For a moment I can smell her again—jasmine and champagne—like the memory is fresh enough to breathe.
“I looked at her,” I whisper. “For just a second. Maybe two.”
Ava doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. She just listens—which is more terrifying than if she’d judged me.
“The car coming toward us hit a slick of water. Hydroplaned.” I tap my thumb against my palm—once, twice—like I can will the memory back into its cage. “They crossed the line. I looked up too late. There wasn’t time to brake, or swerve, or—”
My throat closes. The rest scrapes out like gravel.
“We hit. Hard. The world spun. Metal screamed. We flipped—twice, maybe three times.” I can still hear the shriek of glass, the violent silence that followed. “We landed upside down in an embankment. Mud and water filling the cabin so fast I couldn’t breathe.”
The worst part rushes out before I can stop it.
“She wasn’t moving.” My voice cracks. “Her head… her neck… there was so much blood. I tried to unbuckle her, but she—she was already gone.”
My eyes burn hot, blurred. I force a breath into lungs that don’t want it.
“The doctors told me the baby died minutes later,” I say, quieter now. “Her heart just… stopped. Because of the trauma. Because I looked away. Because I wasn’t fast enough.”
Ava’s eyes shimmer, but she doesn’t interrupt. Not once.
“So, when everyone asked how I survived…” My mouth twists into something that isn’t a smile. “The truth is I didn’t. The wrong person walked away.”
Silence presses in, thick and suffocating. The only sound is the soft crackle of the fire beside us and the uneven rhythm of my breathing.
Ava’s hand reaches across the table—slow, careful—and rests over mine again. Steady. Warm. Human.
“You looked away,” she says gently, “because you loved her.”
I shake my head. “I looked away, and it killed them.”
Her fingers tighten, grounding me firmly in the present.
“It was an accident,” she whispers. “A tragedy. Not a crime.”
But the guilt is a beast that doesn’t answer to logic.
“I walked away.” A humorless breath escapes me. “Not physically—I was a headline. A tragedy in a perfect suit. Cameras everywhere. People wanting quotes before the blood was even washed off the road.”
My voice gets rougher, scraped by memories I don’t let myself touch often.
“I couldn’t go back to the company. I couldn’t be the man everyone expected. So one day, I just… left. A rental car. A ferry ticket. A winter jacket. And then nothing. Radio silence. Let them assume the worst.”
The quiet between us stretches, heavy with everything I’ve confessed and everything I haven’t.
Ava’s fingers tighten slightly where they rest on the table. “Why Silver Ridge?”
“Because no one looks for billionaires in places where survival comes before luxury.” I meet her eyes then—because this part matters. “I thought if I stayed somewhere that could kill me if I wasn’t careful, maybe I could stop wanting to live.”
Her breath catches—a soft sound, but it punches clean through me.
“You were never supposed to find me in that storm,” I admit, voice low. “I wasn’t out there by mistake. I… wasn’t planning to walk back.”
Ava presses a hand to her chest like the revelation physically hurts. Her eyes shine, but she doesn’t break, doesn’t look away. She is agony and strength in the same breath.
“I’ve been trying to help the clinic quietly,” I continue. “The security systems, the grant proposals, the donations under initials no one would track. But it’s a thin line. If someone recognizes me, if even one photo ends up online… the world comes crashing back. Cameras. Paparazzi. And anyone near me gets swallowed up too.”
That truth sinks deep. I can almost see her calculating the risks—Violet, the roof, the future teetering on ice.
