Chapter 2When I Finally Stopped Loving You

"Sienna, honey..."

Ten minutes later, a silver Mercedes slipped through the gate.

The woman who stepped out didn't resemble the frail, dying figure that had haunted my nightmares for three years. Margaret Holloway looked immaculate. Her silver-streaked hair was styled into an elegant French twist; her camel hair coat draped over a tailored silk blouse. She carried herself with the sharp, effortless authority of the chief executive she had always been.

Sienna trotted down the terrace steps, throwing her arms around Margaret’s waist with the practiced ease of an adored youngest child.

"What took you so long? We've been waiting forever."

Margaret smiled warmly, reaching into her leather tote to pull out a soft, cream-colored package. "The quarterly review ran late, and I had to finish casting off the fringe last night. Here. See if it's soft enough."

It was a hand-knitted cashmere scarf.

The sight struck me like a physical blow.

My mother had always knitted when she was thinking through a difficult contract. On the day the estate was cleared three years ago, Marcus had packed my room into black trash bags. I had fallen to my knees in the driveway, clutching a single, cream-colored scarf our mother had knitted for me the winter before, sobbing until I choked.

Marcus, please, I had begged, pressing the wool to my chest. Take everything else. Leave me this. It's the only piece of Mom I have left.

Marcus had snatched it from my hands, his face twisted in contempt.

You killed her, Audrey, he had snarled, tossing the scarf directly into the backyard burn barrel where old tax files were smoldering. You think you deserve a keepsake? You don't deserve her memory.

I had spent dozens of nights waking up in cold sweats, dreaming of reaching into those flames, trying to pull out the burning wool while the fire consumed my hands.

And now, here was Margaret, draping an identical cream scarf around Sienna's neck with tender precision.

Tears pooled in my eyes, burning hot against the cold wind, but I bit my lip until I tasted copper, refusing to let out a sound.

Margaret paused, her head turning sharply toward the dark perimeter wall. "Did you hear that?"

She took a step down the terrace, her designer heels clicking on the bluestone, walking directly toward the gate where I stood concealed in the shadows. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.

Part of me wanted to tear through the gate, shake her by her cashmere shoulders, and scream: Why? Why did you stage a funeral? Why did you let me spend three years believing I had blood on my hands?

"Mom, come back inside," Harrison’s voice cut through the damp air as he stepped onto the terrace. "It's freezing out here."

Margaret stopped, turning her gaze on Harrison. Her expression hardened instantly.

"Have you served Audrey with the papers yet, Harrison?" she asked, her tone crisp and unforgiving. "Sienna’s due date is barely eight weeks away. I will not have my grandchild born with the stigma of being illegitimate."

Harrison stepped beside Sienna, his hand resting casually on the small of her back. He offered Margaret a smooth, noncommittal smile.

"We're having family dinner tonight, Margaret. Let's not bring Audrey up. It upsets Sienna."

Five years of devotion. Five years of building a home with him. And to my husband, my very name was an inconvenience, a stain best kept out of polite conversation.

"Don't be too hard on him, Mom," Sienna sighed, leaning against Harrison. "Audrey's had a rough three years working those factory jobs. She isn't the arrogant girl she used to be. She's... quiet now."

"She is," Harrison agreed, nodding slightly. "She grew up. The edge has been taken off her. Staging that collapse back then was necessary, Margaret. You know how volatile Audrey was. If she had found out Sienna was your daughter—that you had another family—she would have driven a knife through this girl."

I raised my right hand into the dim moonlight, staring down at my little finger.

It was crooked, the middle knuckle permanently thickened and warped. It had been caught in an uncalibrated industrial packaging press during a graveyard shift two winters ago. The pain had been so intense I had nearly passed out over the conveyor belt, but I hadn't gone to an emergency room because I couldn't afford the co-pay, let alone the surgery. I had splinted it with a wooden popsicle stick and electrical tape, working through the throbbing fever because the debt collector's escrow account was due on the first.

Eighty-hour work weeks. Living off stale bread and instant broth until my collarbones jutted through my skin.

I had endured it all because I believed it was the penance I owed for taking my mother's life.

And now, standing ten feet away, Harrison Cole was explaining that my destruction was simply a calculated theatrical production—a little lesson to ensure I wouldn't inconvenience his mistress.

A strange, hollow calm settled over me.

My legs felt as heavy as cast iron, but I stepped out from behind the stone pillar, the gravel crunching beneath my worn sneakers as I walked through the open gate and into the pool of amber terrace light.

"Mom," I rasped.

The word tore from my throat like broken glass.

"You're alive."

Margaret spun around, clutching her silk lapels in shock. "Audrey? What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," I said, wiping the cold rain from my face. My voice was eerily steady. "You didn't die on that table. The firm didn't go bankrupt. The house was never seized."

I took another step forward. Under the bright exterior sconces, my faded jacket and hollowed-out cheeks made me look a decade older than the girl who had left this house three years ago.

Margaret looked at me, but I searched her eyes in vain for a flicker of guilt, a trace of remorse, or even basic motherly pity.

Instead, she drew herself up, her jaw setting into the familiar, unyielding line of a CEO delivering an unfavorable quarterly report.

"Of course I lied," she said coldly. "I had to protect my daughter. You were out of control, Audrey. You needed to learn that entitlement has a price."