LOGINChapter 76Skylar's POVI arrived fifteen minutes early.The café Rory had chosen was located in a quiet part of the city, far from the business district and even farther from the neighborhood where Jason lived. It was the kind of place people visited when they wanted privacy rather than attention. Small wooden tables filled the interior, soft music played through hidden speakers, and the afternoon crowd was light enough that nobody paid much attention to anyone else.I sat near the window and checked my phone for what felt like the tenth time.Not because I expected a message.Because waiting made me restless.I had spent years imagining conversations with my children. In some versions they forgave me. In others they refused to speak to me. Sometimes they were angry. Sometimes they were curious. Reality, I was discovering, was far more complicated than anything I had imagined.When the café door opened, I looked up immediately.Rory entered first.Ethan followed behind her.For a mom
Chapter 75 Zane's POV When Skylar arrived at my office that evening, I could tell immediately that she had spent the entire day thinking and she looked mentally exhausted before the day was even over. She walked in carrying her handbag and dropped into the chair opposite mine with a sigh that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside her. I closed the file I had been reviewing and set it aside. "How did it go?" She knew what I meant without asking. "The police station?" She leaned back in her chair and rubbed her forehead. "About as well as you'd expect." "Mara wanted to see the driver." For a moment she stared at the ceiling as though replaying the visit in her mind. "He wasn't what I expected. I thought I'd see somebody arrogant who looked like he didn't care what he'd done. Instead he looked terrified and disheveled and Nervous. Like he'd barely slept." "Did he admit to it?" A short laugh escaped her. "No. Apparently he doesn't remember anything." I shook my hea
Chapter 74Skylar's POVBy the time we arrived at the police station, I was already wondering whether I should have insisted that Mara stay home and rest. She had been discharged only a few hours earlier, and despite the brave face she was putting on, the accident had clearly taken a toll on her. She moved more slowly than usual, and every now and then I caught her pressing a hand lightly against her side when she thought I wasn't looking.Unfortunately, Mara had never been the kind of person who listened when she had made up her mind.The moment she learned the police had found the driver, she decided she wanted to see him for herself, not hear about him.I had tried talking her out of it during the drive."You should be home." I said slowly."You sound like a grandmother." She turned to look at me from the passenger seat. "Skylar, if someone almost killed you and then walked away from the scene, wouldn't you want to see his face?"I didn't answer immediately because the truth was ob
Chapter 73 Skylar's POV"What do you mean by that?"Mara did not answer immediately. She picked up her cup, drank, set it back down. I was sure she was choosing her words very carefully just to make sure what came out was what she actually meant."I'm not saying anything bad about him," she said. "I want you to hear that first.""Then say the thing.""He helped you very fast." She looked at me directly. "You showed up at my restaurant and you were broken, Skylar. You had nothing. You had left your house with nothing. And within days this man had given you a phone, a place to live, a brand, a building. That is a lot of help very fast." She paused. "I find that a little unusual."I opened my mouth."Let me finish." She raised one hand. "He also did all of this after finding out you were married. Not divorced. Married. A woman with children and a legal husband and a complicated situation. Most men hear that and they step back. He stepped forward." She tilted her head. "I'm not saying he
Chapter 73 Skylar's POVI almost did not go.I stood outside the hospital ward for a full minute before I walked in. The last time I had been here the nurse had come out and said she was sorry and I had turned around and gone to put on a dress and stand at a dinner party and smile. That particular kind of rejection did not just go away because a week had passed.But I knocked. And this time the nurse smiled and said go ahead.Rory was sitting up in the bed. Her wrist was bandaged and she had a bruise along her left cheek that had turned yellow which meant it was healing. She looked smaller than she did normally, the way people looked in hospital beds regardless of their size. But her eyes were open and they found me the moment I came through the door.She did not smile. But she did not look away either."Hi," I said."Hi, Mum."Only two words. That was all. But she had said “Mum” and not looked at the wall and I held that carefully as I walked to the chair beside her bed and sat down
Chapter 72Skylar's POV"I knew it, Zane." I tapped him hard on the shoulder. "That's why I didn't want you to butt in. You should have just… oh God." I tapped him again. "Wake up. Your face is all over the internet and they're making Jason look like the victim."He grunted and pushed himself up slightly on one elbow, eyes barely open. "Let them say what they want, Sky. I'm exhausted. Let's sleep. We'll talk tomorrow.""Tomorrow?" I pulled my phone up and held the screen in front of his face. "Look at this. Look at it."He squinted and looked. His eyes were doing the thing where they were technically open but processing very little. "It'll settle.""It will not settle. You punched a man at a dinner party and someone filmed it and now it's everywhere and Jason's PR team, because of course he has a PR team…has already put out a statement saying he was defending himself and you were the aggressor and…""Sky." He sighed "What?""Go to sleep."I stared at him. He had already put his head
Chapter 19Skylar's POV"Oh my God, Zane. I can't believe you stood up for me like that." I sat on the edge of his bed, still buzzing from what had happened at the dinner table."You can't believe I stood up for you?" He looked at me with mock offense. "Skylar, I always stand up for y
Chapter 18Skylar's POVAfter she left, I breathed out.I felt awful for lying to her. Mara had been in my corner from the start. She was the one who handed me her lawyer's number, the one who told me I deserved better when I was still trying to convince myself I didn't. And I ha
Chapter 15Skylar's POVI was four steps from the foyer when I heard it.Is there a woman in this house?I froze on the stairs. My heart beat began to do skips and jumps very quickly.For a moment I just stood there with one hand on the railing, listening to the silence that followed the question.
Chapter 14Zane's POVI still couldn't quite believe it. She had said she thought she loved me too.That was more than enough. That was honestly more than I had expected from her this soon, given everything she was still carrying. I had said what I felt because I couldn't hold it back any longer,







