Chapter Twenty-One

Ava’s POV

I was still sitting by the pool when my phone started ringing.

The sound cut through the quiet afternoon air and made me flinch. For a second I considered ignoring it. Then I saw the name on the screen and the decision was made for me.

Sybil.

I answered the video call before I could talk myself out of it. Her face appeared almost immediately, framed by the familiar light of her kitchen. She looked the same as always—practical, composed, with the soft smile she wore when she was genuinely glad to see me.

“There you are,” she said. “I was beginning to think you had forgotten how to answer your phone.”

I managed a small laugh and shifted so the camera caught less of the pool behind me. “Sorry. I was outside.”

“Outside is good. Fresh air is good.” She tilted her head, studying me through the screen. “How are you feeling over there?”

The question was simple. The honest answer was not. I could still feel the leftover tension from the car ride, the weight of Corren’s silence at lunch, the way he had left me aching and unfinished. I could still hear the controlled coolness in his voice when he told me to eat my food. None of that belonged in a conversation with my aunt.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Here is great, actually. Quiet. The house is beautiful.”

Sybil’s smile widened, clearly relieved. “I knew it would be. Corren has always kept a good home. Strict about certain things, but he takes care of people under his roof. You’re eating properly? Sleeping?”

“Yes. Both.”

We talked for a while longer. She told me about a small issue with the garden at her house, about a neighbor’s dog that kept escaping, about how the city felt too loud without me around. I listened and answered in the right places. We laughed once when she tried to show me the plant she had been overwatering and nearly dropped the phone. The sound of her laughter made something tight in my chest loosen for a moment. It felt like a thin thread connecting me back to the life I had lived before the estate, before the rules, before the word *Daddy* had settled into my mouth.

“I’m glad you’re settling in,” she said eventually. “I'm worried, you know. After everything with Vance. You needed somewhere steady.”

“I know,” I answered quietly. “Thank you for arranging it.”

She waved the gratitude away with a small motion of her hand. “Just don’t become a stranger. Call me more often.”

“I will.”

When the call ended I remained on the stone edge of the pool for several minutes, phone resting in my lap, the echo of her voice still in my ears. The conversation had been warm and ordinary. It had also been a performance. I had smiled. I had said the house was great. I had not mentioned the way Corren looked at me when he was displeased, or the way my body reacted to him even when I wished it would not. The secret sat between me and my aunt like a pane of glass—transparent, but impossible to cross.

The afternoon drifted slowly toward evening.

I returned to my room, showered, and changed into one of the simpler dresses from the closet. The new clothes from the shopping trip remained mostly untouched in their bags. I did not have the energy to hang them up yet. My mind kept circling the same unsettled thoughts: the unfinished heat from the car, the silence at lunch, the easy way I had lied to Sybil, the fact that Monday and the start of school were now less than a day away.

I heard the sound of a car on the front drive a little after six.

I did not go downstairs immediately. I waited until the house settled again, then made my way toward the small dining room. Corren was already there. He had changed into a dark shirt with the sleeves rolled once at the wrists. He did not look up when I entered. He did not speak. The atmosphere around him was different from the controlled quiet I had grown used to—this silence carried weight. It carried displeasure.

I knew he was angry.

I sat in my usual chair to his right. The table had already been set. He began eating without acknowledgment. I followed his example because I could not think of anything safer to do. The space between us felt colder than it had even at lunch. There was no hand on my thigh. No brief glance. No measured use of my name or the title he preferred. Only the sound of cutlery and the low hum of the house beyond the dining room.

I tried once to bridge the distance.

“Sybil called earlier,” I said softly. “We did a video call.”

He gave no sign that he had heard me. He continued cutting the food on his plate with precise, unhurried movements. The message was clear. Conversation was not welcome. I closed my mouth and returned my attention to my own plate even though my appetite had thinned to almost nothing.

We ate without speaking.

It was the first time the silence between us at dinner had felt complete and deliberate. On other nights there had been instructions, questions, the low sound of his voice shaping the edges of my day. Tonight there was nothing. I kept my eyes on my food and tried not to let the tension crawl too far under my skin. I failed more than once. Every small sound I made—setting a glass down, shifting in my chair—felt too loud. His presence filled the room even in stillness.

I finished before him but remained seated, uncertain whether leaving without being dismissed would make the atmosphere worse. He continued eating at the same measured pace. The minutes stretched. I watched the light outside the windows soften into the early evening and felt the weight of the day settle across my shoulders: the shopping, the car, the pool, the call with Sybil, and now this cold, wordless meal.

When he finally set his cutlery down, the quiet click of metal against porcelain was the only signal that the meal had ended. I waited, hands resting in my lap, pulse unsteady. He wiped his mouth with the napkin, placed it beside the plate, and looked at me directly for the first time since I had entered the room.

As he ate finish, the only thing he said was, get prepared for tomorrow school.