”
Chapter 8
If anyone had told me that freedom would smell like old wood and fresh candle wax, I might have laughed at them. But here I was – in Nathan’s quiet estate tucked in the suburbs, so far from the marble cages and cold laughter I’d left behind.
–
It had been days since I walked out of that house days since I watched my old life crumble behind the iron gates. And yet, tonight, I found myself kneeling on the floor of this borrowed room, a single candle flickering in front of me. Its soft glow danced across the framed ultrasound picture I’d hidden in my bag all these months. Seven months. Seven months and then… gone.
‘I’m sorry,” I whispered to the emptiness. My voice cracked on the word, brittle and raw. “I’n sorry I couldn’t protect you. I’m sorry I stayed so long – sorry I let myself be fooled. I should’ve eft sooner. I should’ve-”
broke off, pressing my palm to my belly that would never swell with that life again. The flame rembled as if it could feel my heartbeat.
—
Behind me, I heard the creak of the door. I didn’t turn. I didn’t need to I felt Nathan’s warmtl
before his shadow fell over mine.
‘You don’t have to apologize to anyone, Chloe,” Nathan said, his voice steady as stone. He knel beside me, his hand brushing over mine, grounding me. “You did what you could. You survived.” A breath escaped me – half a laugh, half a sob. “They’re looking for me, you know. My father – ne must be so furious. He’s never going to forgive me for ruining his party, for walking out like hat.”
Nathan’s jaw tightened. “Let him be furious. He’s not going to find you. I made sure of it. Every gone. Clinton’s been tearing the city apart for you. Leo too. But you? You’re invisible
10W.”
A hollow laugh slipped past my lips. “Invisible. That’s what I always was to them, wasn’t I? Until | nade myself a stain they couldn’t wash away.”
He turned to me fully, his eyes fierce under the candlelight. “Tell me the truth, Chloe. Were they urting you? All this time?”
swallowed, my eyes darting back to the flame. “It doesn’t matter now.”
It does to me.”
shook my head, but my voice gave me away. “It wasn’t always bad. But it was never good. You <now that, don’t you? You always knew.”
Nathan’s hand tightened around mine. “So why didn’t you call me sooner, huh? After all those messages I sent – all those times I asked you to leave him. Why now?”
let out a shaky breath. “Would you have come for me, Nathan? Really? Even after what I did to you after I chose him? I thought… I thought I deserved it. For hurting you.”
–
His eyes softened, his thumb brushing a tear off my cheek before it could fall. “You think so little of me? I would have come. Even if you’d never asked. Even if you hated me for it.”
My throat closed around a sob. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for back then. For hurting you.”
1/3 33.3%
He laughed
ZUM
not cruelly, but like he couldn’t believe I was still carrying this weight. “No, Chloe. No more sorries. You don’t owe anyone your pain. Not anymore. You hear me? I’m here now. And no one’s going to touch you again not Clinton, not Leo. No one.”
–
Something in his voice made my chest ache in a way that wasn’t heavy for once. “How? How can you promise that?”
His eyes gleamed with a fierceness I’d almost forgotten he had. “Because I already started. Clinton’s investments? They’ll crumble before he knows what hit him. Leo’s connections? Rotting from the inside. Let them look for you – they’ll find nothing but closed doors.”
My lips parted. “Nathan…”
He leaned in, brushing his forehead against mine. “I told you, Chloe. I always wanted you. I always will. And now, you’re going to live the life they never let you have. You’re going to do whatever the hell you want – plan our wedding, light your candles, grieve on your own terms. I’ll stand here and burn the whole world if you ask me to.”
A small, broken laugh trembled out of me. “That’s not fair to you.”
‘Nothing about us has ever been fair.” He smiled – that small, secret smile I’d loved since we were just teenagers sneaking notes in the back of our math class. “But it’s ours now. And I’m never letting you go.”
The days that followed felt like stepping into a dream I hadn’t let myself believe in. Nathan made ne eat, made me rest. Sometimes I’d wake up to the sound of his voice outside my door, arguing with someone on the phone – always about Clinton’s lost deals, my father’s dwindling allies. He was tearing it all down, brick by brick, while I learned how to breathe again.
n the quiet hours, I found myself thinking back to the beginning – before the ruin, before Clinton, efore Alynna. Back to when Nathan was just the boy who offered me half his sandwich at unch, back to nights we’d sneak out and sit under the street lamp by my house, sharing secrets about dreams too big for our small town.
remembered the first time he told me he loved me – behind the gym, when the sky was so wide and forgiving I thought I could disappear into it. I’d laughed, stupidly, nervously, and told him. couldn’t. That I didn’t know how to love him back.
And then I’d met Clinton. And the rest was the graveyard I’d been digging for myself ever since. One morning, Nathan asked me to come with him – no explanation, just a gentle, “Trust me.” We drove into town, to a street I didn’t recognize. I thought he was just taking me out for coffee some small kindness to coax a real smile out of me.
–
But when we stopped, he didn’t lead me to a table. He pulled me to a door glass, with my name painted in soft gold letters.
blinked at it, my breath catching. “Nathan, what is this?”
He slipped a key into my hand, his grin boyish and a little smug. “Your own café. Remember? You always told me you wanted one. A place that was yours, where you’d serve pastries and stories and no one could touch you.”
My lips trembled. “You remembered that?”
“I remember everything,” he said, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “It’s yours, Chloe. All yours.”
2/3 34.83
–
Something inside me cracked open not in grief this time, but in relief. In hope. I wrapped my arms around him, burying my face in his chest as the tears finally came, warm and alive.
“I finally chose right,” I whispered against his heartbeat. “I finally chose you.”
–
And for the first time in forever, I didn’t feel like I owed my life to anyone except myself.
