"Richard." My name in her mouth stops me cold. "Will you... would you stay? Just for a little while? I don't think I can sleep yet, and I don't really want to be alone with my thoughts right now."
Fuck.
Every rational part of my brain screams at me to say no. To make a polite excuse, retreat to my office, put three floors and several locked doors between us. To do anything except what she's asking.
"Of course," I hear myself say instead. "Let me just grab a chair from—"
"You can sit here." She pats the bed beside her, then seems to realize what she's done and flushes. "I mean, if you want. It's your house. Your furniture. I just meant—"
"I know what you meant." I move to the armchair by the window instead, safer territory. The fabric is expensive, uncomfortable by design, meant for looks rather than actual sitting. Perfect for this moment, actually. The physical discomfort might distract from the other kind. "Better view from here anyway."
It's a lie. The windows show nothing but darkness and my own reflection, a forty-five-year-old man who should know better sitting in a guest room with a woman young enough to be—
No. Not going there. She's twenty-six, not a child. An adult who's survived hell and deserves to be treated like one.
An adult who's currently curled up on my guest bed in leggings that hug every curve, that oversized sweater slipping off one shoulder to reveal smooth skin, her dark hair falling in waves around her face.
An adult I have no business looking at the way I'm looking at her right now.
"Tell me about this place," Belle says, mercifully breaking my increasingly dangerous train of thought. "How you ended up in Blackwater Falls. It seems like such a random choice for someone like you."
Someone like me. A billionaire, she means. Someone who belongs in penthouses and boardrooms, not mountain fortresses in towns too small to have a Starbucks.
"I needed distance," I say. "From the city, from my former life. From..." *From watching you marry my son.* "From everything, really."
"Because of Nathan?"
"Partially." I lean back in the chair, trying to find a position that doesn't make my body's current state obvious. Trying to think about anything except the way Belle's teeth catch her bottom lip when she's thinking. "The business doesn't require my physical presence anymore. I've built good teams, hired smart people. And after the divorce, after losing custody, after watching Nathan become—" I stop, jaw tightening. "After all of it, I neededsomewhere I could breathe. I got this project started and moved here a few weeks ago."
"Do you regret it? The divorce, I mean."
"Not for a second." The answer comes immediately, certain. "Victoria and I should never have married in the first place. We were young, stupid, and thought we wanted the same things. Turned out we didn't want anything except the image of success."
"But you loved her once."
"I thought I did. Looking back, I'm not sure I knew what love was." I study Belle's face in the soft light, the genuine curiosity there. "Victoria was beautiful, ambitious, from the right family. On paper, we were perfect. In reality, we were toxic from day one."
"What changed? What made you finally leave?"
I consider how much to tell her. How much of my failure as a husband, as a father, to lay bare. "I realized she was never going to let me have a relationship with Nathan. That she'd spent years poisoning him against me, and that I'd been too focused on building my empire to notice until it was too late. By the time I saw what she'd done, what he'd become..." I shake my head. "By then, the divorce was just making official what had been true for years. We were already finished."
Belle is quiet for a moment, processing. Then: "Do you blame yourself? For how Nathan turned out?"
"Every fucking day."
The curse slips out before I can catch it, raw and honest. Belle's eyes widen slightly, but she doesn't look away.
"I should have fought harder for custody," I continue, the words pouring out now. "Should have documented Victoria'smanipulation, her narcissism. Should have spent less time at work and more time being an actual father. Should have noticed earlier that something was wrong, that she was turning him into a weapon to use against me." I run a hand through my hair, grip it hard enough to hurt. "I should have saved him before he became someone who needed saving from."
"You can't blame yourself for his choices."
"Can't I?" I laugh, bitter. "He's my son, Belle. My flesh and blood. Whatever monster he's become, I helped create it. Through neglect, through absence, through failing to protect him from his mother's poison. That's on me."
"He's also an adult who makes his own decisions. Who chose to hurt me, to control me, to—" She stops, swallows hard. "You're not responsible for that. He is."
I want to believe her. Want to accept that absolution and let go of the guilt that's been eating me alive since I first saw those bruises on her arm. But it's not that simple.
Nothing about this is simple.
