Ella’s Point of View
The morning sun spilled through the guest suite’s windows, casting golden streaks across my packed suitcase, but my heart was a tangle of emotions, heavy with the ache of leaving. Seattle called—Lily’s laughter, our quiet life, the safety I’d built far from Chicago’s ghosts.
Yet Shawn Hayes’s mansion, with its marble halls and his warm presence, had become a haven I wasn’t ready to abandon. His surgery was a success, his coarctation of the aorta repaired, his life no longer hanging by a thread, but the past few days—his laughter, his promises, the way he’d stood by me at Miranda’s grave—had woven him into my world.
I smoothed my sweater, my long black hair loose over my shoulders, and checked my reflection, my eyes betraying a longing I couldn’t name.
A knock at the door broke my reverie, soft but deliberate. I opened it to find Shawn, seated in a sleek wheelchair, his face pale but bright with that familiar grin, his blue eyes sparkling despite the strain of re
