Elliot follows. Caleb last.
Rowan pauses at the threshold and looks back. “You stayed away this week,” he says, not quite a question.
“Yes.”
Rowan’s gaze sharpens. “Because you’re maintaining space.”
“Yes.”
A beat.
Rowan’s voice drops. “Or because you’re afraid she’ll make you feel something you can’t control.”
My blood turns hot.
“Goodnight, Rowan.”
He nods once and leaves.
The door closes and I’m alone again with the contract.
The version of it that now looks… different.
I scroll to the final page and stare at the empty signature lines.
Lucy Bennett will come in tomorrow at two.
She will sign.
She will become Mrs. North.
And instead of feeling victory, the thing I feel is unsteady.
Like my body doesn’t know whether to brace for impact…
Or hope.
I finalize the last adjustments with clinical precision.
Then I send the agreement to her.
And for the first time in years, I sit in my office long after the building empties, unable to shake the feeling that I’m not closing a deal.
I’m stepping into a storm I don’t know how to command.
Chapter 29 - Lucy
I wake up before my alarm. It isn’t the kind of wake-up where you stretch and blink and feel slow and human. It’s the kind where your eyes snap open and your body is already braced, like it knows what’s coming even if your mind tries to pretend it doesn’t.
For a moment I lie there, staring at the faint line of light under my bedroom door, listening.
No coughing from Mom’s room because she isn’t here.
No creak of the couch because Emily isn’t asleep out there today.
Just quiet.
A rare, clean kind of quiet that should feel like relief.
