Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
She doesn’t back down, her eyes flashing, her voice rising, cutting through the room’s stillness. “Don’t lie to me, Hugh. You need to tell me the truth—were you behind it?”
She pauses, her breath hitching, and then the words spill, fast and furious, each one a wound.
“The money doesn’t mean anything to you, does it? Nor the cottage, just the land. That’s what you wanted all along, isn’t it? You did this so I couldn’t rebuild, so I’d have no choice but to sell it to you. That’s why you were so nice, so helpful, wasn’t it? It was all a plan, a game, to get what you want? Just let me know the truth. That’s all I’m asking. After all, I can’t do anything to hurt you in retaliation. I can’t get the house back. I’ll have no choice but to sell the land to you to even put food on my table. You won, so just tell me, alright. You owe me that, at least.”
I listen, my stomach twisting, because I can’t believe these words are coming from her, can’t believe she thinks I’m capable of this. I’m hurt, deeply, the kind of hurt that steals your breath, that makes your chest ache.
“Lauren, none of that is true,” I say, my voice low, but to my ears they sound wooden and without conviction. Probably, because I’m too shocked. I try again. “I swear, I didn’t do this. I don’t need your land that badly—God, I’d never hurt you, never put your life at risk, never burn your house to get anything.”
I step closer, my hands open, begging her to believe me, to trust the man who ran into flames for her, who held her in the hospital, who’s falling for her in ways he can’t control.
But I can see clearly that she’s not ready to listen. Her eyes blaze with anger and fury, and I wonder what has turned her this insane.
“I don’t believe you,” she screams, filling the room with her pain. “I was warned about you. That you’re evil. That you’re a monster. And still I trusted you, I almost believed you cared. How could I have been so fucking stupid? Getting your own workers to renovate the cottage was a brilliant way to ensure that this fire happened, wasn’t it? Admit it, all this… desperation to find out what went wrong is just an act, isn’t it? Isn’t it? You have so much and you can’t even bear for me to have Sweetbriar Cottage, the only place I have ever owned or probably ever will. You’re pathetic, you know that?”
Her words turn me cold. Cold, furious and silent. Me, pathetic? How did things come to this? I reach out a hand. I don’t know why, perhaps, one final attempt to recover a lost dream.
“Don’t touch me! I detest you!” she yells, and the venom in her voice and the hatred in her eyes bring me to my senses.
She whirls away suddenly, her shoulders hunched, and flees from me.
I can’t believe it. It all happened so fast it feels like a hallucination. But the door slamming behind her and bitter silence in the room is an undeniable confirmation. I stand in the middle of the room in shock, my breath shallow, my hands fisting, and my eyes burning with tears I won’t let fall, because she’s wrong.
She’s decided I’m the villain, but I’m not.
Chapter
Forty-Nine
LAUREN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-DJsWs9Gyk
-Fool, forget him-
As I stand on the scorched lawn, the cottage’s blackened jagged skeleton barely standing before me, my chest aches. The acrid stench of smoke clings to my hair and my skin, and there is a hollow searing pain in my heart.
Everything I’ve built, everything I’ve dared to hope for, is gone—reduced to ash and ruin. I need to go inside, to salvage something, anything—some photos, a book, a piece of the life I brought with me—but my feet drag, heavy with dread. I know there is nothing left worth saving.
I step through the gaping doorway and can’t bear to look at the warped frame, the glass shattered into glittering dust under my sneakers. The living room is a graveyard of memories: the pink sofa, once vibrant, now an eyesore; my garden journals all a pile of ashes; the oak table where we ate pizza, splintered, blackened, unrecognizable. The staircase looks too unstable to attempt. My clothes, my grandmother’s patchwork quilt, all consumed or destroyed, leaving nothing but soot and despair.
I’m crying, tears cutting tracks through the grime on my face.
I can’t stay here. I can’t breathe in this place. I especially can’t face Hugh, who’s probably watching from the manor, ready to swoop in with his charm, his lies, to twist this tragedy into another chance to manipulate me.
My hands shake as I ask one of the workers to lend me his phone, my fingers fumbling to call a taxi. My voice breaks as I give the address, begging the driver to hurry, because I need to be gone. I don’t know where I can go, but I just need to escape before Hugh finds me, before his gray eyes and soft words unravel my anger into doubt. The taxi pulls up, its engine rumbling, and I climb in.