Page 76

"Good," Harrison said, his tone finally losing its edge. "Then your reconnaissance work here is done. You have the numbers for Vance. Go pack your bags. The car is running, and we are done wasting time in this place. You're closing this in New York."

The words hit Emma like an open palm, but the shock quickly gave way to a fierce, territorial burn. Every syllable sounded rehearsed, draining the past three weeks of every ounce of warmth she had believed in. Standing in that hallway, hearing her home dismissed as a demolition site and her deepest confession reduced to a punchline, Emma felt her sorrow curdle into pure, unadulterated rage.

She did not wait to hear the rest. Moving with silent precision, she set the sweating glass of water on the hallway console table. She turned and walked up the staircase, her boots making no sound against the runner.

She reached her bedroom, shutting the door behind her with a quiet click. She stood in the center of the room, staring at the faded pattern of the rug. The memories of the past few months turned to ash in her throat. Every confession, every softening, every touch—it had all been a lie. Emma had handed over the house, the memories, and herself, totally blind to the fact that Victoria had been measuring the walls for the bulldozers the whole time.

She took her phone out of her pocket. Her hands shook so violently she could barely unlock her screen. She opened a blank email to Arthur, typed out her consent to the sale without reading it back, and hit send, severing the last thread tying her to the estate and the woman standing just downstairs.

Three minutes later, hurried footsteps sounded on the stairs. They didn't carry their usual measured rhythm; they were frantic. They stopped outside Emma’s door.

A sharp knock vibrated against the wood.

"Emma?" Victoria asked, her voice tight and breathless. "Emma, please open the door."

Emma stood up. She wiped the moisture from her face, smoothing the front of her t-shirt with trembling hands. She walked to the door, turned the lock, and pulled it open.

Victoria stood in the hallway. Her eyes were wide, her chest heaving from taking the stairs two at a time. She had walked out of the parlor, seen the half-open door and the sweating glass of ice water abandoned on the console table, and put it together instantly.

"Emma," Victoria breathed, her composure fracturing completely. "Whatever you heard—don't do anything stupid. Please."

"Already did," Emma said.

Her voice sounded hollow, belonging to a stranger. She kept her face completely blank, locking every ounce of her devastation behind a wall of numbness. "I emailed Arthur two minutes ago. You have my consent to sell the property. Write me a cheque and I'll call it a gift, right?"

Victoria flinched as if she had been struck across the face. The color drained from her skin.

"I can't explain this in two minutes," Victoria said, her voice breaking as she glanced frantically toward the landing. Downstairs, the heavy thud of Harrison's shoes echoed in the foyer. "He's at the bottom of the stairs, Emma. If I fight him right now, he voids everything before I can find a way to stop the sale. I'm not going to stand here and tell you none of what I said was true, because some of it was a few weeks ago. But not anymore. Not since I came back from New York three weeks ago, I swear to God!"

The silence in the hallway became absolute, suffocating.

When Emma spoke, her voice was dangerously low. The shock had evaporated, replaced by a revulsion that cut deeper than anger.

"So it was true in April," Emma repeated, the words tasting like ash. "And in May. And in June. And for the last three weeks while you were sitting in my kitchen, while you had your hands on me in the dark, letting me fall in love with you, you were actively measuring these walls for the bulldozers."

"Emma, please, I didn't know how to undo what I started—"

"You knew about the bulldozers," Emma cut in, her voice trembling with a violent disgust. "Yesterday at the lake, you looked me dead in the face and told me to get on a train to Paris, knowing damn well there wouldn't be anything left to come back to. And then you walked into that room and handed him the one thing I gave you in confidence just to prove you were still on his leash."

"Victoria!" Harrison's voice barked sharply from the bottom of the stairs. "The car is waiting!"

Emma gripped the edge of the door until the chipped paint bit hard into the meat of her palm. Looking at Victoria standing there, torn between the staircase and her bedroom door, the memory of a rainy high street fifteen years ago hit her straight in the ribs. A car engine running at the curb. A person she loved chose to get in and drive away, leaving her standing on the pavement.

"I made the mistake of thinking I was wrong about you," Emma whispered, her voice breaking as she blinked through the burning sting of unshed tears, her chin coming up defiant. "You know he hid Joe's letters for twenty years. You know exactly what that man is. You might have Joe’s blood, Victoria, but you really are just Harrison’s creature."

Victoria gasped, taking a stumbling step backward. The words landed with clinical precision, striking the rawest nerve she had kept hidden.

"So go get in his car," Emma said, each syllable falling like lead. "Sell the house, take your money, and walk away. That’s the only thing you’re actually capable of keeping."

Victoria opened her mouth to argue, to defend herself, her eyes bright with unshed tears, but no sound came out. She looked utterly destroyed.

Emma did not wait for a rebuttal. She stepped back into her room and closed the door, turning the lock with a definitive, echoing snap.

She leaned her forehead against the wood, her breathing unraveling into jagged, silent sobs. For a long beat, Victoria didn't move on the other side of the panel. Emma could hear her ragged, shallow breathing through the timber, followed by the soft thud of a palm pressing flat against the door, right at the level of Emma's chest.

Then, Victoria’s footsteps retreated down the hall toward the master suite to collect her bags.

A minute later, the footsteps returned, heavier this time, pausing one last time outside Emma’s threshold. There was the quiet rustle of paper, the soft clink of the brass handle being touched, and then the steady, final sound of heels descending the staircase.