جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 5

Colton's POVI didn't sleep.I sat in my hotel suite until four in the morning and I didn't touch the bed. I sat by the window with a glass of whiskey I barely drank and I thought about grey eyes on a four year old face and I thought about Mara walking out of that event like she had somewhere to be and I thought about the three weeks I spent looking for her four years ago before I finally stopped.I stopped because continuing felt like weakness. I told myself I was done. I told myself she had made her choice and I had made mine and that was the end of it.It wasn't the end of it. I knew that now.I had built an entire identity around not needing people. My parents died when I was nineteen and I learned that night that the things you love most can be taken without warning and without reason. So I stopped holding things too tightly. I built Vance Group from nothing, made my first hundred million before twenty-six, and kept every person in my life at a distance that felt like safety. It

Mara's POVI called Priya from the parking lot. She picked up on the first ring the way she always did when she knew something was wrong, which was almost always because Priya had an instinct for trouble that bordered on supernatural. I had barely finished two sentences before she interrupted me."He did what?""Keep your voice down," I said, even though she was in another city and there was no one near me."Mara, he filed for custody and then offered marriage in the same meeting. That is not a legal strategy, that is a hostage situation.""I know what it is," I said."What are you going to do?"I leaned against my car and looked up at the glass building I had just walked out of. Fourteen floors of clean lines and expensive decisions. "I have seventy two hours to decide."Priya was quiet for a moment, which was unusual enough that I paid attention to it. "What does your gut say?""My gut says I should have stayed in the last city.""That's not what I asked."I closed my eyes. "My gut