Chapter Forty-Seven
Maro n
"We’ll be there in less than an hour, sir. Please don’t move the body."
I set the phone down, my eyes fixed on my mother's lifeless form. She looks peaceful now, almost serene, like she’s finally shed the weight of her illness. I smooth the duvet one last time then sink into the armchair beside her bed, the one her carer used to sit in.
She’s gone. A strange relief floods through me, followed immediately by guilt for feeling it. But she’s free now - no more confusion, no more illness, no more watching her fade away day by day.
I shut my eyes, letting years of carefully contained grief crack through my armor. All those emotions I buried under endless fucking logistics - private nurses, experimental treatments, specialist after specialist - finally break loose.
My life’s been a series of losses, each one cutting deeper than the last.
My father gone, when I was just a boy.
Then Cordelia, ripped away without warning.
And now, my mother.
And of course, there’s Maurice… fuck knows if I lost him or not. It’s so typically him to show up out of nowhere, right at our mother’s deathbed, seven long years after he vanished.
I also lost the first six years of my daughter’s life. Sharon.
And then, there’s my daughter’s mother. Mindy. The woman who still holds my fucking heart, the one I can’t force out of my system no matter how hard I try. Life somehow always finds a way to bring us together.
I let the anger at my own stupidity surface. I pushed her away because of my own insecurity. I never admitted how much I missed her. I never reached out. When life offered another chance, I pushed her away again. All because of my own fucking inflated ego.
And yet, somehow, she’s still here.
With our daughter.
In my house.
And somehow, I’m sure as shit I’m never letting her go again.
There’s a lot for us to work through. First, I must to tell her everything about why Sharon was kidnapped. And then I must tell her about something else… something that Pavel told me, just yesterday. Which is going to be a fucking difficult conversation. One of many difficult conversations.
When I enter the living room, I find her on the couch. I freeze in the doorway, letting myself drink in the sight of her.
Even beaten down by exhaustion, she looks fucking magnificent. There’s vulnerability in the slope of her shoulders, but her spine’s still steel - that same unbreakable spirit that hooked me from day one.
She’s always been a study in contrasts: soft curves and sharp edges, gentle heart and titanium will. And despite every scar and shadow between us, every fuck-up that’s stained what we had, I know in my bones that she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
She looks up, her eyes finding mine, and the air turns electric. A thousand unspoken words hang in the space between us, weighing me down like a rock.
"The way you’re standing there takes me back to when we worked together at Global Media," she says, a ghost of a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. "You always leaned against the door frame like that."
"Feels like centuries ago." The smile tugs at my lips before I can stop it.
We move toward each other like magnets finding their poles. Our bodies collide with an inevitability that transcends thought - too fucking exhausted to maintain the walls we’ve built, too raw to deny what’s always been there between us.
I breathe her in, and it’s like coming home after years in exile. The familiar scent of her hits my bloodstream like pure adrenaline, triggering a flood of memories and emotions I’ve spent years trying to bury. Our bodies remember what our minds tried to forget, fitting together like they were carved from the same stone. In this moment, I know with bone-deep certainty that whatever hell we’ve been through, whatever storms are still coming, she’s carved into my DNA.
Mine.
For fucking life.
I don’t fight it anymore. Neither does she. We stay locked together, the silence between us saying more than words ever could. Finally, I break the embrace just enough to see her face.
"Sharon?" The question comes out rough.
"Sleeping." She pauses, her eyes softening. "I’m so sorry about Larissa."
I nod, the reality of my mother’s death still raw and bleeding. "It was her time." I meet her gaze, my voice dropping to gravel. "Thank you for playing along with the Cordelia-act. It meant everything to her."
She melts against me, her body surrendering its tension. "Of course. It’s the least I could do."
The silence wraps around us like a blanket, each lost in our own private grief. Then I gently take her hand and guide her to the couch.
"Are you okay?" Her eyes search mine, looking for cracks in my armor where grief for my mother might seep through.
I nod, moving to pour myself a glass of scotch. "Drink?"
She shakes her head, seemingly wrestling with something she wants to say. "Maron," her voice catches. "What you did for Sharon... " Her words fracture. "Thank you. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you."
Guilt slams into my chest once again. Some father I turned out to be. My own daughter kidnapped because of the enemies I’ve made, because of who I am. I can never allow that to happen again. Ever. I’ll burn my entire empire to the ground before I let anyone touch her.
"I don’t know where we go from here," she continues, her voice gathering strength. "But I need you to know that... all those years ago… at the Tramoxine launch... I had nothing to do with what my sister did. Or with Maurice. I never meant to hurt you, I didn’t-"
"Save it." I cut her off, my words coming out harsher than I intended. "I know you’re innocent."
She stares at me, stunned. "What?"
I draw in a deep breath, bracing myself. I’m about to drop a fucking bomb and I’m not sure she’s going to like it. Whatever her reaction, I can’t blame her. It’s my own stupidity that kept us apart all this time. This mess is on me.
My eyes lock onto hers, unflinching. "I had Pavel do some digging, Mindy. I know you had nothing to do with exposing Tramoxine. And I know you were only trying to help Maurice." I pause, letting the words hang between us. My voice may have been steady, but my gut is twisting itself into knots.
She just stares at me, shock written across her face. I wait for her to explode, to slap me, kick me in the balls, and curse me for the years I stole. But she remains silent, frozen.
"I’ve been a fucking idiot," I continue, the confession burning my throat. "Blinded by my own pride, looking for excuses to push you away because... because I was terrified of how much I needed you. But I’m done running."
"Maron," my name catches in her throat. "You mean... all these years..." She shakes her head, words failing her as seven years of pain and misunderstanding crash down around us.
I brace myself for the fury I deserve. She should fucking castrate me for this - for condemning her without a trial, for letting my paranoid assumptions poison everything we had. But ever since she came back into my life, I’ve been fucked in the head. I’ve been jerking off to her memory every fucking day, and it still didn’t ease my yearning for her.
So, I finally made the call. Ordered Pavel to dig up everything about her, about the events seven years ago - every detail, every shadow, every fucking breadcrumb. And as always, Pavel delivered. Last night, just hours before Mindy burst into my office with news about Sharon.
I couldn’t believe the fool I was. Still can’t. Seven long years wasted on lies I’d fed myself. All that bullshit about her being a gold-digging traitor, working with her sister to expose me and Tramoxine to the press. The paranoid fantasy that she’d been fucking Maurice behind my back.
I’ve built an empire on reading people, on sniffing out betrayal before it can touch me. Yet I couldn’t see what was right in front of my face. Couldn’t see her .
"I’m sorry for the years I wasted, Mindy," the words scrape raw in my throat. "I don’t want to lose another second without you and Sharon."
Her breath catches, tears glazing her eyes like crystals. She shakes her head, stunned by the weight of what I just told her.
My chest constricts, but I force myself to continue. "I know I’ve fucked up, Mindy. Royally. I don’t deserve another chance at this. But if you give me one, I swear on my life that every day, every fucking breath, I’ll work to heal what I broke."
She stares at me, her lips trembling, struggling to form words. "You don’t know how much this means to me, Maron," she whispers. Her fingers dig into my arms like she’s afraid I’ll disappear. "We’ve both screwed up. We’ve hurt each other, ran away. I don’t want to run anymore." She pauses, her eyes searching mine.
Her words feel like they could melt an iceberg. It’s not forgiveness, not yet. But it’s a chance. A fucking chance I don’t deserve, but still got.
I lock eyes with her, letting her see everything I’ve kept hidden. "I love you, Mindy." The words feel strange and perfect on my tongue. Like a prayer I’ve always known but never spoke. "I always have."
She leans forward until our foreheads touch. "I love you too, you stubborn, infuriating dickhead."
A laugh rumbles in my chest as I press closer, breathing her in like a man surfacing from drowning. Her breath hitches, pupils blown wide, lips parting on instinct. The electricity between us builds until the air itself feels ready to ignite.
"Sharon’s probably not waking up for another hour," Mindy murmurs.
I smirk, my hand sliding to cradle her neck. "I’m sure we can find something to do in the meantime."