For a moment, neither of us moved. The connection was electric, immediate—his dark eyes finding mine with an intensity that made my breath catch. In that single moment, I saw everything: his pain, his struggle, his need. And I saw something else too. Something that looked like recognition. Like he was seeing me, really seeing me, and understanding exactly what I was feeling.
My heart hammered against my ribs. My hands gripped the edge of the counter to keep from shaking. This was it. This was the moment where I had to decide if I was brave enough to let him matter this much. If I was willing to risk the kind of heartbreak that could shatter me completely.
Then his gaze dropped back to the journal. His hand moved to the next page, turning it slowly.
And whatever was written there, whatever words were waiting on that page, hit him like a physical blow.
His entire body went rigid. His jaw clenched so hard I could see the muscle working beneath his skin. The color drained from his face, replaced by something darker. Something that looked like rage. Or grief. Or both.
For a moment, he just sat there, staring at the page, his breathing shallow and controlled in a way that terrified me more than any outburst could have.
Then he closed the book.
The sound was sharp. Final. Like a door slamming shut.
He stood up slowly, deliberately, his movements stiff and mechanical. He didn’t look at me. Didn’t acknowledge me at all. His eyes were fixed on some distant point beyond the bakery walls, somewhere I couldn’t follow.
He walked toward the door, the journal clutched against his chest like a weapon.
And he left.
No goodbye. No explanation. No glance back in my direction.
Just gone.
I stood there behind the counter, my heart still racing, my breath still caught in my throat, staring at the empty chair by the window. The coffee cup sat abandoned on the table, still half-full. The bear claw Pati had given him lay untouched on the plate.
I realized, with a sickening clarity, that I’d been fooling myself. This wasn’t just attraction or companionship or even the thrill of being pursued by a man who wanted me.
Somewhere between the bear claws and last night, I’d given Stephen Hartley my heart. And now he’d walked out the door with it, leaving me standing alone behind the counter with nothing but questions and the terrible, aching knowledge that whatever was in that journal had just changed everything.
And I had no idea what it was.
Or if he’d ever come back.
THE PRICE OF LOVE…
I need you to understand something before I tell you the rest. Something I should have told you years ago but couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Because the truth was too ugly, too shameful, too monstrous for me to speak aloud.
I trusted Titan, because you trusted him. And I’d let him convince me that between George Stone and William Doherty, our daughter would never have a life free from violence and danger.
So he helped me hide. And I stayed hidden.
And for years, I convinced myself I’d made the right choice.
But that help came with a price.
It wasn’t every brother; there were some good men in the Silver Shadows. Titan just wasn’t one of them. Neither were Steele and Stone. They were just like their father. All three of them were magicians, letting you see only what they wanted you to see.
There were a dozen of them; men who wanted something from me, and I gave it to them willingly, desperately,because every time I spread my legs for one of them, it meant our daughter stayed safe.
I told myself it was protection. That I was being smart, strategic. That it was what mothers did. They sacrificed everything for their children. I rationalized every encounter, every degrading moment, every time I let them touch me and pretended it didn’t destroy a piece of my soul.
But it wasn’t protection, Stephen. It was survival. And it turned me into something I didn’t recognize.
And then I got pregnant.
I don’t know who the father was.
