Chapter 18 #2
“She told me he was busy,” Isla continues. “That his music mattered more than mine. That I shouldn’t expect him to show up when he had already chosen his life.”
Her voice wavers. “I remember standing backstage that night, listening for applause from a man that never came.”
Callum’s fists clench at his sides.
“And now,” Isla says, tapping the no-contact clause, “I find out he wasn’t allowed to come. Not even to stand in the back.”
She laughs again, sharp and broken. “I spent my whole life resenting a ghost who wasn’t permitted to exist.”
Callum steps closer, his presence solid at her side.
“This doesn’t absolve him,” Isla says quickly, as if daring the thought. “He still signed it. He still chose distance.”
“No,” Callum agrees. “It doesn’t absolve him.”
She turns on him. “But it explains why he stayed away.”
“Yes.”
“And it explains why my mother never told me.” Her voice drops. “Because the truth would have cracked the image she built. It explains why she wants me to come home before I learned the truth.”
Callum nods.
“She needed you to believe he chose to stay away,” he says. “Because that made her the protector.”
Isla’s breath shudders. “She needed me loyal.”
“She needed you safe,” Callum corrects gently. “The problem is she defined safety as control.”
“So my father removed himself because he thought he was poison,” she says. “And my mother removed him because she thought she knew better. And I was never given the choice of seeing him.”
Callum’s voice is low. “Both of them made choices out of fear.”
“And I paid for it,” Isla whispers.
Silence presses in again, heavy with understanding rather than shock.
Callum reaches for the papers, gathering them carefully, aligning the edges as if order might help. It’s a small action, but it feels intimate, like he’s trying to hold the pieces together for her.
“He complied because he didn’t believe he deserved you,” Callum says. “And she enforced it because she didn’t trust him to be restrained and not the rock-n-roll star.”
“Look, an envelope addressed to you,” he says as it slips from between the pages.
Her heart cracks for just a moment. “Not tonight. I can’t take any more. Let’s save that for tomorrow.”
Isla closes her eyes.
“That might be the cruelest part,” she says. “I believe they both loved me. And they both hurt me anyway.”
Callum looks at her, something fierce and protective flickering across his expression.
“You deserved better than fear-based love,” he says.
The words strike her harder than anger ever could.
For a moment, Isla can’t breathe. She has spent her life excelling, achieving, mastering, controlling every space she entered, except the one where love lived. There, she learned to be careful. Restrained. Managed.
She stands abruptly, pacing again, energy coiling tightly inside her chest.
“I don’t know who I am without all of that,” she admits. “Without the schedule. Without the expectations. Without being the girl who never caused trouble.”
Callum watches her. “You’re the woman standing here now, and you’ve been causing your mother some trouble.”
She scoffs weakly. “That woman feels like she’s coming apart.”
“Sometimes that’s the only way to find out what’s real,” he replies.
Isla stops in front of him. “And what if I choose wrong?” she asks, voice trembling.
Callum meets her gaze steadily. “Then you choose again.”
The simplicity devastates her.
“All my life,” Isla says, “love has meant rules. Distance. Sacrifice disguised as responsibility.”
Callum’s voice is quiet but sure. “It doesn’t have to.”
She steps closer, heart pounding.
“What if I don’t know how to do it any other way?”
“Then let someone stay,” he says. “Not to fix it. Just to be there.”
Something inside her cracks open.
Isla lifts her hand, hesitates, then rests it against his chest. His heart beats steadily beneath her palm, real, present, unguarded.
“I don’t want to be alone tonight,” she says, and this time she doesn’t try to disguise the need.
Callum’s breath catches. “Tell me to stay.”
“Stay,” she whispers. “But not here. My bedroom.”
His hands slide to her waist, firm and grounding, and the kiss is slow, deliberate, nothing taken, everything offered. It’s a kiss that says I’m here without demanding she be anything other than what she is right now: furious, grieving, and undone.
Isla clings to him, not because she’s weak, but because she’s finally letting herself want. Because for the first time in her life, her body has been awakened. While Callum may still be her enemy, she wants him like she’s never wanted a man before.
Tonight, she needs to feel his arms around her, holding her, reassuring her that everything will be all right.
When they part, their foreheads rest together, breath mingling.
“This doesn’t fix anything,” she whispers.
“No,” Callum agrees. “But it means you don’t face it alone.”
She closes her eyes, letting the truth settle in her bones.
Presence.
Not protection.
Not control.
Presence.
Isla takes his hand and leads him from Keir’s bedroom. The castle is quiet around them as if listening.
But tonight, Isla chooses what neither of her parents chose for her.
The envelope addressed to her remains on the bed, waiting like a verdict.
She chooses not to be alone.