Chapter 23

~ LENA ~

The ride back home was strangely quiet, but it wasn’t because we were both silent.

Nathan spoke from time to time beside me, his voice calm and attentive. Every now and then, he said something light—small, easy things meant to draw me out of my thoughts.

He had noticed it. The way I had gone distant. The way my mind wasn’t really there with him.

A few times, his hand closed around mine, warm and steady, his thumb brushing against my skin as if trying to pull me back.

But I couldn’t help it. I was lost in my own thoughts.

My mind was still back there. Back in front of that beautiful house, with the sound of the ocean rolling softly behind it. Back in the moment when Nathan had placed the key in my hand, as if giving someone a beach house in the Hamptons was the most natural thing in the world.

Even now, my fingers kept brushing against my purse, where the key rested inside, just to convince myself it had actually happened.

Earlier, it had been the necklace. A Harry Winston piece. A single piece of jewelry worth millions of dollars.

The closest I had ever come to something like that was seeing it in glossy magazine pages, worn by women whose lives looked nothing like mine.

And as if that wasn’t already too much, as if that alone wasn’t enough to leave me completely speechless… he had added a house to it.

A beautiful house.

The kind of place a girl like me had never even dared to dream of, let alone own.

For someone like Nathan, it might have been a simple gift. But for me, it meant everything.

I was still trying to recover from the shock as I stared out the window, watching the city lights slide past in a blur. My thoughts refused to settle, circling the same moments over and over again.

The necklace.

The house.

The way he had looked at me.

I was still struggling to take it all in.

By the time the car finally turned through the tall gates of the mansion, night had already settled over the estate. The house stood ahead of us, quiet and grand, its tall windows glowing softly in the dark, as if it were waiting for us.

Nathan didn’t let go of my hand as we stepped inside. He walked beside me, steady, present… but I could feel it.

His attention. The way his gaze kept returning to me, like he was trying to read something in my face. Like he was wondering what I was thinking, whether I was happy… or if something was wrong.

The moment we stepped into the bedroom, I moved straight toward the vanity mirror. I didn’t say anything. I just reached up and unclasped the necklace.

The diamonds caught the light as I lifted the necklace away. For a moment, I stared at it in my hand.

It was beautiful. Too beautiful. And it looked just as expensive as it was.

Wearing it had felt like carrying something fragile and priceless against my skin. Something that didn’t belong to me.

I turned and walked into the closet, placing it carefully back into its velvet case. My fingers lingered on it for a second, like I wasn’t quite ready to let go. Then I set it back where it belonged, among the rest of my jewelry, neatly arranged beside Nathan’s collection of expensive wristwatches. Only then did I finally let out a quiet sigh of relief. It felt like I’d just set down a huge weight I didn’t even realize I’d been carrying all evening.

When I stepped back into the bedroom, Nathan was still watching me, though I pretended not to notice. I acted like everything was normal as I returned to the mirror and reached for a cotton pad to wipe away my makeup.

But I barely started before Nathan closed the space between us in a few steps. His arms slid around my waist, pulling me back against him.

“You’ve been unusually quiet all through the ride back home,” he murmured near my ear.

I could hear it clearly, the concern in his voice. Guilt hit me instantly.

“I’m sorry…” I whispered, trying to steady my breath as I looked at our reflection in the mirror. “I’m just… overwhelmed. You keep surprising me, Nate.”

“My wife deserves it.”

His lips brushed the side of my neck. It was warm, slow. My heart stumbled. My eyes fluttered shut. If only he knew the truth.

If only he knew that every time he touched me like this, something inside me slipped, something I was supposed to hold on to.

I forgot that I wasn’t the woman he thought he married.

And the worst part was, in moments like this… I wanted to be.

“Kim, look at me.” He turned me gently until I was facing him.

I lifted my eyes to his, met his gaze. And there it was—that sincerity, that quiet certainty that made everything feel real, even when it wasn’t.

“I meant it,” he said softly, “when I told you I was going to make you the happiest woman in the world. I want all your dreams to come true.”

A lump rose in my throat. For seconds, I couldn’t speak. I just stared at him, at the warmth in his eyes, at the way he said those words, with a sincerity that felt deeper than anything he had ever said before.

Say something, a voice inside me nudged. Smile. React the way Kimberly would. Don’t forget who you’re supposed to be.

I was Kimberly. I had to keep reminding myself of that. Every second. Even when it was getting harder to pretend. Even when it felt like I was slipping.

“You already have,” I said finally, my voice coming out weaker than I meant it to. “You’ve made me the happiest woman…” I shook my head, letting out a small, shaky breath. “I don’t even know how to begin to explain what today meant to me. The necklace was already… It left me completely speechless… And then… as if that wasn’t enough…” My voice faltered. “You got the house…”

My voice trailed off, emotion tightening my chest. At this point, I wasn’t pretending anymore. The words leaving my mouth weren’t part of the role I was supposed to play. They weren’t something I was saying because Kimberly Hayes would say them.

I meant them, every single one.

Even if none of it was mine, the gesture still touched something deep inside me that no man had ever touched before.

“You bought me my dream house.”

I shook my head, remembering how I’d felt entering it. Nathan had walked me through it slowly, room by room, watching my face like every reaction mattered to him.

Like I mattered.

My vision blurred suddenly. I couldn’t help the tears. They slipped down my cheeks uninvited as my mind wandered somewhere else.

It wandered back home.

I thought about my mother… about Sofia, and the cramped little apartment where we lived.

I thought about the bills stacked on the table. My mother and I worked ourselves to exhaustion day after day, and still somehow, it was never enough.

Owning a house like that—it wasn’t just luxury. It was peace. It was security. It was waking up without that constant fear in your chest, wondering how to pay the rent.

It was a different life entirely. The kind of life Nathan was offering so easily.

And yet, Kimberly had walked away.

She’d walked away from him, from a man who loved her more than anything and was ready to lay the world at her feet.

But why? I still couldn’t understand it.

The tears on my face softened Nathan’s expression.

“Hey… hey.” His hands came up, warm against my cheeks, gently wiping the tears away as they fell. “Don’t start crying again. I don’t want to see you cry.”

I tried to stop. I really did. But the more he comforted me with soft words and gentle caresses, the more the tears came. Because I knew I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve his kindness, his love.

I breathed out a shaky sigh, and suddenly, his hands stilled on my face. His gaze dropped briefly to my lips, then returned to my eyes. I could see the instant shift in his expression, could feel the change in him as he slowly, quietly leaned in.

The kiss was slow at first, just our lips gently brushing against each other in a way that was meant to soothe me.

But with each touch of his lips, each slow caress of his hands, something wild and dangerous was being unleashed inside of me. And I kissed him back with a desperate, urgent need that caught me off guard.

I didn’t understand it.

I didn’t know if it was his kindness from the moment we met… the way he cared so deeply… the way he always looked at me like I was something precious. The way he made me feel seen, wanted.

Or if it was everything coming together at once—every moment, every gesture, every way in which he’d shown his love—colliding all at once, building into something I could no longer control.

My fingers tightened in his shirt, pulling him closer as he responded instantly, his lips moving against mine with the same breathless urgency.

His hands slipped down to my waist, and I gasped as he lifted me effortlessly off my feet.

My legs wrapped around him immediately, my arms sliding around his neck as I held on, drawing him even closer, pressing my body against his.

Our kisses grew heated, more urgent, more consuming. I returned every kiss, every caress, like I couldn’t get enough. Like I didn’t want it to stop. Like nothing else existed outside of this moment.

Everything blurred. The room. The thoughts. The truth.

Until—

“Ashley!”

The scream tore through the air. It sounded sharp, panicked. It cut through the moment like a sharp blade, and we froze instantly. My breath caught as we both went still, listening.

Everything was quiet for a second or two. Then we heard it again—Deborah’s voice calling Ashley’s name in a frantic, desperate plea.

This time, there was no mistaking it. I knew something was very, very wrong.