23. Blythe
— ? —
Blythe
I missed him.
So damn much.
The house was too quiet without him. Too empty.
Every room I walked into, I expected to see him, sprawled on the couch with a book, hunched over his laptop at the kitchen island, standing in the doorway of the library apologizing for something that wasn’t his fault.
But he wasn’t there. He was in a hotel somewhere, giving me space, and the space was killing me.
I kept expecting to hear his footsteps, his voice, the sound of him moving through the house. Bayes kept going to the door and whining, waiting for someone who wasn’t coming home. We were both a mess.
It had been a week. Seven days of rattling around this enormous house, sleeping in a bed that was too big, eating meals alone at a table meant for twelve. Seven days of reaching for my phone to text him something funny, then remembering that I couldn’t. Shouldn’t. Wasn’t sure I wanted to.
I was sitting in the library, his library, with the ladder I wasn’t supposed to touch, reading the files he’d sent for the fourth time. The box had arrived three days ago, delivered by a courier who’d waited patiently while I stood in the doorway trying to decide whether to accept it.
I’d accepted it. Of course I had. I needed to know.
And now I knew everything.
The memos where he’d called me “Chadwick’s wife.
” The documents tracking my movements, my conversations, my usefulness to his plan.
The cold, clinical assessment of my value as a “potential vulnerability.” It hurt to read, every time.
The words cut fresh wounds even after I’d already memorized them.
But also: the settlement his mother had signed when he was fourteen.
$127,000 for a man’s life. The report on the ship that killed his father, the Chadwick Endeavor, the engine room that had been flagged six months before the fire, the memo from Gerald Chadwick deciding that repair costs weren’t worth it.
Sixteen men dead because the numbers didn’t work.
I understood now. I understood why he’d come to Newport, why he’d targeted Chadwick Shipping, why he’d seen me as nothing more than a means to an end.
What I didn’t understand was when that had changed.
When had I become something more than “Chadwick’s wife”? When had he started looking at me like I was the only thing in the room that mattered? When had he fallen in love with me, really and truly, in a way that couldn’t be explained by strategy or revenge?
***
The doorbell rang.
Bayes launched himself off the couch and thundered toward the front door, barking. I followed more slowly, my heart tripping over itself. It could be Reid. It could be-
It wasn’t Reid.
Marguerite Hale was standing on my doorstep, a manila folder in her hands and a slightly puzzled expression on her face. She was dressed impeccably, as always, designer suit, perfect hair, professional polish decades deep.
“Mrs. Navarro.” She looked past me into the house. “Is Reid here?”
“No.” My voice came out flat. “He’s not.”
“Oh.” She frowned, a small crease appearing between her perfectly groomed eyebrows. “Well - this is for you anyway, so you can receive the papers directly. The transfer’s complete.” She held out the folder. “Congratulations!”
I took the folder automatically. “Transfer? What transfer?”
“Didn’t Reid tell you?” She looked surprised. “The ownership documents. Everything’s been finalized.” She glanced at her watch. “I have another appointment, but say hi to Reid for me. Bye!”
She was back in her car before I could ask any questions.
I stood in the doorway for a long moment, staring at the folder in my hands. It was heavy. Official. The kind of folder that contained things that mattered.
Then I closed the door and walked back to the library.
I sat down on the couch. Bayes pressed against my legs, whining softly. I opened the folder. Started reading.
The first document gave me twenty percent of Halyard Capital, a fifth of everything Reid had built, signed over to Blythe Montrose Navarro, free and clear. No way for him to ever take it back. No conditions. No strings of any kind.
I stared at it.
He’d given me a piece of his company. Not loaned, not invested. Given. Outright. Forever.
I turned to the next page.
A deed transfer. For Windrose. The house, this house, the one I was sitting in, was now in my name. Sole owner. Nothing owed, nothing attached.
That’s why he left. He gave it to me, and then he removed himself from it.
The tears came before I could stop them.
I sat there on the couch in his library, surrounded by his books and his files and the evidence of his lies, and I cried. Hard. So hard my whole body shook with it, so hard Bayes started whining and pressing his massive head into my lap.
He’d hidden things from me. He’d built our whole relationship on a foundation of secrets. He’d come to Newport for revenge and used me to get it.
But he’d also pulled me out of the water. He’d spent a whole night as my pillow rather than wake me. He’d watched me destroy Chadwick Shipping without lifting a finger to help, because he trusted me to do it myself.
And now he’d given me money of my own, money I’d earned, money nobody could take away, and a home that was mine, really mine, for the first time in my life.
He’d given me everything, and then he’d stepped back to let me decide what to do with it.
I read through the rest of the documents. The papers that made me part owner of everything he’d built. The deed to Windrose, in my name. Everything in order, everything legal, everything designed to make me independent in a way I’d never been before.
At the bottom of the stack was his letter.
Four sentences. I’d read them a hundred times already, but I read them again.
I lied to you. I will never lie to you again. If you give me another chance, I will spend the rest of my life earning it. I love you.
I held the letter in my hands and thought about what I wanted.
Not what I should want, not what made sense, not what was wise or safe or reasonable.
What I actually wanted.
I wanted him.
I wanted his voice in the other room and his hands on my skin and his awkward apologies for things that weren’t his fault. I wanted to watch him fail at small talk and succeed at everything else. I wanted to wake up tangled in him and fall asleep with his heartbeat under my cheek.
He’d lied to me. He’d hidden things. He’d built our relationship on secrets.
And somewhere between the fortieth read of that letter and the hundredth, I had stopped asking myself whether I forgave him, because the question underneath it had already been answered without my permission.
I loved him. It wasn’t a decision and it wasn’t pending review.
I loved this enormous, awkward, lying, devoted man, and had for longer than I was prepared to admit, and the only question actually left on the table was what I intended to do about it.
But he’d also loved me. Really loved me, in a way Stan never had. In a way nobody ever had.
Maybe I could just make him suffer instead.
I decided to give it a week. If my feelings changed in a week, fine. I’d move on. I’d build my own life with my own money in my own house, and I’d learn to live without him.
And if my feelings didn’t change, if I still wanted him after seven days of trying not to, then I’d go and talk to him. Not to forgive him, not right away. But to give him a chance to grovel for it.
It was the longest week of my life.
I saw him everywhere.
At the company, walking through the halls with his head down. At the bar, sitting alone in a corner with a drink he wasn’t drinking. Around the neighborhood, in his car, in his running clothes, in the early morning light when I couldn’t sleep.
He never once approached me.
On Tuesday the elevator doors at Halyard were closing when a hand caught them, reflex, a man catching a lift the way men do, and then the doors reopened and it was him, and we looked at each other across two feet of empty air for what felt like a geological age.
“I’ll take the next one,” he said quietly, and stepped back.
The doors closed on his face. I rode down eleven floors alone with my heart slamming and my hand pressed flat against the rail, furious at him for stepping back and furious at myself for wanting him to step in, and by the lobby I couldn’t have told you which fury was bigger.
Every time our eyes met, he looked away first. Every time we were in the same room, he found somewhere else to be. He was giving me space. The way Blair had told me he would.
And he looked miserable. Absolutely wrecked. Dark circles under his eyes, a hollow look to his cheeks. Like he wasn’t sleeping. Like he wasn’t eating. Like he was slowly falling apart.
Good, I thought. He should suffer.
But watching him suffer didn’t feel as satisfying as I’d expected.
***
The week ended on a Thursday.
I was at the office, finishing up the last of the Chadwick paperwork. The company was officially dissolved now, nothing left but asset distributions and final filings. My work here was almost done.
I looked up from my desk and saw him.
Reid was walking into his office across the hall. He glanced toward me, and for one moment our eyes met.
Then he looked away and closed his door.
I sat there for a long moment, my heart pounding.
My feelings hadn’t changed. If anything, they’d gotten stronger.
Okay.
It was time.