Chapter 3Unforgotten Tides

As much as I disliked her aggressive tone, in that moment, I felt a pang of pity for her. She had spent six years searching for her husband, only to find he had built a new life, a new family, with someone else. A husband who, for the sake of that other woman, was ready to abandon her and their child all over again.

If I were in her shoes, I'm not sure I could have been as strong.

"You're mistaken, Mrs. Stephen. I intend to cut all ties with... Mr. Stephen," I said quietly. "I'm a victim in this too. If I had known he had a family, I never would have—"

Victoria wasn't listening. She looked manic as she shoved me to the ground, pulling a bank card from her purse and throwing it at my face.

"Ava, if you're really going to cut ties with him, then get out of here now! Disappear!" she shrieked. "Or I swear, I will make sure every single person on your pathetic little island knows you're a homewrecker who steals other people's husbands!"

I pushed myself up and picked up the card.

She was right. If I was serious about leaving Sean, then I needed to disappear. Now. Anything else was just an act, a way to keep the connection alive.

Clutching my bruised arm, I hailed a cab.

Victoria ran after the car, her voice a mixture of sobs and curses. "Is this what you wanted, Ava? Money? I'll give you anything you want! Just give me back my Adrian!"

Officer Miller had told me about her. She was the daughter of a wealthy family, a Harvard graduate, a titan of business who had single-handedly kept the Stephen empire afloat after her husband's disappearance.

This hysterical, broken woman was not who she was supposed to be.

I had stolen her husband. I had done this to her.

Pressing a hand to my tight chest, I told the driver, "To the airport."

Victoria was generous. The card had five hundred thousand dollars on it. Enough to ensure I would be comfortable for the rest of my life.

But the price was that I could never go back to Seaside Cove. I could never see Sean again.

I fumbled my way through getting a passport and boarded a flight to Iceland.

I hadn't even known the country existed before I met Sean.

"Sweetheart, when the fishing season ends and we have some time off, I'll take you to Iceland," he used to say. "You want to see snow, right? They say Iceland has the most beautiful snow in the world, and the most beautiful auroras."

"It's like the end of the world there. Even the houses are painted in rainbows."

I had wondered how he knew so much. He would just smile and say he must have swum there in a past life, when he was a merman.

I should have known. A man like Sean—handsome, cultured, knowledgeable—how could he have been simply abandoned?

Finding a bar of gold on the street and keeping it isn't so different from stealing.

I hadn't found Sean; I had stolen him.

And now, I was giving him back.

Life in Iceland was lonely and clumsy. It wasn't the paradise Sean had described. The days were short, the nights were long, and it was bone-chillingly cold. I didn't speak the language, so I couldn't make any friends. I wanted to go home, but I couldn't break my promise to Victoria.

After some time spent in a listless haze, she called me. She wanted me to come back.

Her voice was trembling, hollowed out with exhaustion. "Ava, you win."

"Come back. I'm begging you, please come back."

"Adrian says... he says if he can't see you again, he's going to kill himself. I thought he was just bluffing, until I found him in the bathtub this morning... the whole tub was filled with blood..."