Chapter 14
Morning light slipped through the cottage window and fell across my face. I stirred, warmth seeping into my skin, birdsong drifting in from outside. For a moment, the quiet almost felt undeserved after the chaos of the night before.
Then memory returned in fragments. Ashton’s arms around me when my legs gave out. His voice low and urgent. The weight of exhaustion pulling me under.
Panic jolted me upright. I scanned the room.
I was alone.
The realization should have been a relief. Instead, disappointment settled in my chest, sharp and unwelcome.
What was wrong with me?
I hated him. He was engaged. About to be married. The fact that I had hoped, even briefly, that he stayed made my stomach turn.
I forced myself to move. I showered, changed, and pulled on my running shoes. I needed motion. Distance. Air. Anything to outrun the noise in my head.
By the time I returned, breathless and damp with sweat, unease crept in again. That familiar tightening in my gut.
She was standing outside my cottage.
Lynda.
She was looking down at her phone, composed as ever, waiting. I slowed my steps, watching her without anger this time. Just clarity.
We had once been inseparable. I remembered the shy girl in the corner at ten years old. I remembered pulling her into my life, into my home, into my family. I remembered when everything broke.
She looked up as I approached, surprise flickering across her face before she masked it.
Unfinished business hung between us.
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I set a cup of coffee in front of her. She sat straight backed, elegant, controlled. Her hand trembled when she lifted the cup.
“I heard you caused quite a scene yesterday,” she said coolly. “Dragging my fiancé into your mess. The town is talking again.”
I shrugged. “They always do.”
“Do you enjoy destroying things?” she snapped. “His reputation. Our relationship.”
I leaned back. “Funny. I was thinking the same about you.”
Her jaw tightened. “I am not here to discuss the past. He loves me. You need to accept that.”
“Are you sure?”
I stepped behind her, close enough for my presence to press in.
“What are you afraid of,” I whispered, “if you trust him so completely, when he held me here all night?”
Her body stiffened. The porcelain rattled as she set the cup down.
“It does not matter,” she said, voice unsteady. “He will marry me. You will always be the girl who cheated.”
“You know that was a lie.”
She turned on me. “Everyone knows you slept with his cousin.”
“You held me while I cried,” I said quietly. “You said you believed me.”
“I said what you needed to hear,” she snapped. “You were lonely.”
That was enough.
I leaned closer. “What if I told you I never had the abortion?”
She jolted so hard the cup tipped, coffee spilling across the table.
“You are lying,” she whispered.
“You left me at the clinic,” I said calmly. “After convincing me he would never accept the baby.”
Her breath hitched.
“I have his son.”
The words landed heavy and final.
I was smiling when the door slammed open.
The sound cracked through the cottage, rattling the walls. We froze.
Ashton stood in the doorway, chest heaving, a crumpled paper bag clenched in his hand. The scent of coffee and breakfast filled the room, painfully ordinary.
His eyes moved from Lynda’s pale face to mine.
The silence thickened.
Too late.
Everything had already been said.