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Chapter 20 — The Line in the Sand

Auteur: Nikora Clegg
last update Dernière mise à jour: 2025-12-21 12:39:31
🌿Layla's Point of View

The sound of the cruiser door closing echoed through the night. One clean metallic slam that felt like a period at the end of a decade-long sentence.

The blue and red lights pulsed across the front garden, washing over the hydrangeas Dan had helped plant years ago and that I'd refused to rip out, even after everything. Tonight, the petals looked different; no longer reminders of what we'd built, but proof of what had survived him.

I stood at the window for a long moment, Rider's hand steady against the small of my back. Mason was outside, giving his statement to the officer, his silhouette a quiet sentinel at the edge of the drive.

Inside, the house felt both too quiet and too full. Every wall seemed to breathe again after holding its breath for months.

The flashing lights outside my house painted the street in harsh red and blue.

Dan stood on the porch, wrists cuffed, his face pale with rage and humiliation. He was shouting, but the words blurred into backgroun
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  • Until You   Author's Note

    Some stories begin with a storm. This one started with a woman standing in the ruins of her old life, daring to believe she deserved more. Thank you for staying with Layla and Rider as they built something new from the quiet and the broken. Thank you for letting their journey touch you. Until the next chapter, Nikora CleggWhere to from here? Until You is available in paperback from A****n. I am currently working on the Hidden Legacy Series. Book 1 has been recrafted to reflect my evolved style of writing. That has been published as a full paperback novel on A****n. I have recrafted Book 2, and it is currently being prepared for publication as a paperback novel. Book 2 has undergone some plot changes, including a title change, resulting in another shorter novel, The Moon's Exception. I am more than halfway through writing that, and it will sit between Book 2 and Book 3. Book 3 will be recrafted once The Moon's Exception is finished, reflecting the new characters and some name c

  • Until You   Chapter 30 — Birth & New Foundations

    🌿Layla's Point of ViewThey placed her in my arms, and my world underwent a complete transformation.I had expected something cinematic, extremely loud, intense or too bright. But the instant her tiny body settled against my chest, the room seemed to contract around the three of us until nothing existed except the warm, fragile weight of her.My breath stuttered. My hands trembled. The air tasted different, clean in a way my lungs had never experienced before.A nurse adjusted the blanket around her shoulders, but I barely felt her touch. The rise and fall of her small chest became the only thing I could sense. A chest no bigger than my palm. The soft, unexpected heat of her. The faint curl of dark hair against her forehead.I didn't dare blink. I didn't dare move.Somewhere beside me, Rider exhaled a sound so raw it tugged my eyes upward. His hand trembled with a different emotion than fea

  • Until You   Chapter 29 — Nesting & Reclaiming the House

    🌿Layla's Point of ViewThe decision came quietly, not in a burst of inspiration or a dramatic declaration. Just a gentle, steady certainty that arrived on an ordinary morning, the kind of morning where the light slanted warm across the hallway and the house felt more like a companion than a structure.I was brushing crumbs from the kitchen bench when my gaze drifted toward the stairs, toward the room I had avoided for far too long.The spare room.The one that held boxes stacked like silent witnesses. The one that smelled faintly of old paint, cedar, and the childhood version of me still tucked into the corners. The one where Dan always kept the door half-shut, as if my memories might spill out and inconvenience him.The house had shifted. My body, too. The future, tilting with it."Rider?" I called softly.He appeared from the hallway, stretching out the stiffness in his sho

  • Until You   Chapter 28 — Whispers in the Air

    🌿Layla's Point of ViewThe first hint didn't come from a camera flash or a headline. It came from a look.I was leaving the foundation, tote bag over my shoulder, when I noticed the receptionist pause mid-sentence and glance, just once, at the way my hand rested on my stomach.It was unconscious, automatic. I hadn't even realised I was doing it. Her eyes flicked up to mine, wide and guilty, like she'd caught herself staring at something too private."Have a good afternoon, Ms Morgan," she said quickly."You too, Tia," I replied, forcing my hand to fall back to my side.On the drive home, the world outside the window blurred into familiar streaks of concrete and sky, but inside, everything felt sharper. A little too bright. Like the air had shifted in a way I couldn't quite name yet.I didn't feel panicked. Not the way I once had, when every whisper felt like the beginning of a storm. But I felt… watched. Not in an unsafe way, just in that strange, slightly detached way of being someo

  • Until You   Chapter 27 — The First People We Tell

    🌿Layla's Point of ViewWe didn't call anyone that night.Rider embraced me in the hallway as the house released its breath, and we shared that moment. No toasts. No lists. No immediate plans. Nothing planned.We ate leftovers at the kitchen bench, bare feet on the cool tiles, his knee brushing mine. His eyes stayed fixed on me, as if fearing I would disappear when he closed his eyes. I kept pressing my hand over my stomach like I could somehow keep the moment from spilling out of me.We went to bed early.Sleep did not come quickly, but when it did, it was deep and strangely peaceful. For the first time in a long time, my dreams weren't of doors slamming or courtrooms or voices raised in anger. They were quiet. Soft.In the morning, sunlight pooled over the duvet in warm bands. Rider was already up, the faint clatter of

  • Until You   Chapter 26 — Foundations for Three

    🌿Rider's Point of ViewThe world looked different after her words.Not the beach, not the sky, not the house of her childhood that had become our home. But everything else. Every plan, every decision, every thought I had carried with me for years now tilted around one truth: Layla was carrying our child.Our child.For a heartbeat, something old and unwelcome flickered in my chest; the kind of fear I used to live with, the fear that good things slipped through your fingers if you held them too tightly.I hadn't thought about fatherhood in years, not seriously, not in any way that reached beyond daydreams that died before they formed. With Julia, the question never came up naturally. Our lives orbited my work schedule and her ambitions; there was always another project, another meeting, another international trip. Children didn't fit into a life built around perpetual motion, around constantly trying to ou

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