Old correspondence, a list of names, a torn piece of hotel stationery with a number scribbled on it.
Nothing conclusive.
Everything suggestive.
Isla exhales in frustration.“It’s like chasing smoke.”
“It’s like Keir,” Callum says.
Isla looks up sharply.“That isn’t fair.”
Callum’s expression stills.“No,” he admits.“It isn’t.But it’s what he did, left evidence without explanation.”
Isla presses on because she needs the truth more than she needs comfort.“So don’t tell me he didn’t think he was allowed.Heallowedhimself to save you.”
A muscle jumps in Callum’s jaw.He looks away briefly, then back.
“You want the ugliest answer?”he asks quietly.
Isla’s chest tightens.“Yes.”
Callum swallows.“Because saving me didn’t risk destroying you.”
Isla goes still.
Callum continues, voice rougher now, like each word costs him.“If he showed up in your life, if he fought Alisa, fought custody, fought the narrative, he knew he’d lose.And he knew you’d be the battlefield.”
Isla’s eyes sting.
“So he stayed away,” she whispers.
Callum nods once.“Knowing him, distance was the only thing he could control.”
“That’s still cowardice,” Isla says, but it comes out smaller now.Wounded.
“Yes,” Callum agrees again.“It is.”
The honesty hits her harder than defense ever would.
Isla looks down at the papers in her lap, then back up.“And you,” she says, voice sharpening, “you still want the castle.Even knowing this.”
Callum’s breath catches.“I want… what it means.”
“That’s not an answer,” Isla says.
He lifts his gaze, and for a moment, she sees something raw there, fear, maybe, or grief he hasn’t named.
“The castle is the only place I’ve ever belonged,” Callum says quietly.“If I lose it, I don’t know who I am.”
The confession shocks her into silence.
She doesn’t soften.Not yet.But something in her shifts, an understanding that Callum’s loyalty isn’t greed.
It’s survival.
The room is silent again, but not hostile.Just full.
Callum exhales, as if he regrets saying too much, and stands.“Keep looking,” he says softly.“If we’re going to hate the truth, we might as well know it.”
