”
Isla glances toward the door again. The lock sits there, silent, indifferent.
The castle isn’t giving them an easy escape.
Of course, it isn’t.
Isla draws in a slow breath and steadies herself. “Call for help,” she says. “But not my mother. Not my manager. Not anyone connected to… them.”
Callum nods once, as if he understands exactly what she means.
He reaches for the door again, testing the handle, then the lock, jaw clenched.
Isla watches him, the way his shoulders tense, the way his hands flex with frustration.
And without warning, she laughs softly.
Callum turns. “What?”
She holds up the sequined jacket again, waving it like a flag. “If we die in here, I want it known that your father once wore this voluntarily.”
Callum’s lips twitch. “Keir wasn’t my father.”
Isla lifts an eyebrow. “Apparently, he had questionable taste.”
Callum snorts, laughter breaking through his grimness for one breath. “God help us, you’re right.”
Isla’s smile fades as quickly as it arrives.
She looks down at the photograph in her hand, at Keir’s face as he stares down at newborn Isla like the world has shifted.
Then she looks at Callum.
The warmth from the kiss is still there, hovering under her skin like a bruise.
“You said that isn’t the look of a man who never wanted to see his daughter again,” she says quietly.
Callum meets her gaze, steady and certain. “It’s not.”
Isla’s voice trembles. “Then someone stole that from me.”
Callum’s jaw tightens. “Yes.”
The room falls silent again.
Not empty silence.
Loaded.
The kind that shifts the air, changes the shape of everything.
Isla presses the photograph to her chest once more and closes her eyes.
She isn’t leaving the castle.
Not now.
Not until she knows exactly who decided her father’s love was not enough.
And why.