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Chapter 51: London
publish date:
2026-04-16 21:09:45
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EYES OPEN Chapter 51: London
London arrives the way big things do.All at once and completely unbothered by the fact that you thought you were ready.The apartment Helena arranged for us is in Shoreditch... top floor, floor to ceiling windows that make the city feel like something you are inside of rather than looking at. It is bigger than I expected and newer than I would have chosen for myself and it smells like fresh paint and possibility and the particular blank page quality of a space that has not been lived in yet.We stand in the middle of it with our bags at our feet."Well," I say."Well," Rhys says.I walk to the window.London is doing its thing below us, grey and enormous and completely indifferent to two people from somewhere smaller standing in a new apartment trying to decide how they feel about everything.I feel good.I feel genuinely, solidly, completely good."It needs things," I say. "Plants. Books on actual shelves. Something on the walls that we chose rather than something that came with the
EYES OPEN Chapter 50: Last Night
Our last night in the apartment is a Friday.We are not sad about it exactly. Neither of us is a person who does sentiment for its own sake. But there is something in the air of the evening that both of us feel and neither of us names, the specific weight of a place that held something important becoming a place that held something important.We do not pack properly.We pack the way people pack when they keep getting distracted by each other, one box filled and then someone says something and the tape gun gets put down and twenty minutes disappear pleasantly and then back to another box.Rhys wraps books. I wrap kitchen things. Music plays from his phone on the counter and at some point he pulls me away from the bubble wrap and into the middle of the half-packed living room and we dance badly and completely unselfconsciously to something neither of us knows the words to and I laugh so hard I have to stop moving."You cannot dance," I tell him."I am aware," he says, still moving."Why
EYES OPEN Chapter 49: Tasha's Aunt
I read the message three times.Then I hand the phone to Rhys without speaking because my voice has temporarily abandoned me and the sandwich in my hand has lost all appeal and the golden afternoon light through the window is doing its beautiful thing completely indifferent to the fact that everything just tilted.Rhys reads it.His jaw does the thing."Helena Cross is Tasha's aunt," he says."That is what it says," I reply."Which means when Helena said she had been watching you for eighteen months..." he says slowly."...she had a source inside my life," I say. "Tasha. Her own niece. Already embedded."The window seat suddenly feels very small.I stand up and walk to the middle of the room and stand there in the dust and the old stone quiet and I think about eighteen months of being watched by someone I did not know existed through someone I thought I knew completely.Rhys comes to stand behind me. Not touching. Just present. Giving me the space to feel what I need to feel before he
EYES OPEN Chapter 48: London Prep
Three weeks moves fast when your life is expanding in every direction simultaneously.I hand in my notice on a Monday morning and my manager takes it better than I expected and worse than she pretended, telling me she was thrilled for me while her left eye did something involuntary that told a different story.I spent my last two weeks completing handovers and briefing my replacement and saying goodbye to people I genuinely liked and a few I genuinely did not and trying not to feel the particular bittersweet weight of closing something that was good even if what comes next is better.Rhys watches me process all of it without trying to rush me through any of it.That is the thing about him that I keep discovering in new ways. He does not manage my emotions toward a more convenient conclusion. He just stays in them with me until they resolve naturally, which means I never feel alone in anything even when the thing I am feeling is complicated and does not have a clean name.We go to the
EYES OPEN Chapter 47: The Call
Helena Cross picks up on the first ring."Ms. Vann," she says. "I expected you to wait the three weeks.""I expected to wait the three weeks too," I say. "You bought Rhys Callahan's restoration project."A pause. Not the pause of someone caught out, the pause of someone who was waiting for this specific sentence."I did," she says."Why?" "Because it is an exceptional property with significant heritage value and my company has been looking for a London-adjacent retreat and event space for two years," she says. "When it came to my attention that it was available, I moved on it.""It was not available," I say. "Rhys has a contract.""Rhys has a contract to restore it," she says pleasantly. "Which I fully intend to honour. I bought the property, not the restoration agreement. He continues his work, I own the building when it is finished." A pause. "It is actually a rather elegant arrangement."I sit with that for a moment.She is telling the truth. I can feel it. Not the whole truth nec
EYES OPEN Chapter 46: Helena's Game
We do not talk about the building immediately.We stand in the kitchen looking at each other across the chopping board and the half made dinner and the knife I put down and the weight of what just connected itself sits between us for a moment before either of us reaches for it.Then Rhys puts his phone down and picks up the spoon and stirs whatever is on the stove and I pick up the knife and keep chopping and we do that for about thirty seconds before we both stop pretending simultaneously."She bought your building," I say."She bought my building," he confirms."While offering me a job," I say."While offering you a job." "That is not a coincidence," I say."Absolutely not a coincidence," he confirms.We look at each other."She is not just hiring you," Rhys says slowly. "She is hiring the whole picture. You and your story and your instincts and whatever she thinks comes attached to you.""She watched me for eighteen months," I say. "She knows about you. She knows about the restorat
EYES OPEN Chapter 12: The Mistake She Made
I figure out Vivienne's mistake at seven the next morning.I am standing at the kitchen counter with my coffee, scrolling back through every message she has sent from every number, laying them out in chronological order in my notes app like a timeline, and that is when I see it.She tipped her hand
EYES OPEN Chapter 11: Photos
I read the message three times.Then I screenshot it, forward it to my personal email, and save the number.Then I sit down on the couch because my legs have made a unilateral decision about standing.Photos. Someone has photos of me and Rhys at Archer's and they are threatening to hand them to Der
EYES OPEN Chapter 10: Noise
I sit in the office parking lot for six minutes after hanging up on Vivienne.Just breathing.Not because I am scared. Because I need to be honest with myself about what just happened and what it means before I walk into a building full of people and spend eight hours pretending everything is norma
EYES OPEN Chapter 9: I Know About Saturday
I read the message four more times in the elevator.I know about Saturday.The doors open at the lobby and I walk out into the morning like a woman who is completely fine, keys in hand, coffee in hand, because whoever sent this does not get to see me rattle. Not in a lobby. Not anywhere.I push thr
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