chapter 9

The question hung in the air between them, heavier than anything Richard had said so far.

Maureen forgot how to breathe for a second. She had known this moment was coming the instant her father started flipping through the report. She'd known he would find the name eventually. She just hadn't expected it to happen this fast.

Richard waited behind his desk, calm and quiet. He wasn't raising his voice. Somehow that made it worse than if he had.

Maureen looked down at the file between them. Damien's name was everywhere in it—rental agreements, hospital records, employment papers. Whoever had put this report together hadn't missed a thing.

"Maureen." Her father's voice softened. "Who is he?"

She swallowed hard. For the first time since walking into this study, she wanted to bolt for the door—not because she was scared of Richard, but because she wasn't ready to dig up any of it again.

Richard studied her, and something in his expression shifted. "Did he matter that much to you?"

The question cracked something open in her. A short, broken laugh slipped out before she could stop it.

"He mattered too much."

Richard's face darkened. That answer told him more than he wanted to know. He took off his glasses slowly and set them down on the desk.

"Who is Damien Vance?" he asked again, quieter this time.

And this time, Maureen gave him the truth. "He was my husband."

The words seemed to echo around the study, and then nothing—just a long, heavy silence. Richard didn't move at first. He simply stared at her, as if he wasn't sure he'd heard right.

"Your husband," he finally said.

Maureen nodded.

Richard leaned back in his chair. His face stayed calm, almost too calm, and that was what worried Maureen most. She knew her father well enough to know that this kind of stillness was far more dangerous than shouting would have been. When Richard Ashford went quiet like this, it meant he was working hard to hold himself together.

"You got married," he said, "and didn't tell your family."

"Yes."

"Didn't tell me."

"Yes."

He let out a short laugh with no humor in it at all. "My daughter vanishes for three years and gets married behind everyone's back, and I genuinely can't decide if I should be furious or impressed."

For a second, something close to a smile tugged at Maureen's mouth. It didn't last.

Richard's eyes stayed locked on her. "When?"

"Three years ago."

That landed harder than he expected. Three years meant she'd married almost right after leaving home—right after walking away from medical school, cutting herself off from everyone who loved her. A hundred questions crowded into his head at once, but only one mattered.

"Why didn't you tell us?"

Maureen looked away, because she already knew the answer and saying it out loud felt unbearable. She'd been afraid her family would disapprove, afraid they'd try to talk her out of it, or worse, stop it altogether. Afraid they'd look at Damien the way they'd looked at every man before him and decide, once again, that he wasn't good enough. Back then, she'd loved him too much to risk any of that. So she'd chosen him over everyone, including her own family.

"I thought I was protecting it," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Protecting what?"

"My marriage."

Richard closed his eyes for a moment. For the first time, he was starting to understand how much his daughter had given up for a man. A man she'd loved enough to disappear for, whose name was stamped across nearly every page in that report.

He opened his eyes again. "Where is he now?"

Maureen's fingers dug into the armrest. There it was—the question she'd been dreading since she sat down. The room felt smaller all of a sudden.

Richard caught the change in her immediately, and his stomach dropped before she even answered. He was only now putting it together: his daughter had come home alone. If this marriage had been working, where was her husband? Why wasn't he here with her? The answer seemed obvious, and Richard found himself hoping, almost desperately, that he was wrong.

"Maureen." His voice gentled even further. "When did it end?"

The tears came before she could stop them—one, then another, then a third sliding down her cheek. Richard froze. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen his daughter cry. As a child she'd barely cried at all; she'd broken her arm at eleven and refused to shed a single tear until the doctor was finished setting it. Now she sat in front of him completely undone, and something in his chest twisted at the sight.

"Four days ago," she said, her voice cracking on the last word.

Richard's stomach dropped further. Four days. The wound hadn't even begun to close. Suddenly everything made sense: she hadn't come home because she missed it, or because she'd finally forgiven him, or because she wanted her family back. She'd come home because she had nowhere else left to go. His daughter hadn't returned to him—she'd collapsed into his house, broken, and those were two very different things.

Richard sat with that for a moment before asking the only question that really mattered. "Did he hurt you?"

Maureen shook her head immediately. "No."

It came too fast, and Richard didn't believe it for a second. He'd spent thirty years across negotiating tables from politicians and billionaires. He knew exactly what it looked like when someone was hiding something.

"Did he hit you?"

"No."

"Did he abuse you?"

"No."

"Did he betray you?"

This time she didn't answer at all. The tears just came harder, and she looked away from him. That silence told Richard everything the word "no" hadn't. His jaw tightened, and real anger rose up in him.

Richard stood and walked to the window, needing a moment before he said something he'd regret.

Behind him, Maureen wiped at her face. She hated crying in front of anyone, and especially in front of her father.

"What happened?" Richard asked finally, turning back around.

It was a simple question, but answering it felt impossible. How was she supposed to explain years of loving someone who never loved her the same way back? three years spent trying to be the perfect wife, only to end up signing divorce papers while another woman waited upstairs in what used to be her bedroom? The words wouldn't come, so she said the only sentence she could manage.

"He chose someone else."

That was enough for Richard. He closed his eyes, and the rest filled itself in without her needing to say another word. When he opened them again, his expression had changed completely—the disappointment was gone, the frustration was gone, and only concern was left.

"My daughter left this house for a man," he said quietly, "and that man was foolish enough to let her go."

Fresh tears burned behind Maureen's eyes, but this time they came from somewhere different—from the relief of having someone on her side, not because she'd been right or wrong, but simply because she was his daughter.

A soft knock broke the moment, and Richard straightened himself before answering. "Come in."

One of the household staff stepped through the door. "Sir, Mr. Michael is asking whether Miss Maureen will join the family for lunch."

Richard glanced at his daughter. She looked wrung out, completely drained.

"Tell Michael she needs to rest."

"Yes, sir." The staff member slipped back out, and the study settled into quiet once more.

Across the city, inside Damien's office, Aurora sat watching him work through a stack of documents, answer emails, and take calls back to back. On the surface, everything about him looked completely ordinary. It wasn't, though—not to her. Every time Selene's name came up in conversation, something in Damien shifted. It was subtle enough that most people would have missed it entirely, but Aurora didn't miss things like that.

She'd noticed it at breakfast. And half an hour ago, when one of his executives mentioned, almost in passing, that he'd spotted Selene at L'Etoile. Aurora's smile had nearly slipped right off her face. At first she told herself Damien was just irritated by the gossip. Now she wasn't sure that was all it was. A cold, uneasy feeling had started settling into her chest—the first real fear she'd felt since coming back into his life. Not fear of Selene exactly. Fear that Damien might actually still be thinking about her.

That evening, once Damien had left for a meeting, Aurora sat alone in her room with her phone in her hand, staring at the screen for a long moment before she made up her mind. She dialed a number.

The call connected. "I need a private investigation done."

The man on the other end answered without hesitation. "Who are we looking into?"

"Michael Ashford," Aurora said. Then, after a pause, her voice dropping lower, "and I want to know exactly what he is to Selene."