Lahat ng Kabanata ng Shattered Vows: Kabanata 101 - Kabanata 109

The fog clung to the city in the morning like a memory that would not let go. Isla Carter leaned against the high window of her new studio apartment, coffee cup cradled in her hand, watching the fog curl and peel back from the skyline. There was something lovely about the sight. It was imperfect, cluttered with buildings and scaffolding and the ceaseless hum of the waking world. But it was hers. No penthouse dreams. No designer illusions. Just a small space, filled with second-hand furniture and the scent of jasmine from the plant she had put by the door.She had begun to rebuild.The past several weeks had graven lines of resilience onto her bones. Her mornings remained still, her nights often emptier than she'd ever dare acknowledge, but between—she was herself once more. She painted. She journaled. She met strangers who didn't recognize her history and didn't inquire. That anonymity was a gift.And Killian Blackwood.He hadn't stopped reaching out.Not strangling. No theatrics late

The city was alive with noise, a constant hum that had become second nature to Isla. The thump of the street below, the blast of a horn now and then, the stranger's laugh, all mixed into the tapestry of her new existence. An existence she was gradually, but surely, adapting to. And for the first time in weeks, she was happy.Isla sat in the small, round table by her window, a steaming tea cup in front of her. The morning sun poured into the room, bathing everything in a warm color that made it look like a painting — imperfect, but beautiful. She did not know when it had happened, when the burden of the past had begun to be less a heavy weight and more a receding memory with time. But it was happening. She was recovering, in ways she did not even understand herself, but the change was inescapable.Her phone buzzed on the table, jolting her out of her daydream. She glanced at it, unsurprised to see Killian's name flashing on the screen. Her heart did its instinctive skip at the sight, b

There was cutting wind that morning, moving through the city streets as if it had a schedule. Isla Carter stood outside the community center, her coat buttoned high up against her, her gaze out toward the distance as if the solutions she was looking for would suddenly appear on the horizon.She had gotten here early, hours before the meeting was to begin, just to have some peace. The community center was once her refuge, a place where she could breathe and get lost in the madness of her life. Today, it wasn't so. The walls, which had once been reassuring, now seemed to close in with every step she took. Her heels clicked on the linoleum floor as she walked in.In the center of the main room, the chairs were still stacked, the lights still off. The silence was all but deafening.She hadn't told Killian Blackwood she'd be there. Not yet. Not until she was sure.But what did *sure* even mean anymore?Last night had changed something. Inviting him in, talking to him, waking up to the smel

Morning broke into Isla's apartment in muted golds. The silence was broken, save for the ticking clock in her kitchen and the faraway birdsong out the window. She sat at the table, the new mug Killian had left for her—"One day at a time" in gentle promise etched on porcelain.She worked the handle automatically, staring at the rings in her coffee. She hadn't slept. Her brain was a merry-go-round of questions, dragging her backward through the past and dragging her backward again to Killian's words, his eyes, the trembling truth he'd finally revealed.Could love be cut away from betrayal? Could she see his pain without denying her own?A gentle tap on the door shook her out of daydreaming.Not him again, she automatically thought—but it was too early for delivery and she had not informed anyone else about Killian's return. She went to the door barefoot, uncertainly, and looked through the peephole.It was Emma.Isla opened the door with haste. "Hello, is something the matter?"Emma, he

The sky over the city was steel-gray, muted and heavy with unshed rain. Isla Carter sat at her desk inside the community center’s staff room, a mug of tea untouched beside her and her phone face-down. The stillness in the building—normally filled with chatter, movement, and the occasional chaos of volunteers—now felt almost reverent. As if it knew something was shifting.She stared at the notes in front of her. Fundraising plans, after-school programs, calls to donors—her usual to-do list lay scattered across her desk like forgotten puzzle pieces.But her mind wasn’t on the center today.It was on Killian.On the letter still tucked into the pages of her journal.On the memory of the pier, of his voice raw with hope, and of her own hand brushing his sleeve like a reluctant truce.Was it really possible to start again with someone who had broken her so completely?She wasn’t sure.But she hadn’t sent him away.And that scared her.The knock on her door was soft, barely more than a tap.