Penny didn’t try to stop her. She offered a wink and another offhand comment about medieval booby traps as Arden slipped down the hall.
Inside her bedroom, Arden closed the door quietly, pressing her spine to the wood like it could hold her upright.
Inhaled.
Exhaled.
Tried to find something solid in the dizzy rush of her chest.
A muffled voice called from the living room—Penny, trying for casual, but her words carried an edge now. “Grabbing my Xanax too, babe. Just in case Prince Creepy shows up with a carriage this time!”
Trust Penny to make survival feel like another thing you handled, no drama required.
Arden huffed a breath—half laugh, half exhale.
On the dresser, her small orange bottle sat tucked behind a row of worn paperbacks, forgotten but not gone. She crossed the room, unscrewed the cap with steady fingers, and slipped one pill beneath her tongue.
Not weakness.
Not defeat.
Just breathing.
She wasn’t fighting the storm tonight.
She was anchoring herself through it.
The tightness in her chest didn’t vanish, but it dulled.
Enough to let her thinkthroughthe fear, not just feel it.
She opened her notebook again.
The pen felt heavy in her hand, but her grip didn’t falter.
Could it be him?
The question carved itself into the page without permission, sharp, trembling, but real.
Her past had been creeping closer for weeks, pressing cold fingers against the life she was trying to build.
She didn’t want to believe it.
Didn’t want to believe he could have found her again.
But the roses?
The roses were his signature.
If he had truly found her after all this time, then everything she’d built, every fragile piece of this new life, was now at risk.
And now?
Now it was inside her walls.
But Arden Rivers didn’t shatter.
She braced.
