“Or to confirm we’ll crash.” She heard the bitterness in her voice.
“Then you crash. And you get back up. That’s what living looks like, Emily. Not hiding in a lighthouse cottage pretending you can make yourself small enough to disappear.”
She walked into the studio and sank onto the stool beside her easel. Her hands found the familiar grooves worn into the wood from hours of sitting in this exact spot. Creating again had felt like coming home. But showing that creation to the world? That was different. That was a vulnerability she wasn’t sure she could survive.
Her phone chimed. She pulled it from her pocket with trembling hands.
An email notification.
From an address she didn’t recognize, but the subject line made her blood run cold:Found you.
She opened the email with fingers that had gone numb.
Emily,
Saw the festival listing. Already emailed the organizers about your history.
See you soon.
Julian
The phone slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor. Winnie was beside her immediately, retrieving the phone, reading the message.
“That…” Winnie’s language turned surprisingly colorful for a lighthouse keeper. She grabbed her own phone. “I’m texting Grant. This changes things.” Winnie sent the text without asking permission.
“It doesn’t change anything. He’s found me. He’s already contacted the festival. It’s over.”
“Over? Emily Shaw, you listen to me.” Winnie gripped Emily’s shoulders, forcing eye contact. “That boy is a bully. And bullies only win when good people run away scared. Is that who you want to be? Someone who creates beautiful, honest work and then lets a damaged, grieving man destroy it because he can’t face his own pain?”
“He’ll ruin everything?—”
“He’ll try. But he won’t succeed. Not this time.” Winnie’s certainty was unshakeable. “This time, you have a community. And most importantly, this time you’re not going to run.”
She wanted to argue. Wanted to say that Winnie didn’t understand, that it was different, that Julian had resources and ruthlessness and nothing to lose. But a knock at the door interrupted her spiral.
Grant’s voice carried through the door. “Winnie? Emily? It’s me.”
Winnie moved to let him in before Emily could protest. He came into the cottage and stepped into the studio, his expression concerned, and his eyes immediately found Emily’s face. Whatever he saw there made him cross the room in three long strides.
“I was already on my way over when I got your text. What happened?”
“Show him the email,” Winnie instructed.
Emily didn’t want to. Didn’t want to see Grant’s expression change from concern to pity, or worse, from support to self-preservation. She picked up her phone and handed it to him without looking at his face.
The silence stretched. Finally, Grant spoke, his voice carefully controlled. “When did this come?”
“Minutes ago. Don’t you see? I have to pull out of the festival now. He’s already contacted the festival organizers, Grant. He’ll poison everything before it even begins. I won’t let him destroy your gallery’s reputation?—”
“My gallery’s reputation?” His laugh held no humor. He moved to look at her painting on the easel, studying it with the intensity she’d come to recognize. “Emily, look at this. Really look at it.”
“I know what it is?—”
“Do you?” He turned back to her. “Because I see an artist who’s found her voice again. I see work that’s technically brilliant and emotionally honest. I see something that would be an honor to display in my gallery, scandal or no scandal.”
“Julian will threaten lawsuits?—”
“Let him threaten. We’ll be ready if Julian shows up.”
