Chapter Four #2
Edwina stood a few feet away from me, her posture rigid in that controlled way she had learned over the years, her arms folded tightly as if holding herself together required physical effort. She turned slightly toward the door.
“I have a lecture to finish.”
Of course she did. She had a life beyond me now, one that did not wait just because I had walked back into it. She reached for the door handle, then stopped with her hand resting there. When she looked back, the anger had faded, leaving a guarded pain in its place.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” she said.
“Too late for that.”
Her gaze held mine for a moment longer.
“Stay the fuck out of my life, Hayden,” she snapped. “I mean it.”
The request sounded more like a command. I didn’t answer. Because we both knew that wasn’t going to happen.
She opened the door and stepped into the hallway without looking back. The door closed softly behind her. For a few seconds I remained exactly where I was, staring at the empty space she had just occupied.
Edwina
The moment I stepped out of his office, the hallway felt altered.
Muted university colors lined the corridor, student voices drifted from somewhere beyond the lecture rooms, and ordinary morning movement continued around me as if nothing had changed, while I walked through it with the uneasy sense that something inside me had shifted too deeply for familiar places to feel safe.
My feet carried me forward while my thoughts stayed behind that closed door.
Seeing Hayden again yesterday had unsettled me enough. Facing him across a desk while he sat in the dean’s office at the university where I worked felt like a different kind of shock, one my mind could not make sense of quickly.
Hayden Stone was now my dean.
The thought circled through me again and again, sinking deeper each time until it became a panic I could barely contain.
London had been safe because distance had made it feel separate from everything I left behind.
An ocean had stood between this life and Washington, allowing me to believe the past could remain where I had buried it.
Now he was standing in the center of it.
I turned toward the faculty corridor, pressing my fingers to my temple as if the small pressure could hold back the chaos gathering inside my head. This city had become home.
Helena’s kindergarten was three streets away from our apartment.
The park where she liked to chase pigeons on Saturday mornings sat at the end of the block.
The university halls had become familiar I could navigate them half asleep.
Every small routine I had built here rested on the assumption that the past would never reach this far.
But Hayden had already proven how fragile that assumption was.
The fear that followed was not about seeing him again.
It was about what he would eventually discover.
He had noticed my name change already. The questions would come next.
And sooner or later he would realize something else.
I wasn’t married. There was no husband attached to the surname Rhodes.
And eventually, in a city that was suddenly far too small, he would see her.
Helena.
What if he found out about her?
The thought tightened my chest with an instinct that had only grown stronger since the day she was born.
I could keep parts of my life private, but I could not hide my daughter from the world forever.
Children grow into photographs, school events, familiar streets, and small daily routines that no amount of caution can fully control.
If Hayden stayed in London for any length of time, if our lives kept crossing through the same university halls and the same city, the truth would find its way to him.
And once he knew, nothing between us would stay simple.
I reached the faculty lounge as the break between lectures began. Several colleagues stood near the coffee machine, their conversations blending into the usual rhythm of the department.
Giselle spotted me immediately.
“There you are,” she said, pushing away from the counter and walking toward me. “I was starting to think the dean kidnapped you.”
Her tone was light, though the curiosity in her eyes was impossible to miss.
“What did he want?”
I hesitated for only a second, and Giselle caught it.
“Edwina,” she said, studying my face. “What happened?”
I took a small breath.
“Nothing,” I said, even though the word sounded weak to my own ears.
Giselle crossed her arms.
“That’s not a nothing face.”
I managed a faint smile.
“He just wanted to introduce himself.”
“During your lecture?”
“Yes.”
Giselle gave me a look. “That is a very strange time for introductions.”
I leaned back against the edge of the table behind me, grateful for the surface beneath my hands.
Giselle watched me for another moment, her expression shifting from curiosity to something closer to suspicion.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she said.
The words came closer to the truth than she realized.
“I’m just tired,” I replied.
“You’re a terrible liar.”
I exhaled softly.
“I’m not lying.”
You’re definitely not telling the whole story.”
gaze sharpened slightly.
“Wait.”
Her posture shifted, a thought beginning to form behind her eyes.
“That name,” she said slowly. “Stone.”
My stomach tightened.
“What about it?”
Giselle tilted her head.
“Yesterday, when we were talking about the conference you attended… you mentioned someone.”
I felt the floor beneath me shift slightly.
“You said you ran into someone unexpected.”
My silence answered for me. Giselle’s eyes widened just a fraction.
“Edwina,” she said carefully, “this Hayden…” The question hung between us for a moment. Then she finished it. “…is he that Hayden?”
The hallway noise faded behind her words. For a second I considered denying it. Pretending. Deflecting.
But Giselle had become one of the few people in my life who understood the weight of the past I carried without needing every detail. Lying to her now would only delay the truth.
“Yes,” I said.
Giselle blinked.
“The same one?”
“The same one.”
For a moment she said nothing. Then she ran a hand through her hair and let out a long breath.
“Well,” she muttered, “that sounds messy.”
I let out a soft, humorless laugh.
“You have no idea.”
Her eyes moved over my face again, more carefully this time.
“Does he know?” she asked.
The question settled heavily in the space between us. I shook my head.
“No.”
Giselle followed my gaze as it drifted briefly toward the window, where the afternoon light filtered into the room.
For now, the secret remained mine. But the conviction taking root in my chest told me a truth I was not ready to admit aloud.
If Hayden Stone had truly returned to my life, the truth would not stay hidden forever.
Giselle did not speak immediately after my answer.
She leaned against the counter beside me, her fingers loosely wrapped around a coffee cup while she watched my face with the careful attention of someone who understood that certain questions required patience before they were asked.
Eventually she said the one thing I had been hoping she would not.
“So… what are you planning to do now?”
I looked down at the surface of the table, tracing the faint grain of the wood with my eyes.
“I don’t know yet.”
“That’s not really an answer.”
“I know.”
Her voice softened slightly.
“Edwina… how long do you think you can keep this from him?”
The question settled uncomfortably in my chest.
“I’m not planning to tell him.”
Giselle studied me for a moment longer before speaking again.
“And how exactly are you going to hide her?”
The word her did not need clarification.
Helena existed in every corner of my life. She appeared in photographs on my phone, in the crayon drawings pinned to the refrigerator, in the routine conversations my colleagues overheard when I talked about picking her up from kindergarten.
“You can’t hide a child forever,” Giselle continued gently. “Especially not if he’s going to be working here now.”
I folded my arms across my chest instinctively.
“I’ll manage.”
Giselle’s expression shifted, not judgmental but thoughtful.
“Or maybe you won’t hide her,” she said slowly.
My gaze snapped toward her.
“What does that mean?”
She hesitated before answering.
“I mean… after all, he is her father. She has every right to know him,” Giselle added carefully. “And he has a right to know her too.”
“The hell he does.”
The response left my mouth louder than I intended.
The sudden silence around us told me immediately that half the room had heard it.
Several colleagues glanced in our direction, curiosity flashing briefly across their faces before they tried unsuccessfully to pretend they were not listening. I inhaled slowly and lowered my voice.
“The hell he does,” I repeated more quietly.
Giselle did not flinch.
“He lied to me,” I continued, the anger rising again now that the memory had been forced back into the open. “I didn’t exist in his life the way he let me believe I did. I didn’t have a place there. Not in his plans. Not in his future.”
My fingers tightened against my arms.
“While I was giving him everything, he was already engaged to someone else.”
Giselle listened without interrupting.
“He doesn’t have any right to know her,” I said firmly. “He doesn’t have any right to meet her.”
The words felt heavier once they were spoken aloud, but I refused to take them back.
“He had his chance,” I continued, my voice dropping lower. “And he threw it away.”.
“People make mistakes.”
“That wasn’t a mistake.”
She watched me carefully. “You still care about him.”
The observation was understated. Annoyingly accurate.
“That’s not the point,” I said quickly.
“Then what is?”
I leaned forward slightly, lowering my voice even more.
“He’s a man who built his life around control and ambition,” I said. “And when I left before he could decide what to do with me, it probably bruised his ego.”
Giselle’s brows lifted.