Chapter 7
Adaline
My room is quiet when I finally walk in, rubbing at the tension in my temples. I shut the door behind me, turn on the lamp, and freeze.
My luggage is here.
All three bags, neatly lined against the wall, as if they arrived on their own.
Relief hits so fast it knocks the breath out of me, and I don’t even try to stop it. I kneel beside the suitcases, unzipping each one, the familiar scent of fabric softener and home washing over me. Finally, my clothes, my things—like a missing part of me just snapped back into place.
For the first time since I got to Rose Hills, something feels normal.
I start unpacking, folding my dresses into drawers, lining up my shoes, and arranging my skincare bottles on the dresser, small rituals that always settle my nerves. I decide to organize everything while I’m at it. When I open my notebook to take out the pen, something slips to the floor.
A news clipping.
The same one that dropped in front of Hunter last night. My stomach twists, hard enough that I have to lean on the bed behind me.
It’s a small newspaper photo of me and Connor side-by-side at a hospital fundraiser.
His hand is around my shoulder. My smile, bright and unaware.
And beneath it, the headline I tore off months ago.
It had blown up on a medical gossip blog.
Connor printed it because he liked collecting moments like this. “For our memories,” he’d said.
“No,” I mutter, grabbing it with tighter fingers than necessary. I tear it straight down the center.
Then again. And again, until it’s nothing but a shredded memory in my trash can.
I sit on the edge of the bed, exhaling shakily. As the anger fades, everything else rushes back.
The moment in the hallway when Hunter approached me. How I instinctively stepped back. The flicker in his eyes—hurt. Annoyance. Something I wasn’t meant to see.
Heat floods my cheeks. I judged him. I actually judged him.
Me, of all people, the girl who refuses to judge anyone without proof. It’s humiliating how easily the townspeople’s rumors wormed into my head.
I press a palm over my forehead.
I’m no better than the people who whispered behind my back when I got engaged to Connor. People tried to warn me. People tried to tell me he was manipulative, calculating, and power-hungry.
But I didn’t listen because I believed him. The memory stabs deeper than I expect. I can still hear Connor’s voice through the cracked office door that day at the hospital, calm, confident, bragging to a colleague on the phone.
“I’m not actually marrying her. You know that, right? It just looks good. PR gold. The board loves a clean image.”
My blood had gone cold.
My fiancé, my future, my whole carefully built life. “A prop,” I whisper now.
He had used me. And I let him.
I remember confronting him, my voice shaking, his excuses spilling like poison.
I remember the look on his face when I told him it was over.
He hadn’t expected that. He followed me down the hall at the hospital until he noticed people staring.
And then calls wouldn't stop, he kept calling, kept demanding I come back, insisting we “work through it together.”
As if I had broken something—not him.
It was a lot to handle. I felt so crushed and heartbroken, but I knew I was never letting him use me again.
I took time off. Hid in my apartment. Ignored the messages. Then came the agency’s offer. A live-in position in a tiny town far from the city. Far from him. I took it without looking back.
My phone buzzes on the dresser. Rachel. Finally. I answer and sit down hard on the bed.
“Please tell me you have good news,” I say the second I pick up, already bracing myself. Her sigh is answer enough.
“Addy,” Rachel says slowly, “Connor’s been asking about you.”
I close my eyes.
“He’s still mad you dumped him,” she continues, “and apparently even madder about missing out on that promotion.”
I swallow, pressing my phone tighter to my ear.
“He’s also trying to rebuild his image. He’s starting some charity medical camps,” she adds.
Of course he is. Connor doesn’t breathe without asking if it benefits him.
“That’s not all,” Rachel continues, lowering her voice. “There’s an ongoing investigation at the hospital. A medication dosage mix-up, and Connor’s name is circling it. He might try to drag you into it.”
“What?” I sit up straighter on the bed. “I wasn’t even there.”
“I know,” she says quickly. “But just… stay where you are, okay? Rose Hills is quiet. No reporters. No drama. Let him cool off.”
I lie back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. “My boss barely tolerates me; I can’t afford another mistake.”
“Wait,” she says. “I know you signed an NDA through the agency, but isn’t an elderly woman your patient? You’re great with that age group. They love you.”
I rub my forehead. “Ugh. I can’t give you details,” I groan. “But her nephew is my boss.”
“Your boss,” she repeats.
“And ‘we don’t get along’ doesn’t even begin to cover it,” I say.
“Okay, but important question,” Rachel cuts in. “Is he hot?”
“Rachel,” I warn.
“Too late,” she says cheerfully. “I looked him up. Addy. He’s offensively handsome.”
“I can’t believe this,” she adds. “You moved in with the Rexon billionaire?”
I remember giving her the basics, the Rexon name, the job title.
I hadn’t wanted to disappear to a small town without anyone knowing where I worked—someone needed to know, just in case.
But right now, Rachel is taking this in a very different direction, and I find myself quietly grateful I never told her about North.
Heat creeps up my neck. “I did not move in with him,” I say quickly. “We just happen to live in the same house. And that’s all I’m saying before I accidentally violate the NDA.”
“Then make him like you,” she says, and her tone says she’s teasing, even if she’s only half joking.
Then she softens. “Or at least make him not fire you. You need this job,” she says gently. “And you deserve a life without anyone controlling you.”
She’s right. I do need this job. And until my life stops burning down behind me, I have nowhere else to go. We talk a bit more about her new roommate, then hang up.
I drop my phone onto the bed and just… sit there.
The room is quiet except for the soft hum of the heater and the distant whisper of wind against the windows.
One of the suitcases lies open at the foot of the bed, half-unpacked, clothes spilling over the edge like they’re trying to escape the chaos of my life.
I lean back against the headboard and stare at the ceiling, the faint pattern of shadows from the branches outside shifting with the wind.
For the first time in a long time, there’s space I didn’t realize I was missing.
No back-to-back shifts. No wedding planning mess.
And no texts from Connor asking where I am or why I haven’t answered yet.
Just me. Me and this room in a mansion that doesn’t feel like home yet, but might, if I let it.
If I don’t get fired. If my past doesn’t claw its way here. I pull my knees up, hugging them to my chest.
I’ve wanted to take the critical care registered nurse exam for years.
Every time I walked past the posted notices at the hospital, I’d linger for a second, imagine my name typed neatly next to “Registered Nurse. Critical Care Certified.” A simple little line that would mean more career options, better pay, and more responsibility.
But there was always something in the way.
Scheduling conflicts. Double shifts. A fiancé with a glittering smile and a constant need for me to be available for his charity events and photo ops.
Before Connor, I was happy. I was building my career, growing friendships, finally living something close to a normal life I’d never really been allowed to have as a teenager.
I wasn’t looking for love.
But Connor didn’t give up. And before I realized what was happening, I was engaged. But now I’m not planning a wedding. I’m not drowning in twelve-hour shifts. I’m not rearranging my life around someone else’s ambitions.
The thought lands, solid and undeniable. For once, my life feels like it belongs to me again. I glance at the small desk by the window, where my notebook and pens sit next to my now-charging phone.
Aunt Jane naps every afternoon. Mrs. Lane handles most of the household logistics. There are quiet pockets of time I could claim for myself. I could study. I could stop putting my future on hold because someone else didn’t deserve to be in it.
A tiny spark of determination flickers to life in my chest.
Hunter may not like me. He may think I’m messy and incompetent and too soft for his world of sharp corners and strict rules.
But he doesn’t get to decide whether I stay or run.
Not anymore. I did that for too long with Connor, with my old life, with every decision I delayed because it wasn’t convenient for someone else.
No more. No matter how grumpy, controlling, or unfair Hunter wants to be, he can’t make me quit. Not from this job. I have to stand my ground.
I exhale, a long, slow breath that leaves me feeling lighter. Tired, but lighter.
I stare at the ceiling again. Sleep doesn’t come; my brain refuses to shut off. It keeps flipping through channels. Hunter’s intense gray eyes, the look on his face when I stepped back, and the town gossip. Connor’s voice on that phone call.
I make a frustrated sound and grab my phone.
There’s one person who always makes things feel less tangled, without asking for anything in return.
North.
My thumb hovers over his name in the HeartLines app. I hesitate for a second, then open our chat and type before I can talk myself out of it.
Wind: Do you ever feel like you can’t trust your own judgment about people?
I stare at the blinking cursor, my heart thumping a little faster.
The words feel exposed on the screen. But that’s the point with North, isn’t it?
He doesn’t know my face, my mess, my history.
He’s just… there. Blunt and sometimes, strangely kind.
I know the basics. He lives somewhere in the Northeast, and he is somewhere between twenty-seven and thirty-two.
I add another line.
Wind: I thought I was good at reading people. Turns out I might be the worst.
I hit send before I can delete it. The little “online” dot next to his name is dark.
He’s not here. It’s late. I should be sleeping, not trauma-dumping into a chat box.
Still, I cling to the possibility that he’ll see it later.
That sometime tomorrow, when everything feels muddled again, I’ll open the app and find his reply waiting for me, dry, a little sarcastic, but exactly what I need.
I lock my phone, but a new notification pops up almost immediately. Voicemail.
Unknown number. I don’t have to tap it to know who it probably is. I see his name without seeing it. Hear his smooth, polished voice in my head. Adaline, we need to talk. You’re overreacting. You’re ruining my reputation. Come back and fix this.
My stomach twists. I could listen. Just tap play and let his words slither into this room, into this fresh start, into this fragile sense of safety I’m trying to build. Or I could finally choose not to.
My thumb hovers for half a second. Then I swipe left and hit delete.
Sleep is a joke. I lie in bed staring at the ceiling. My brain still plays the greatest-hits reel of everything I’m trying not to think about. Why did I step back from Hunter like he was dangerous?
I fling the blanket off and sit up. My chest feels tight, like there’s too much air and not enough at the same time. Lying here isn’t helping. Overthinking isn’t helping. I need air. Movement. Something.
I change into my running leggings and a light long-sleeve top. The familiarity of the routine calms me a little, fabric stretching, elastic snapping, shoelaces tying in neat knots. I grab my phone out of habit and shove it into my pocket, but I don’t bother with music. I want the quiet.
When I crack my door open, the hallway is dark and still. The motion lights glow softly as I step out, brightening with each footstep as if the house is watching me. I pad down the stairs as quietly as I can, half expecting Hunter to materialize out of nowhere and ask what I think I’m doing.
He doesn’t.
Outside, the night air hits me like a cool hand to the forehead. I suck in a deep breath. The sky is cloudy, smeared gray and silver, but the moon still manages to slip through in patches. The mansion glows faintly behind me, warm light spilling from a few upstairs windows.
The roses are the first thing I really notice.
They line the front beds, hugging the path and curling around the edges of the house.
Their scent drifts toward me in a soft, sweet, familiar way.
It smells like every old garden I’ve ever loved, every quiet evening I used to spend with my grandma on her tiny apartment balcony, pretending the potted plants were a forest.
I walk slowly across the front lawn, shoes whispering over the grass. The pond shimmers off to the side, just like I see it from my window. The water is still, catching flecks of pale moonlight, looking almost unreal from here.
For a moment, I just breathe.
Then something tugs at the edge of my vision. Light.
Off to the right, past a row of hedges, the garage doors are open. Warm yellow spills out across the gravel like a spotlight. I frown. It’s late. I thought everyone had gone to bed. Curiosity pulls me closer before I can talk myself out of it.
As I round the hedges, I stop dead. My green sedan sits in one of the bays. I blink hard, certain my eyes are lying to me. That’s my car, with the same dent on the back bumper. The hood is slightly propped open.
But… it can’t be here. Hunter had it towed to the repair shop in town. Liam told me so. And yet, here it is inside his garage.
The scent of motor oil and warm metal reaches me, mingling with the faint perfume of roses still carried on the breeze.
Classical music floats softly from somewhere inside the garage, strings and piano, calm and precise.
I step over the threshold without thinking, drawn toward my car, toward the impossible image of it here.
I take another step in. Something moves.
A dark shape shifts beneath the front bumper. A shadow rolls unexpectedly into my line of vision. My heart launches into my throat.
Before my brain catches up enough to recognize what I’m seeing, instinct takes over, and I scream.