CHAPTER 21
Roxanne
It took me twenty minutes to arrive at the location Ritu texted me.
Long enough for my thoughts to spiral. Not long enough to settle them.
Callum still had my car. I’d almost gone back to the cottage to get it—almost texted Santino—but the thought of seeing him again so soon after last night made my stomach twist. So I didn’t.
Coward.
Ritu was already there when I arrived, standing at the entrance, talking on the phone, her hand gesturing animatedly. The sky had shifted again—grey folding into an iron shroud, like the clouds were pressing down instead of drifting past.
“Perfect,” I muttered under my breath, pushing the door open.
“Finally,” she said the second she spotted me. “You’re late.”
“You said twelve.”
“It is past twelve.”
I checked my phone. 12:07.
“Close enough,” I muttered.
She looped her arm through mine before I could say anything else, already pulling me inside.
The gallery was understated—white walls, soft lighting, the kind of curated silence that made your footsteps feel louder than they were.
“Okay,” Ritu said, slipping into work mode instantly, “I want statement pieces. Nothing safe. The manor already has enough of that.”
“That’s because you bought everything safe,” I replied.
She gasped. “Excuse you. I have taste.”
“You have Pinterest.”
She rolled her eyes.
Two collections dominated the space. On the left—portraits. On the right—abstract. Even at a glance, they didn’t belong together. And yet… they did.
We started with the abstracts. The pieces stretched across the wall—harsh strokes, layered textures, colours that didn’t sit well together but refused to separate. Red dragged through black.White scraped thin like a mistake that had been erased and painted over too many times.
It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t meant to be. It felt like… a secret trying to claw its way out.
My stomach flipped. I stepped back, folding my arms unconsciously. This felt too close to home.
Ritu loved them immediately
“See this?” she said, pointing at a large canvas—violent streaks of red dragged through black, like a wound had been torn open and stitched back wrong.
“This. This goes in the hallway.”
“It’ll scare your guests.”
“Good.”
I hummed, but my attention drifted. The textures were aggressive. Layers built and scraped away. Nothing soft about them. Nothing forgiving.
“You’re not even listening,” Ritu said.
“I am.”
“You’re not.”
“I am,” I repeated, quieter this time.
But I wasn’t.
My gaze had shifted to the portraits.
Ritu’s phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen and groaned.
“Sanjoy. If I don’t answer this, he’ll assume I’ve been kidnapped.”
She squeezed my arm and stepped away toward the reception area, already answering the call as she moved toward the door.
And just like that—I was alone.
I moved toward the portraits without meaning to—faces rendered in sharp, almost clinical detail. Every brushstroke deliberate. Eyes that followed you if you stood too long in front of them. Too precise. Too knowing. Uncomfortably so.
Every detail captured with an accuracy that didn’t feel artistic—it felt invasive, like the artist hadn’t just seen their subjects.They’d known them.
One in particular held me in place.
A woman, mid-thirties maybe. Her face was calm. But her eyes—there was a dissociation in them.
It wasn’t fear or sadness. It was a stillness harder to name. As though she was trying to bury a truth she couldn’t afford to feel.Her lips were slightly parted like she was about to confess.Or had just been told a secret she couldn’t repeat.
My breath hitched and a cold shiver ran down my spine.I looked away first. I knew that feeling. Too well.
“Those eyes look like they’re trying to say something.”
The voice slid behind me. Smooth. Familiar. Wrong.My body locked. Every muscle pulling tight before my mind could catch up.
No. It couldn’t be.
“Some silences are like a symphony.” The voice continued.
“Don’t you think that, Pumpkin?”
The nickname hit me like a punch to the sternum.
Dark hallway. A door that wouldn’t open. The smell of that cologne.
It dragged the past up with it. Old venom. A truth I had buried so deep I’d convinced myself it no longer existed.
I forced myself to turn. Slowly. The warmth left my body so fast my teeth nearly clicked together. Blood rushed down from my face, making the room tilt.
He looked exactly the same. Older, maybe. Lines deeper. Hair thinner at the temples. But the eyes—the same. Watching me with calculation like I was still the girl he thought he owned.
Like he already knew what I was thinking.
“W-what are you doing here?” I stammered.
“Same as you. Purchasing some art.”
His gaze flicked briefly to the painting behind me, then back to me.
“Maybe I should take this one. Reminds me so much of you.”
He reached his hand out and rubbed my hair between his fingers. I could feel the rise of bile at the back of my throat.
I froze first—just like I had back then.
Helpless, immobile, while every nerve inside me begged for escape.
I was starting to get dizzy, vision dancing.
My breath came out in short bursts, and it almost sounded like I was crying.
I wanted to run, but my body locked in on itself. And the worst part, it wasn’t new.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice was screaming—
Move
Walk away
Say something—
But my legs—they stayed rooted. Like the floor had swallowed them whole. My fingers twitched once at my side. That was it. The rest of me remained locked.
He smiled. That same creepy, measured smile that I’d come to dread. Like everything was already decided.
The smile he’d reserved only for me.
“For someone whose life is so public,” he said lightly, “you’re surprisingly hard to catch.”
My fingers curled into my palms.
“W-what do you want?”
My voice came out weaker than I wanted, stripped of strength. Even now, after everything, after all these years, he could still do this. Shrink me. Fold me back into a version of myself I had fought to outgrow.
I told myself I was past this. But the tremor in my words betrayed me. I wasn’t that girl anymore. Small. Helpless.
Or…was I?
“I wanted to spend some quality time with my niece, just like old times.”
He stepped closer, his scent invading my senses—the same, strong, sharp chemical-like scent. It coated the back of my throat, turning my stomach instantly. The coffee I’d had earlier rose bitter and sour, burning at the base of my tongue.
I swallowed hard. Didn’t help. I shook my head. Words were stuck like glass in my throat.
He smiled slowly when I didn’t respond. As though he was remembering everything I was trying very hard to forget.
“You’ve built a nice life,” he said after a moment.
His gaze moved—not lingering anywhere, but noticing everything. My clothes. My hands. The ring. The space around me. Taking stock of everything.
“Beautiful, even.”
The word sat wrong in his mouth. Like admiration twisted into profanity.
The invisible noose around my throat tightened, robbing me of air. I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. Didn’t trust my voice not to betray me.
Trauma is cruel that way. Locks you in your own skin while your mind claws for escape and everything inside you screams to run. It doesn’t ask how old you are now. Doesn’t care how much you’ve built. One familiar voice and suddenly your body forgets the difference between then and now.
He twirled the lock of hair on his finger, close to my cheek, but didn’t touch. Enough to remind me he could.
“Would be a shame if someone…”
He tilted his head slightly, studying my face like he was waiting for me to crack.
“…looked too closely at it.”
My pulse stuttered.
Kyra flashed in my mind. Romano. The life I’d spent years building—suddenly felt like it was standing on thin ice.
I swallowed hard.
“Don’t,” I croaked.
For the first time, he looked pleased. His smile didn’t change. If anything, it deepened, bringing out the creases at the corner of his eyes.
“You always did like pretending things were fine.”
The words landed heavier than anything else he’d said.Because they weren’t entirely wrong.
My fingers curled into my palms. I forced myself to hold his gaze. Even as everything inside me started to crumble.
“I’ll keep in touch.”
He said it lightly. Like a courtesy. Like this was a conversation we’d continue over tea.
And then, he stepped back. Just like that. Like he hadn’t just walked into my space and rearranged the wreckage inside me.
He turned, pausing just before he left.
“I liked your original hair colour better.”
Then he was gone.
Fuck you.
The command came too late. Heat flooded my chest, rage surged, sharp and blinding. I wanted to scream. Wanted to lunge. To claw at his face, his eyes, to drive my nails into his skin, to make him bleed like the canvas in front of me. To drive something—anything into him until he stopped breathing.
My nails dug half-moons into my palm.
My muscles tensed—
And still—I didn’t move. The betrayal of my body hit harder than his words. Fury without movement. Rage trapped inside paralysis.
I hated that I just stood there. Hated that some part of me still needed permission to fight back. And that helplessness burned worse than his smile. Hated that after everything—he could still reduce me to this. And walk away just like that.
The gallery felt different after he left. Airless. Too still.Like every surface was closing in on me at once.
I forced myself to take a few deep breaths and compose myself.
Ritu walked in as my uncle left.
“You look like you saw a ghost. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I replied, giving her a curt smile.
“Okay.” She squeezed my arm. “So we’ve just selected one. And I want that. Since I have to rush, could you handle the purchase?” Ritu asked, handing me her card.
“I’ll ask them to ship it directly to the manor,” I replied.
I gave her a quick hug and turned towards the gallerist. I needed air. I couldn’t let anyone see how much he had affected me.
A crack of thunder split the sky open. The sound jolted me, sharp enough to make my chest seize. The loud noise left me raw, unsettled. The windows rattled, the gallery flashing white before collapsing back into grey.
Rain followed. Hard. Relentless. It hit the glass in sharp bursts, like it was trying to break its way in.
The storm outside echoed the one inside me—violent, uncontained, pressing against walls that suddenly felt too close. My chest felt too tight for my lungs, pulse striking hard enough to hurt. But I kept my face composed, as if nothing had happened.
I stepped outside and immediately pulled out my phone.
No cabs. Not one.
Great.
The app kept searching—refreshing—failing. The rain came down harder, soaking through in seconds, wind whipping cold against my skin.
“Miss?”
I turned. The gallery owner stood by the door, keys in hand.
“Storm’s getting worse,” she said. “You won’t find a ride in this,” she said, looking at the sky.
“There’s a small motel down the road. You can wait it out there. I’ll drop you off.”
For a second, I hesitated. Going back to the cottage didn’t feel like an option. Not right now. Not like this. Not when this uncertainty bubbled inside me.
“Okay,” I said quietly.
The drive was short. I barely registered the roads, the turns, the passing lights blurring through rain-streaked glass. My mind wasn’t there. It was still in the gallery. Still stuck, in that moment. In that silence.
The motel came into view through the downpour. Small. Isolated. Flickering lights fighting against the storm. I thanked her and stepped out, the rain hitting me instantly—cold, sharp, real.
A small bar sat beside the motel.
Perfect. A bar meant noise and strangers. Somewhere to disappear for a while. And maybe a drink. Or three.
People had started crowding inside to escape the storm, damp coats and hurried voices blending together until everyone became part of the same restless blur.
Being lost in a crowd felt safer than being alone with my own head. But it didn’t wash him off me. Didn’t quiet the noise in my head. Didn’t stop the way my chest felt too tight as though anger was building again and waiting to let loose.
I wrapped my arms around myself and headed in.Trying to steady the unease under my skin.
Too much. Everything was too much. And it wasn’t just him anymore. It was everything I had buried starting to surface.