Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
Lance
“Hazel, I know you’re fucking in there.”
The booming voice startles me from sleep.
We arrived back at Katie’s late last night, wanting to delay our return to reality as long as possible.
My brain is clouded from the late drive home, but that bellow cuts clean through the peace.
For a second, I think I’m dreaming—who the hell is Hazel?
The mind can play funny tricks on you when you’re half-conscious.
“Fucking hell, Hazel! Open the bloody door before I break it down. You owe me bitch!”
No dream. That voice is real. Someone is actually outside.
I reach for Katie. She’s not there. Shit.
Yanking myself out of bed, I wrap a towel around my waist and follow the shouting. The irate man hurls expletives like grenades. My adrenaline surges. Fists tensing, prepared for battle. Whoever he is, he’s not stopping.
A glance at the clock tells me it’s 3 a.m. Of course, this asshole picks the middle of the night for his vendetta. A vendetta against a woman who doesn’t bloody live here.
Katie is nowhere to be seen, so I sprint downstairs, heart in my throat.
I find her crumpled against the front door, knees drawn up, head in her hands, sobbing. Shaking like a gazelle under a lion’s gaze.
Then the man roars again.
“Hazel, if you don’t open this fucking door. I’m going to break it down! I’ll fucking kill you this time!”
My blood runs cold. I’ve heard men like that before.
Too many times, they’ve proven they mean it.
I drop beside her. “Katie, what’s going on? Do you know that nutcase?”
She nods, once. Every part I love about her, her joy, her exuberance, gone in a beat. She’s no more than a quivering rabbit in car headlights, bracing themselves for impact.
“Who’s Hazel?” I whisper, confused.
Her face lifts; eyes wrecked with tears.
“Me. I’m Hazel. And that’s my ex-husband. He’s back to collect what’s his. I’ll never be rid of him.”
She breaks down completely. Her body shakes in my grasp. My arms tighten, a vain attempt to hold the shattered pieces together. To protect her from not only the horror outside, but the memories it triggers.
I move to get up. “I’m opening the door.”
“No, Lance,” she screams in a whisper, grabbing my hand. “Don’t go out there. He’s unhinged. I can’t live with myself if he hurts you.”
Her fear makes me pause, but my anger’s more powerful. With a hard exhale, I move to peek out of the living room window.
A man stands on the path. His eyes locked on the front door. His expensive business suit and fancy sports car parked out on the drive look as if he’s just walked out of a boardroom. All the traits of a corporate psychopath. The most dangerous kind.
“Don’t let him see you,” she hisses.
“Katie, he’s just a man. I’m double his size.” My voice comes out cool, distant. A lot colder than I intend. But right now, all I can think of is what else has she lied about? Her name. Her history.
Is she even divorced?
“I’ll go and get rid of him. Then we have to talk, properly,” I mutter.
She flinches but nods, defeated.
I unlock the door and step onto the porch.
The bastard strides forward and stops short when confronted with me. A wall of half-naked, pissed-off Scotsman.
“Who the fuck are you?” he spits.
“Considering you’re yelling for someone called Hazel outside my house at three in the morning,” I say, “I think you should explain who the fuck you are first.”
His face darkens. “I’m looking for my lying bitch of a wife. She’s here, I know it.”
“Your wife?“ I repeat slowly. “No, it’s only me here, mate.”
“Liar. Her phone is here.” He stabs his finger into my chest. The urge to break it is feral. I straighten to my full height. “She’s in that cottage.”
“Phone?” I turn. “Give me a minute.”
Inside, I lock the door, then run upstairs to grab Katie’s phone from her bedside. She shrinks away, terrified. I stay silent. She lied, and I have no idea what to say. If I open my mouth now, I’ll explode. I can’t. So I bite down—hard—keeping the words buried.
Stepping back out onto the porch, I close the door behind me, placing a barrier between this maniac and the terrified woman inside. I’m furious with her, but hell, I need to protect her from whoever this dick is.
“This phone?” I ask. “I found it a few days ago. Not had any luck finding the owner.”
He eyes me suspiciously. “Well, I can take it now.”
He lunges for it.
“No,” I say calmly. “I’d rather go through the official channels. Hand it into the police. I’m military, you see, a stickler for the rules.”
He bristles but doesn’t argue.
“Where are you staying?”
“Oakpark B his hurt blatant from here. There’s no hysteria, no dramatics, just silent disappointment. That’s worse.
“So,” he says. “You’re not Katie?”
My head drops, but I push myself to my feet.
“Katie is my pen name.” Tears slip free. “My real name is Hazel.”
He doesn’t move, just stands. A wall goes up, dividing us, the stillness of someone bracing for impact.
“Are you even divorced?” he asks.
“What?”
“You heard me. Are you divorced?”
“Yes. I’m divorced.” Anger flashes hot. A rare burst of the old me, the one I hid. The one that was trampled on year after year, who finally broke free. “I got our house in the settlement. He wants his money. He’s a control freak, a narcissistic bastard.”
“What else is true?” His voice sharpens. Not cruel but wounded. I search his face for the man who held me less than an hour ago. He’s gone. In front of me is the professional and direct Major McDonald. Calm and clinical, not my Lance.
“I hate being lied to, Katie, or should I say, Hazel? Whoever you are. I want to know who I’ve been sharing my bed with for months.”
His words leave no room for debate. No space to hold the truth I’ve been burying. The silent ultimatum that if I don’t come clean, he’ll never trust me again.
So, I tell him everything. The whole sordid story.
For an hour, I unload years of pain. About my marriage to Knobscratcher.
About his lack of support during my cancer treatment.
About the ongoing emotional abuse. The gaslighting.
The isolation. Everything. Re-living the hell that bastard put me through, beat by beat.
Every truth adds a cut, slashing the happiness I’ve built since I left. Poisoning everything I’ve gained.
I’m transported back to that pathetic woman I was. The one I’ve been trying to outrun and forget. The woman who curled in the bathroom, locking the door, praying he wouldn’t break it down this time.
I watch Lance’s face harden, soften, and harden again, each story triggering a different expression. When I get to Bex, it shifts to sadness and compassion. He knows how much I miss my friend. We’ve talked of her often, how important our short friendship was to me.
But when I finish, his face is unreadable. Practically stone.
“So, yes,” I whisper. “My name is Hazel, but I only use Katie now. I never want to be Hazel again.” Tears stream down my cheeks. “I’m sorry, Lance. He ruined my life; I had to protect myself.”
He opens his mouth to speak. I hold up my hand.
It’s time.
This is the sign I’ve been waiting for. It’s the end for us.
“Now he’s found me, I need to leave Aviemore. He won’t stop.”
Lance’s eyes widen with panic; he tries and fails to hide.
“No,” he says. A simple word, but brutal.
“Lance… this isn’t up for debate.”
“No.” He steps closer. “You don’t get to decide this on your own. You don’t run away from me because he knocked on the door. You’re not that woman anymore.”
“This was just the beginning. He’ll be back.”
“Then let me protect you,” he snaps. His jaw ticks. “He doesn’t scare me. I won’t let him…”
“You don’t understand.”
He threads our fingers together, and pulls me to his chest. His warmth is so damn tempting; I want to collapse into his arms and let him protect me. But it took me so long to save myself, it feels like only I can.
“I understand he hurt you. I understand you’re scared. I understand you didn’t trust me with your name, but…” He presses my hand over his heart. It beats slow and steady beneath my fingertips. “I won’t be scared off. Not by him.”
“Lance…”
“I love you,” he says. Raw, honest, meaning every word. “You heard me at New Year and I’m saying it again now. We’ll face this together.”
I want to believe him. But Hannah.
Everything crumbles—my heart, my hope, my future. I can’t let him talk me round. I need to end this, no matter how much I don’t want it to.
“You and I…” My voice fractures. “We’ve been incredible. But we both know there’s no future.”
“That’s not true.”
“No buts.” I lean forward and kiss him gently. “This isn’t just about us. It’s about Hannah.”
“Hannah?” he repeats, his entire body going rigid. He didn’t expect that.
Hannah is something we don’t discuss often beyond their plans. She’s always his priority, and we were never long term in my mind. So, for me to create a relationship with his daughter never became a question. Hannah was just there. Untouchable.
“He targets people I care about. That includes you. And her. I won’t let that madman hurt you or Hannah.”
He freezes, his throat bobs, but the argument doesn’t come. The fight drains from him in front of my eyes. His daughter is the one thing he won’t endanger for anyone. She is the reason he’ll walk away when I ask him to. I know it.
“I won’t ask you to risk your daughter.”
“Katie, don’t do this.” He stands there, still holding my hand on his chest. Every breath hard, strained. Weary eyes search the ceiling for another argument to counter mine; they don’t find one.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “But you need to go before you get entangled further in my mess. Don’t argue with me, just go. I won’t change my mind on this. I care about you too much.”
Tears roll down my face as I watch him gather his belongings, stuffing them all into his backpack along with my heart.
“I’m not leaving because I want to. Remember that.”
His eyes burn into mine, memorizing me as if he’ll never see me again.
He won’t. Not if I can help it.
“Go,” I choke out.
He picks up his bag. At the doorway, he turns one last time.
“You’re not Hazel to me,” he says. “You never were.”
And then he’s gone.