Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Hayden
David’s voice lingered in the air long after he left my office, his words burrowing deep, sharp and insistent.
Any man in my position would have accepted without hesitation, a full contract at one of the top universities in the country, prestige that would crown years of work, the kind of title people bled for.
But the only image that refused to fade was not of lecture halls or accolades. It was her.
Edwina.
The girl from that fucking night. The accident that destroyed everything.
The one I had pulled from the wreckage while my sister and her fiancé lay dying in the same goddamn chaos.
I had spent years trying to hate her, to drown her memory in guilt and rage, but she had stayed, etched into every sleepless night, every breath that burned through me.
When she returned, all that anger turned into something worse, obsession.
She became the ache that nothing could numb.
The hunger that no distance could quiet.
I spent every lecture fighting the urge to drag her into my arms, to remind her of what her body already knew, that she belonged to me.
And now that she had whispered she loved me, lips swollen from my kiss, how the fuck could I trade her for a contract, a paycheck, a hollow life I no longer wanted?
Christ, I couldn’t.
Not when her body remembered me, not when her thighs clenched at my filthiest words, not when the sound of her breath alone made me harder than any goddamn ambition ever could.
She was the one thing in this world that could wreck me completely, and I wanted her wreckage more than I wanted the life I had built.
The sound of my phone cut through the quiet, shrill and jarring.
Alessia.
My fucking fiancée. The one I had never chosen.
The one my family had picked, perfect, acceptable, a goddamn social transaction dressed as commitment.
I stared at the screen, my thumb hovering, rage twisting in my gut.
The last thing I wanted was her voice in my ear while my body still remembered Edwina’s warmth.
The phone buzzed again. Persistent. Relentless. She wasn’t going to stop.
“What the fuck do you want, Alessia?” The words came out harsh and ragged, soaked in the exhaustion I no longer bothered to hide.
A pause followed, the faint sound of her breath before her voice sharpened. “Hayden. Really? That’s how you greet me after weeks of silence? I thought you’d at least pretend to have manners.”
“I told you before,” I bit out, my gaze fixed on the rain streaking the window, “there’s nothing between us. No relationship. No engagement. No fucking future.”
There was a beat of silence on the other end, the soft sound of her breath caught in She scoffed, the sound grating, threaded with the cool arrogance that had always infuriated me. “You don’t get to rewrite history, Hayden. You’re still mine, whether you like it or not.”
My grip tightened on the phone until it creaked in protest. “I was never yours, Alessia. Not for a single goddamn second. I belonged to my family, to their rules, to their expectations, but I cut that leash years ago. I left that life, and I left you with it.”
Her silence lingered a moment, heavy enough to almost fool me into thinking I’d won. Then her voice returned, smooth and deliberate, carrying a weight I hadn’t expected.
“You can shout at me all you want, Hayden. Deny me, deny us, deny everything. But it doesn’t matter.” A pause, her breath brushing faintly against the receiver. “Because I’m here.”
My grip on the phone tightened until the plastic threatened to snap. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“In Washington.” Her words sliced clean through the static, each syllable cutting deep. “I found you. And I want to meet. Face to face. No more hiding behind your cowardly excuses.”
A bitter laugh scraped from my throat. “You think I’ll sit across from you in some goddamn café and pretend nothing happened? Pretend I didn’t already tell you this is over?”
“I don’t care where,” she replied, her tone smooth and venomous. “But you’ll meet me, Hayden. You owe me that much.”
Rage flared hot in my chest, tangled with panic and a cold dread that crawled beneath my skin.
The past I had buried was clawing its way out, piece by piece, wearing her voice.
Alessia wasn’t just a ghost anymore, she was here, in my city, breathing the same air as me.
Within reach of everything I had built. Within reach of Edwina.
And that was the one fucking thing I couldn’t allow.
“You think you can hang up and pretend I don’t exist?
” Her voice dipped lower, a cruel purr. “You think you can bury me the way you buried your family? The way you bury every mess you make?” She let out a soft laugh, cold and mocking.
“You forget, Hayden, I know you better than anyone. I know exactly where to dig when you start hiding. And I’ve already found more than you’d want me to. ”
My stomach twisted, the heat in my chest collapsing into ice. “What the fuck are you talking about, Alessia?”
“I’ve seen her,” she said, every word heavy with smug satisfaction. “The girl you’ve been keeping in the dark. The one you can’t stop staring at. You really thought you could hide her from me? Your little secret?
My grip on the phone shook, knuckles whitening as fury tore through me. “If you go near her—” My voice came out low and broken, a threat scraping against the edge of control.
“Then meet me,” she cut in, her tone softening in that way she knew would infuriate me most. “Or maybe I’ll pay her a visit myself.”
The line went quiet, but I could still feel her smile through the static, poisonous and certain, pressing the weight of her threat straight into my chest. I lowered the phone slowly, my pulse slamming through me, each beat a warning. Alessia was here. And she fucking knew.
I hadn’t fucking wanted this. Every part of me rebelled against the idea of seeing her, of sitting across from Alessia as if the past hadn’t bled us both dry, as if the years of silence could be smoothed over with coffee and small talk.
But her threat had left me no goddamn choice.
The moment she said she’d seen Edwina, I knew I had to come.
Because if she went anywhere near her, I wouldn’t just lose control, I’d destroy everything.
So I came.
The café was warm, full of soft conversation and the hiss of steaming milk. The air smelled of roasted beans and sugar, too civilized for the storm raging in me. My fists stayed buried in my coat pockets, jaw clenched so tight I could taste blood.
She was already there.
Alessia sat by the window, sunlight spilling over her perfect posture and her pristine white coat, every detail of her designed to draw attention.
Her beauty had always been polished, soulless perfection carved into shape by family ambition.
When her gaze met mine, a smile unfurled across her lips, measured and venomous, meant to wound.
“Hayden,” she purred, her voice smooth enough to make my skin crawl. “You look well.”
I dropped into the chair across from her, barely containing the disgust twisting in my gut. “Cut the bullshit. What the hell do you want from me?”
Her smile deepened, venom hiding beneath elegance.
“Always so blunt. You haven’t changed.” She wrapped her manicured hands around her mug, every move calculated.
“I told you already. I wanted to see you. To remind you of where you came from. Of what you owe. You can’t erase blood, Hayden. You can’t just walk away from duty.”
My throat burned, anger scraping raw inside me. “That life is dead. You’re dead to me. Whatever deal our families made, it ended the day I walked out.”
Her laugh was soft, practiced, the kind that sounded like silk until you felt the blade beneath it.
“And yet here you are. Sitting right in front of me. Isn’t that ironic?
You always come back to what you swore you’d escape.
” She leaned forward, eyes glinting with cruel satisfaction.
“This is fate, Hayden. Ours. It’s the legacy our siblings left behind.
Yes, I’ll admit it, they loved each other.
It wasn’t an arrangement like ours. But they’re gone, and someone has to carry what they left unfinished.
You and I, we are what’s left of them. This—” she gestured between us, a smug tilt in her voice “—is what it was always meant to be.”
My pulse roared in my ears. “You manipulative fucking snake,” I hissed, my voice shaking with barely contained fury. “Don’t you dare use them to justify your bullshit. You didn’t love my sister—you envied her. And now you’re dragging her memory through the dirt to pull me back into that nightmare.”
She only smiled wider, her voice turning syrup-sweet. “Maybe. Or maybe I just know you better than you know yourself. You were always too sentimental for your own good.”
I was about to snap—every muscle in me coiled and ready to break—when the bell above the café door chimed.
And everything stopped.
Edwina walked in.
Her coat glistened with rain, droplets catching the light, scattering across her dark hair with the shimmer of broken glass.
Aster was beside her, Gwen just behind, all of them laughing softly as they shook the drizzle from their hands.
It should have been nothing, an ordinary moment.
But the sight of her in that doorway knocked the air straight out of me.
What the hell was she doing here at this time? During class hours?
She should have been in the lecture hall, not walking straight into the fire I couldn’t shield her from.
But then she lifted her head. And her eyes found mine.
The ground shifted beneath me. My lungs forgot how to work.
The room tilted. My chest locked. The noise around us vanished.
Her laughter stilled, her face shifting from warmth to confusion, disbelief flickering across her features as her gaze darted from me to Alessia, then back again.
And Alessia, of course, noticed. She always fucking noticed. Her lips curved slowly, triumph blooming across her face as she leaned back, eyes glinting with wicked delight. She watched Edwina the way a predator watches its prey, savoring the chaos she’d just unleashed.
I couldn’t move. My body was locked, my pulse a violent hammer in my chest as Edwina stood frozen across the room.
And Alessia smiled, the kind of smile that told me she believed she’d finally won.
I had told myself I could control this, that I could keep the two parts of my life separate, that I could manage the past without ever letting it touch the one person who had already wrecked me beyond repair.
But as her eyes locked with mine across that crowded café, wide and wounded, I knew the lie for what it was.
There was no control anymore.
Her steps slowed for a single beat, confusion flickering across her face, then something in her forced her forward.
She straightened, lifted her chin, and walked toward us.
Every line of her body practiced composure.
She wore professionalism as a mask, her hands composed at her sides, her expression schooled into polite neutrality.
It tore me up to see her use distance the way she did, to watch her build a wall in seconds as though I were suddenly reduced to a name and a title.
When she reached the table her voice was clear and formal, and the words cut deep. “Good afternoon, Professor Stone,” she said. Not Hayden. Not the man who had kissed her and ripped her open with everything he’d whispered. Professor Stone. A line drawn in the sand.
My stomach twisted. Fury flared, hot and savage, but before I could move Alessia rose as if on cue. She flowed through the motion with the elegance the world had taught her, her smile immaculate, her hand extended in an offering that stung.
“You must be Edwina,” she said, voice layered with sweetness and steel. “I’m Alessia. Hayden’s fiancée.”
Those words detonated. They landed harder than the rain against the windows.
Edwina froze. Her eyes widened, and for a second I watched everything pass over her face — shock, hurt, betrayal — then she smoothed it into a careful calm that broke my heart all over again.
Something inside me cracked.
Fuck. Shit. No. Not like this.
This wasn’t how she was supposed to find out, not from Alessia’s poisoned smile, not in a crowded café with her friends only a few steps away, not while Edwina held herself together with the thinnest thread of composure.
My jaw tightened until the taste of metal filled my mouth.
My fists curled beneath the table. I should have stood.
I should have ripped Alessia’s hand away, told the truth right there, stripped the moment of every fucking lie, told Edwina that the engagement was a carcass, a bargaining chip, and that the only woman who owned me was her.
But I was too slow. Alessia’s voice lingered in the air, smug and satisfied, as Edwina’s gaze found mine.
Those eyes, dark and wounded and accusing, locked on me, and heat rose through me that wasn’t just fury.
I wanted to burn everything down. I wanted to tear the world apart and carve out a place where she knew she was mine.
I wanted to curse the family, curse the contracts, curse the goddamn masks everyone wore.
I wanted to tell her, to make her see the filthy truth of it, that she owned me, that every inch of me belonged to her and no one else.
Alessia smiled that same infuriating smile and said, her voice soft as poison, “We all have duties, Hayden. This is ours. We don’t get to choose who we become for other people.”
Her words struck with the force of a slap, calculated to wound, to claim, to drag the past out into the open and chain me to it. Rage unspooled through me, raw and vicious, and beneath it, something darker, an ache that refused to be silenced, a possessive hunger that would never let her go.