Chapter 28
I froze with my hand still on the zipper of my bag.
Iris stood in the doorway, her rabbit dangling from one hand, her eyes too old for her face. The hallway light behind her made her look smaller somehow, like she was already disappearing.
"What did you say?"
She took a step into the room. Then another. Her bare feet made no sound on the hardwood.
"Mommy. The night before the accident. I heard her on the phone."
My lungs forgot how to work. I lowered myself onto the edge of the bed because my legs had stopped being reliable.
"Iris, sweetheart—"
"She said she couldn't do this anymore." The words came out flat, rehearsed. Like she'd been practicing them in her head for months. "She said she was leaving. And then the next day she was gone forever."
The rabbit slipped from her fingers and hit the floor.
"So I thought maybe it was my fault. Maybe I was too much trouble. Maybe if I'd been better she wouldn't have wanted to leave."
Something cracked open in my chest. Not my heart—that was already broken. Something deeper. The part of me that recognized the shape of that guilt because I'd carried the same weight my whole life.
I held out my arms.
Iris ran to me and I caught her, pulled her onto my lap, felt her small body shake with sobs she'd been holding back for eight months. Her tears soaked through my shirt. Her fingers twisted in the fabric like she was afraid I'd vanish if she let go.
"No, baby. No." I pressed my cheek to the top of her head. "That's not—your mom leaving had nothing to do with you."
"But she said—"
"Adults say things when they're hurting that have nothing to do with the people they love." My voice cracked. "Sometimes we make choices that hurt people even when we don't mean to. Even when we'd do anything to protect them."
She pulled back enough to look at me. Her face was blotchy and wet.
"Really?"
"Really." I wiped her cheeks with my thumbs. "Your mom loved you. Whatever she was going through, whatever she was planning—that was about her, not you. You were never the problem."
"Then why did she want to leave?"
I thought about Victoria. About the perfect wife in the photographs, the woman who'd smiled for the cameras and hosted charity galas and played her role so well that even her own husband hadn't seen the cracks. About the phone call Iris had overheard, the desperation in those words. I can't do this anymore.
"Sometimes people feel trapped," I said slowly. "Not by other people, but by the life they're living. By who everyone expects them to be. And they don't know how to ask for help or how to change things, so they think leaving is the only option."
Iris's lower lip trembled. "Like you?"
The question hit like a fist to the sternum.
"I—" The words stuck in my throat. "That's different."
"How?"
I didn't have an answer. Or maybe I did, but it was too complicated to explain to a seven-year-old. How do you tell a child that sometimes staying is the trap? That sometimes leaving is the only way to survive?
"I'm not leaving because of you," I said finally. "You're the best part of being here. You know that, right?"
She nodded, but her eyes were still uncertain.
"And your mom—she didn't leave because of you either. She was trying to figure out how to be herself again. How to breathe."
"Did she figure it out?"
My throat closed. "I don't know, sweetheart. I don't know."
Iris buried her face in my shoulder again. Her breathing gradually slowed, evened out. I held her and stared at the half-packed bags on the floor and wondered if I was about to make the same mistake Victoria had. Running instead of fighting. Choosing the easy pain over the complicated kind.
The floorboard in the hallway creaked.
I looked up.
Dominic stood in the doorway.
He was still wearing his suit from work, but his tie was loose and his hair looked like he'd been running his hands through it. His face was completely blank—that careful mask he wore when he was processing something too big to show.
How long had he been standing there?
His eyes met mine. Something passed between us, some wordless acknowledgment that everything had just shifted again.
"Daddy." Iris lifted her head. Her voice was small and rough from crying.
Dominic crossed the room in three strides and lifted her from my lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he held her like she was the only solid thing in a world that had just tilted sideways.
"I've got you," he murmured into her hair. "I've got you."
I stood up, suddenly aware that I was intruding on something private. My hands didn't know what to do so I shoved them in my pockets.
Dominic looked at me over Iris's head. His jaw was tight but his eyes were—
I couldn't read them. For once, I couldn't tell what he was thinking.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "For telling her the truth."
"I just—" I shrugged. "She needed to hear it."
"I should have been the one to say it. I should have known she was carrying that."
"You didn't know what Victoria said. How could you—"
"I should have asked." His voice was flat. "I should have paid attention. I should have seen that my daughter was drowning in guilt while I was—"
He stopped. Pressed his lips together.
Iris stirred against his shoulder. "I'm sleepy."
"Let's get you back to bed." Dominic shifted her weight, adjusting his grip. "Say goodnight to Sloane."
Iris turned her head. Her eyes were red-rimmed and exhausted.
"Goodnight," she whispered. "Will you still be here in the morning?"
The question hung in the air like smoke.
I looked at Dominic. He looked back. Neither of us had an answer.
"We'll see," I said finally. "Get some sleep, okay?"
Dominic carried her toward the door. Paused in the threshold without turning around.
"I heard what you told her. About people feeling trapped. About not knowing how to ask for help."
My pulse kicked up. "Dominic—"
"Victoria was leaving me." His shoulders were rigid. "That's what the phone call was about. She was planning to leave and she died before she could."
"You don't know that."
"Yes. I do." He turned his head slightly, not quite looking at me. "I knew she was unhappy. I told myself it was postpartum depression, or stress, or a dozen other things that weren't my fault. But the truth is I was so focused on building the company, on proving myself to my father, that I stopped seeing my own wife."
Iris made a small sound against his shoulder.
"I need to put her to bed," he said. "But after—we need to talk."
"I don't think—"
"Please." The word was rough. "Just—don't leave yet. Give me twenty minutes."
He walked out before I could respond.
I stood in the middle of my half-packed room and tried to remember how to breathe.
I didn't wait in my room. Couldn't stand the sight of those bags, the evidence of my own cowardice staring back at me. Instead I went downstairs to the kitchen and made tea I didn't want with hands that wouldn't stop shaking.
The house was too quiet. Just the hum of the refrigerator and the tick of the antique clock in the hallway and my own heartbeat loud in my ears.
I thought about Victoria. About the phone call Iris had overheard, the desperation in those words. I can't do this anymore. Had she been talking to a friend? A lawyer? Someone she was planning to run away with?
Did it matter?
She'd wanted out. She'd been planning her escape. And then she'd died and left everyone behind to deal with the wreckage.
I wrapped my hands around the mug and stared at the steam rising from the surface.
Was I doing the same thing? Running away and calling it self-preservation?
Footsteps on the stairs. Slow, measured. Dominic's tread.
He appeared in the kitchen doorway. He'd taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. His hair was still a mess. He looked exhausted and raw and more human than I'd ever seen him.
"She's asleep," he said.
I nodded.
He crossed to the counter and poured himself a glass of water. Drank half of it in one go. Set the glass down with careful precision.
"I didn't know," he said finally. "About Victoria planning to leave. I suspected she was unhappy, but I didn't know she'd reached the point of—" He stopped. "I thought I had more time to fix it."
"You can't fix someone else's unhappiness."
"No." He turned to face me. "But you can pay attention. You can ask questions. You can stop being so goddamn focused on your own agenda that you miss what's happening right in front of you."
The words felt like they had weight beyond Victoria. Like he was talking about more than just his marriage.
"Dominic—"
"I heard what you told Iris. About feeling trapped. About not knowing how to ask for help." He took a step closer. "Is that how you feel? Trapped?"
"That's not—this isn't about me."
"Isn't it?" Another step. "You're packing your bags. You're leaving in the middle of the night. That seems pretty relevant."
"I found out you've been lying to me from the beginning." My voice came out sharper than I intended. "That you knew exactly who I was when you hired me. That this whole thing has been—what? Some kind of game?"
"It wasn't a game."
"Then what was it?"
He was quiet for a long moment. The clock in the hallway ticked. The refrigerator hummed.
"Insurance," he said finally. "At first. My father was circling, looking for weaknesses. You showed up with a connection to Victoria, to the past. I thought if I kept you close, I could control the narrative. Manage the situation before it became a problem."
"So I was a problem to be managed."
"Yes." He didn't flinch from it. "Initially."
"And then?"
"And then you weren't." He ran a hand through his hair. "And then you were reading to my daughter and making her laugh and looking at me like I was a person instead of a position. And then I was kissing you in my office and forgetting why I'd hired you in the first place."
My chest felt too tight. "I don't believe you."
"I know." He took another step. We were close enough now that I could see the flecks of gold in his eyes, the shadow of stubble on his jaw. "Patricia said you wouldn't. She said you'd think it was manipulation. Another lie."
"Patricia doesn't know—"
"She's worked for my family for twenty years. She knew Victoria better than I did, apparently. And she says I look at you differently than I've ever looked at anyone."
"That doesn't mean—"
"I'm not asking you to believe me." His voice was quiet. Steady. "I'm asking you not to run. Not like Victoria did. Not without giving me a chance to prove that what's between us is real."
I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to. But the documents Marcus had given me were upstairs in my bag, proof that Dominic had been playing a long game from the start. And even if his feelings had changed, even if some part of this had become real—how could I trust my own judgment? How could I know I wasn't just seeing what I wanted to see?
"I need to think," I said.
"Then think here." He reached out like he was going to touch my face, then dropped his hand. "Stay. Give me a chance to show you who I am when I'm not trying to manage the situation. When I'm just—"
He stopped. cleared her throat.
"When I'm just a man who's falling for a woman who terrifies him."
The words hit like a physical blow. I took a step back, needing distance, needing air.
"You don't get to say that." My voice shook. "You don't get to make this about feelings when you've been lying to me from day one. When you knew about my mother and you didn't tell me. When you—"
"You're right." He didn't move. "You're absolutely right. I should have told you the truth from the beginning. I should have been honest about why I hired you. But I was trying to protect Iris, and the company, and myself. I was trying to control something that couldn't be controlled."
"And now?"
"Now I'm asking you to stay. Not as Iris's nanny. Not as a problem to be managed. Just—stay."
I looked at him. Really looked at him. At the exhaustion in his eyes and the tension in his shoulders and the way his hands were clenched at his sides like he was physically holding himself back from reaching for me.
He'd just found out his wife had been planning to leave him. That his marriage had been a performance. That he'd been so blind to her unhappiness that she'd died before he could fix it.
And here I was, bags packed, ready to walk out the same way.
"I'm not running," I heard myself say. "I'm choosing myself for once."
Something flickered across his face. Pain, maybe. Or understanding.
"Is that what this is? Choosing yourself? Or is it choosing the familiar pain over the risk of something real?"
The question landed like a knife between my ribs.
I picked up my mug. Set it down. Picked it up again.
"I don't know," I said finally. "I don't know the difference anymore."
"Then figure it out here." His voice was rough. "Stay. Think. Decide. But don't run because you're scared. Don't make the same mistake Victoria did."
I opened my mouth to respond—to argue, to defend myself, to tell him he didn't understand—but footsteps on the stairs cut me off.
We both turned.
Patricia stood at the bottom of the staircase in her bathrobe, her gray hair loose around her shoulders. She was holding something in her hand. A photograph, faded and creased like it had been folded and unfolded a hundred times.
She looked at me. Then at Dominic. Then back at me.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I know it's late. But Sloane—before you go, you need to see this."
She crossed the kitchen and held out the photograph.
I took it with numb fingers.
The image was old, the colors slightly washed out. Two people standing in front of a building I didn't recognize. A man with dark hair and a crooked smile, his arm around a woman in a sundress.
My father.
And Victoria Ashford.
They were laughing at something off-camera, their bodies angled toward each other in a way that spoke of intimacy. Of history. Of something more than casual acquaintance.
My father's hand rested on Victoria's hip.
Victoria's head was tilted toward his shoulder.
They looked happy. They looked—
"Together," Patricia said softly. "This was taken three months before Victoria married Dominic. Your father and Victoria were together."
The photograph slipped from my fingers and hit the floor.