Chapter 16 - Two Years Earlier
ASHTON
He could not remember the last time he had seen Marie.
Years had slipped by. Years layered with silence.
Since the day he broke things off with Bailey, he had no longer been welcome in her bakery.
The place that once smelled of warm bread and sugar now felt like forbidden ground.
A few times, foolishly hopeful, he had tried to step inside.
Each time, Marie chased him out with a broom, her small frame shaking with fury.
He never understood her hatred.
He was not the one who betrayed anyone. He had done nothing wrong. Everyone in town knew that. The evidence was clear, painfully clear. Bailey had cheated. Bailey had ended up pregnant. And yet Marie stood firmly on Bailey’s side, as if truth itself no longer mattered.
Her loyalty unsettled him.
It gnawed at him late at night, quietly, relentlessly. What if she saw something he did not? What if he had missed something obvious? The doubt frightened him, so he buried it. Year after year, he let it fester, eating him from the inside out.
Then the call came.
Eva, Marie’s business partner, asked him to come to the hospital. Marie herself had requested it.
After all these years, she wanted to see him.
He almost did not go.
“She’s ready to see you,” Eva said gently when she stepped out of the private room. “But please do not tire her too much.”
Ashton hesitated. “Before I go in… can you tell me why she was hospitalized?”
Eva exhaled slowly, as if the truth had weight. “She’s been fighting cancer since last year. It never got better. She only has a few weeks left. Maybe less.”
The words landed hard.
“I didn’t know,” Ashton said quietly.
“Most people don’t. Only her children know.” Eva paused. “She knows her time is almost up. There are things she wants to put right before she goes. That’s why she asked for you.”
Ashton nodded, his chest tight. He took a deep breath and stepped inside.
Marie lay in the hospital bed, thinner than he remembered, wires tracing her fragile body. Her eyes found him immediately. Still sharp. Still knowing. She gestured to the chair beside her.
“Hello, Marie.”
“Look at you,” she said, her voice rough but steady. “No longer a boy.”
Ashton frowned slightly.
“I can see it,” she continued. “The years have not been kind to you. You lost your spark. Your aura. You look like a man who misplaced his soul.”
Despite himself, he let out a faint breath of laughter. “You still have a talent for reading people.”
She smiled, then coughed, the sound deep and harsh.
“What can I do for you?” he asked. “I thought you hated me.”
“Oh, that hasn’t changed,” she said bluntly. “I still do. Maybe hate isn’t the right word. Disappointed fits better.” Her gaze hardened. “For the first time in my life, I was wrong about someone. You.”
Ashton stiffened.
“I thought you had the potential to be nothing like your father. A man who cares for nothing but money and power.”
“I was never like him,” Ashton said quickly. “I don’t care about any of that.”
“No,” Marie said calmly. “You’re not like him.” She paused. “You’re worse.”
The words cut deeper than he expected.
“You’re weak,” she continued. “You let yourself be manipulated because you lacked trust. You stood by and watched while the people you once promised to love and protect burned.”
The room felt suddenly smaller.
How could this frail woman speak with such certainty? She did not know the hell he went through. The betrayal. The humiliation. The way his heart shattered.
“Oh, don’t look so shocked,” Marie said softly. “You’re hurting, and you’re desperate to believe you were on the right side. But did it ever occur to you that you might have been wrong too? Did you ever question yourself?”
Ashton swallowed. “What’s the point of this, Marie? The past is gone. Why now?”
“Because late is better than never.” Her eyes softened. “Now is the time for you to learn the truth. Even if I won’t be there to celebrate when you realize she was innocent.”
His breath caught. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Marie smiled then, not unkindly. She always knew. She had always known he was drowning in guilt.
“That’s what I want to tell you,” she said. “You’ll begin after I leave this world.”
Ashton stared at her.
She looked peaceful now, relieved, as if the weight she had carried for years was finally lifting. She reached out and took his hand, patting it gently.
For a moment, Ashton was pulled back in time. To afternoons spent in her bakery. To laughter. To warm pies shared with Bailey at a corner table. To a life that felt whole.
It had been the best time of his life.
And only now did he realize how much he had lost.