LOGINAvery’s POV
The silver car was gone. The noise of the engine died away in the trees. The gravel yard was quiet again, but the peace did not come back. The air felt heavy. It felt toxic.Caspian stood on the bottom step of the porch. He looked up at me. His gray eyes were wide, dark, and anxious. He took one step up. Then another. He reached out his hand toward me."Avery," he said. His voice was low. It shook a little bit. "Let me explain."I steppedAvery’s POV The truck did not come back that night.The rain returned instead. It was a cold, hard rain that beat against the windows of the empty cabin. I stayed on the floor by the door for a long time. Then I moved to the sofa. I did not go to the bedroom. The big bed felt too large and too cold without Caspian.I slept for only a few hours. When the morning sun finally broke through the gray clouds, the house felt ghostlike. The silence was heavy.I looked at my stomach in the morning light. "It is just you and me today," I whispered to the baby.I could not stay in the cabin. The walls felt like they were pressing in on me. The doubt in my mind was too loud. I needed to know what was happening in the village. I needed to see the truth with my own eyes.I put on my yellow raincoat and my boots. I grabbed the keys to the old jeep we kept in the shed.The drive into the coastal village was slow. The dirt roads we
Avery’s POV The silver car was gone. The noise of the engine died away in the trees. The gravel yard was quiet again, but the peace did not come back. The air felt heavy. It felt toxic.Caspian stood on the bottom step of the porch. He looked up at me. His gray eyes were wide, dark, and anxious. He took one step up. Then another. He reached out his hand toward me."Avery," he said. His voice was low. It shook a little bit. "Let me explain."I stepped backward. My heels hit the front door of the cabin. I did not want him to touch me. Not right now. The image of Vivienne’s manicured hand on his cheek was stuck in my mind. It burned like fire."Is it true?" I asked. My voice was very quiet. It sounded small in the big, open air.Caspian let his hand fall to his side. He looked down at the wooden steps. "The contract was real. My father signed it ten years ago. It was a business arrangement between the Sterling family and the D
The peace did not last.It broke on a Tuesday afternoon. The rain had finally stopped, leaving the coastal air heavy, damp, and cold. I was sitting on the wooden porch bench, trying to relax. I was knitting a small white blanket for the baby. The click of the wooden needles was the only sound in the yard. It was supposed to be a quiet day.Then, a noise came from the woods.A sleek, silver sports car turned down our long dirt driveway. It looked entirely out of place. The car was low to the ground, shiny, and shaped like a bullet. It purred like a wild cat as it drove over the deep mud tracks. It came to a stop right next to Thomas’s rusty red pickup truck.The engine died. The silence returned, but it felt different now. The air felt tense.The driver's side door swung upward into the air.A woman stepped out onto the wet gravel. She wore a long, cream-colored cashmere coat that looked immaculate. Her dark hair was cut into
Avery’s POV I sat at the small wooden desk in the corner. Caspian was already asleep. I could hear his deep, even breathing from the bed. I turned on the small lamp. The yellow light glowed on the blank paper in front of me.I picked up a pen. My hand shook just a little bit.I needed to write this. I needed to say goodbye to the version of Avery who lived in the city. I needed to tell her that we made it out."Dear Avery," I wrote.I looked at the words. They looked lonely on the page. I took a deep breath and kept going."The war is over now. You don't have to run anymore. You don't have to hide in the dark. You can keep the lights on at night."I stopped and looked out the window. The rain blurred the glass. I thought about the cold hallways of the Sterling mansion. I thought about the fear I felt every time a door opened. All of that felt like a dream now. It felt like it happened to someone else.
Avery’s POV The morning sun was warm on my face. The fog had cleared completely.I stood on the porch of the cedar cabin, breathing in the fresh air. Below the cliffs, the blue ocean waves crashed gently against the grey rocks. The sound was like music. It was steady and calm. It did not sound like danger.I looked down at the grass. A small path led from the cabin down to the old timber barn.A truck rumbled down the dirt driveway. It was loud, but it did not frighten me. It was not the black SUVs of the Swiss bank. It was a rusty red pickup truck from the village. Two men in flannel shirts got out. They carried heavy toolboxes and levels. They were the contractors Caspian had hired to fix the old barn."Morning, Ms. Woods," the older contractor called out. He tipped his cap to me."Morning, Thomas," I smiled back.It felt strange to hear my name used so normally. To these men, I wasn't the heir to a fallen corpor
Avery’s POVThe pine barrens eventually gave way to the rugged, quiet coastline of Maine. The secure cabin Jameson had found for us wasn't a sprawling glass mansion like the ones in New York or Zurich. It was built of weathered cedar and stone, tucked into a grove of birch trees where the only sound was the steady, rhythmic crash of the Atlantic against the cliffs below.There were no stock tickers here. No high-frequency trading algorithms, no flashing red alerts, and no boardrooms.I stood at the kitchen window, watching the morning fog roll off the water. The air smelled of salt, pine, and the damp earth of early spring. In my hands, I held a warm mug of tea, my fingers tracing the ceramic rim. For the first time in as long as I could remember, my hands weren't shaking.A soft rustle of fabric sounded from the hallway, followed by the slow, uneven thud of footsteps.Caspian walked into the kitchen. He wore a thick, gray cable-knit
Avery’s POVThe soft clinking of glasses and the low hum of music filled the dimly lit bar. It was early evening, and the place wasn’t too crowded—just the way I liked it. The amber lighting wrapped around the space like a quiet embrace, but nothing could still the restlessness inside me.I wrapped
Avery's POVI thought handing Hector the divorce papers would be the end of something—the final nail in the coffin of a toxic, broken marriage.But I was wrong.He didn’t even read them. He tore them in half right in front of me. No hesitation. No emotion. Just a sharp rip that echoed in the silenc
Caspian's POV I couldn't get her out of my mind.Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her—standing in that emerald green dress, the fabric hugging her body like it was made for her. I saw the way her lips trembled after our kiss, the fire in her eyes when she stood up to me, the way her voice cracke
Caspian’s POVDebby's hasty retreat and the click of the restroom door didn't bring relief; they brought a new, sharper kind of tension. Avery was crumbling in front of me, her face pale, her hands trembling as she gripped the sink. Her panic was raw, unmasked."Oh my god," she whimpered, "She... s







