Chapter 19
Fiona’s POV –
Killian had left for a business trip to France two days earlier.
The void he left in his wake was deafening.
The house, normally filled with footsteps and the low murmurs of his voice on late–night calls, had become silence. Every sound was magnified – the click of my heels on the floor, the creak of the stairs, the rare sigh escaping my lips without my
consent.
He hadn’t even been gone that long, and yet the rooms seemed to notice.
Maybe I noticed too much.
I had kept myself busy working. I’d immersed myself in numbers and reports as if they were the only things holding me together. But distractions could only go so far. That night I returned home to a fridge as barren as my mood.
A bottle of sparkling water.
Half a lemon.
One sad piece of stale bread.
I gazed at the contents, blinked once and sighed loud enough to fill the kitchen. “Right,” I said, snatching my bag and keys.
–
The grocery store wasn’t far. It wasn’t the kind of trip I’d typically take by myself — at least not in recent years. I had recently gotten used to someone next to me. Whether it be Killian waiting at the door in silence for me to finish applying lipstick or walking two paces behind me as he scrolled through his phone, there was always… presence.
Now it was just me.
As I drove, my mind wandered. I remembered the night before he departed. How he had bent toward the breakfast bar and casually said he would take care of my travel documents soon. That I’d get to accompany him next time.
They way he said it, like we were a real couple. Like I was a person he truly brought along for something more than show.
I had wanted to go.
Not because it was France.
The company name associated with the trip is irrelevant.
Because, deep down, I wanted to be beside him and to not feel like I was playing pretend.
But neither of us had discussed the kiss.
—
It had come on fast, hot, all–consuming and then vanished as if it had never been. The following morning, he’d pretended that nothing had happened. So I followed his lead.
We were both very good at pretending.
After a quick trot around the supermarket, I came out with two bags tucked in the crook of my arm and headed back to the car parked near the far end of the lot. I was halfway to the car when I heard it.
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3:03 pm
Chapter 19
“FIONA!”
I froze. Slowly, carefully, I looked over my shoulder.
Vanessa.
Desmond’s sister.
+28)
She was standing toward the entrance of the store with two friends – well–dressed, heavy on makeup, all exuding the same superiority she always exuded around me. She hadn’t changed. Still dramatic. Still venomous.
I turned away from the car and started walking faster.
But I should have known better than that.
“You’re really gonna leave me on read?!” she shouted.
“Oh, so you think you can just act like nothing happened?!”
I arrived at the car, opened the trunk and dropped the bags in, taking care not to look at her. A public scene was the last thing I wanted. But it was too late.
“You all need to see this shameless woman!” Vanessa shouted, this time putting on a show for passersby. “Miss Perfect here – yes, you she ruined a good man, and all she does is walk around like nothing ever happened!”
—
I closed the trunk with studied calm, locked the car and turned to walk around to the driver’s side.
But she wasn’t done.
“She’s the one that got taken court for fraud,” Vanessa said, with an exaggerated gesture. “She stole from my brother. Lied. Cheated. Made a mess of his life. And yet there she is dressed like some kind of queen, head high.”
—
I gritted my teeth but said nothing. Her friends flanked her, looking at me with a mix of curiosity and humor.
–
“She’s a gold–digger,” Vanessa scoffed. “And the worst part? He forgave her. My brother he could’ve dragged her name through the mud, he could’ve, but he didn’t. He protected her. Because that’s the kind of man he is.”
A handful of people had begun gathering now, feigning disinterest while watching with keen interest.
I flung the door open and fell into the passenger seat, my fingers wrapping around the wheel like a grip.
“And how does she repay him?” Vanessa said as she raised her voice. “She runs off. Or doesn’t even wait for the dust to settle. She gets married to someone else right away.”
Everything changed the instant Vanessa’s words ran across the parking lot.
I could sense it – eyes casting toward me, heads shaking minutely. Strangers I had never met and who knew nothing of what had actually happened now looked at me with judgment in their eyes, their stares like cold knives against my skin.
They didn’t need proof.
Vanessa’s voice was loud enough, convincing enough, laced with venom and dramatized just so to suggest that I was the villain. And they believed her.
“She took off, and married another man right away,” she repeated for the third time, tacking on an exaggerated scoff for effect.
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3:03 pm DDDD
Chapter 19
A middle–aged passing woman clucked her tongue.
A teenage girl whispered something to her friend and turned back at me, giving me a look of pity and disgust.
I clenched my fists.
I didn’t give a shit about strangers‘ opinions. Not really.
But Vanessa?
She had no right.
I’d taken enough.
I inhaled slowly once, then turned.
My heels stalked noisily against the pavement as I approached her.
She laughed bitterly. “What? You think that if you sneak away quietly, you’ll save your rep –
SMACK.
My hand slapped against her cheek, clean and hard.
She gasped and took a few steps back, clutching her face in disbelief.
Gasps spread through the audience as if a wave crashing on the shore.
I leaned in a little bit, my voice steady and clear. “I have not done your brother wrong.”
Vanessa blinked, stunned into silence.
‘But even if the others and the others insult me,” I said, “you don’t have the right to do the same.”
Her lips quaked; her mouth opened, but the words refused to form.
I stepped closer to her, dropping my voice but ensuring each word still rang out.
Vanessa
nis
dI air your dirty laundry?” I asked, tilting my head. “Tell the world how you f–k a married man… and shove Gife down the stairs?”
Her friends froze behind her, mouths agape, faces pale.
ed closer, smiled now
–
but it was a teeth–sharp smile. “You made her lose her child. You went ahead to tell him it an account accident. That she fell. But you and I know the truth.”
She opened her mouth again, now shaking, “You-
‘Oh no don’t worry,” I interrupted smugly. “I’m not like you. I’m not wicked. If I were, I would’ve been exposed your ass a ong time ago.”
She glared at me, eyes wide, face flushed from both the slap and embarrassment.
“But let me be perfectly clear,” I said with measured calm, rifling the strap of my bag. “So if you ever try to drag my name through the mud again, I’m going to tell the world what you did. I’ll mention names. I’ll show messages. Don’t push me.”
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28
Chapter 19
Vanessa’s mouth was open, but nothing emerged.
All her bravado – the cruelty she’d worn like perfume – had slipped away. Now she seemed like the quaking little coward she’d always been underneath the surface.
Where the crowd had once glowered at me, they now gazed at her wide–eyed, murmuring and staring in disbelief.
I didn’t care if they liked me.
I just had to show her that I wasn’t someone she could walk all over.
So I looked away, raised my chin, and walked back to my car, my head held high.
Let them talk.
Let them guess.
I had known my truth- and so had she.
And slipping behind the wheel of my car, the engine purring beneath my fingers, I looked up one last time through the window at her.
She remained frozen, eyes wide, face flushed, her friends slowly retreating as if they didn’t want to be seen next to her.
I smirked.
Then I drove off.
I walked out proudly.
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