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Chapter 19: Petra
publish date:
2026-03-25 15:55:27
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EYES OPEN Chapter 41: The Dinner
The restaurant is on the fourteenth floor of a building that Rhys helped restore six years ago, which he mentions with the quiet particular pride of someone pointing out a thing they made better, and I file it alongside everything else I am collecting about him, the novel at twenty three, the early arrivals, the way he reads buildings like people.We are shown to a table by the window.The city is spread below us like something deliberate, all light and movement, and I sit across from him in the green dress and he is wearing the grey shirt and we look at each other across a table that has candles and good stemware and absolutely no agenda beyond this."Martin Raymond asked me not to make Vivienne the public villain," I say. "I told him I had already made that choice."Rhys looks at me across the candles. "You protected her.""I protected her child," I say. "Different motivation."He is quiet for a moment. "She sent me a message today," he says. "First time she has contacted me directl
EYES OPEN Chapter 40: Martin Raymond
He is smaller than I imagined.Not physically... he is a substantial man, broad shouldered, silver haired, the kind of presence that fills a room through habit rather than effort. But something about seeing him in person, standing in my office doorway in a coat that announces money without trying, makes him smaller than the version I constructed across months of documents and wire transfers and coordinated campaigns.He looks like a man who has spent his whole life being the most powerful person available and has recently discovered that the category was smaller than he thought.I gesture to the chair across from my desk.He sits.We look at each other."You are not surprised to see me," he says."I am not surprised by much anymore," I say. "What do you want Mr. Raymond?"He studies me the way powerful men study people they underestimated, with the specific focus of someone recalibrating. "I want to understand what you intend to do," he says. "With what you have.""Graham filed everyt
EYES OPEN Chapter 39: Sophie
She is younger than I expected.Mid twenties, slight, with the careful composed energy of someone who has spent several years managing something alone and has learned to carry it without showing the weight. She is pretty in an understated way, dark circles under her eyes that concealer has not fully addressed, wearing a jacket that is good quality but older.She sits across from my desk and looks at me with the direct gaze of someone who practiced this on the drive over."I know this is unexpected," she says."It is," I agree. "But you are here so tell me why."She exhales. "Derek called me last week. About formalizing things legally. He was... different... from the last time we spoke. More present. Like something had shifted in him." She pauses. "He mentioned you. Not in detail but enough. He said you were the one who told him about Evan needing a father who shows up."I say nothing."I wanted to meet you," she says simply. "I know that probably sounds strange. You are his ex wife an
EYES OPEN Chapter 38: Verified
Derek calls on a Wednesday morning with the kind of voice that means something has shifted."The pregnancy is real," he says.I am standing at my office window with my coffee and I stay very still for a moment."Verified how?" I ask."I hired a private medical consultant," he says. "Independent, nothing to do with Vivienne's doctor. She agreed to the verification, which surprised me. Eight weeks."Eight weeks.I do the math without wanting to. Eight weeks takes it back to approximately the hotel trip. The one he told me was a work commitment. The one where he came home with peonies and guilt and I smiled at him across the dinner table knowing everything."Okay," I say."Camille, I need to tell you something and I need you to hear it properly," he says. "I am not going back to her. I want that completely clear. Whatever this baby means for logistics and legal arrangements, it does not change anything about where I am standing.""Does she know that?""I told her yesterday," he says. "In
EYES OPEN Chapter 37: Margaret Callahan
I have approximately ninety seconds to look like a person who has not been in pyjamas all morning.I make impressive use of them.By the time the elevator opens, I am in jeans and a clean top with my hair pulled back and my coffee replaced with a straight spine and the expression of a woman who was absolutely not just lying on a couch with her feet in a man's lap reading campaign briefs.Rhys's mother is nothing like Nora and exactly like her simultaneously.Margaret Callahan is tall, silver haired, with the kind of face that has spent seven decades being interested in everything around it. She walks into the apartment with the unhurried authority of a woman who has earned her opinions and is comfortable sharing them, and she stops when she sees me and does the full assessment in the time it takes most people to say hello."You must be Camille," she says."I must be," I say.Something approving moves across her face. She extends her hand and her grip is firm and brief and tells me eve
EYES OPEN Chapter 36: Saturday Morning
I wake up to the smell of coffee and rain.Both are coming from outside the bedroom, the coffee from the kitchen and the rain from the window where the city is doing its grey Saturday thing, and I lie there for a moment in the specific warmth of a bed that has stopped feeling like someone else's and started feeling like mine.The key is on the nightstand.I put it there last night when we got home from the rooftop restaurant, slightly wine warm and completely certain, and it sat there while we found our way to the bedroom and it is still there now, small and plain and the most significant object I own currently.Chosen.I get up and find Rhys in the kitchen in a grey shirt and bare feet, which has become my favourite version of him, unhurried and domestic and completely unperformative. He pours my coffee without turning around because he heard me coming and he already knows how I take it, which still does something to me that I have stopped pretending is nothing."Rain," I say, sittin
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