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"How much do people know?"
"Enough to understand you've been hurt. Not enough to judge you for it." She squeezed my hand. "This is Texas, honey. We take care of our own, especially when they're hurting."
Inside, everything was exactly as I'd left it. My childhood bedroom, my high school trophies, the little desk where I'd written college application essays. The familiar smell of Mama's kitchen—comfort food, lemon oil on old wood, the lingering scent of vanilla candles—wrapped around me like a hug. The familiarity should have been comforting, but instead it felt like stepping backward through time.
"You want to talk about it?" Mama asked as she bustled around the kitchen, her way of showing love through food and fussing.
"Maybe later. Right now I just want to..." I trailed off, realizing I didn't know what I wanted. To disappear? To pretend the last few months had never happened? To stop feeling like my heart had been put through a paper shredder?
"You just want to be home," Mama finished gently. "And that's exactly where you are."
I helped her set the table, falling back into routines that predated my English adventure. The simple domesticity should have been soothing, but I felt like I was performing a role in a play I'd outgrown.
During dinner, Mama's phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID and frowned.
"Unknown international number," she said. "Probably spam."
But I knew better. My heart lurched as I realized it might be Edward, discovering I was gone, trying to find me. The thought of hearing his voice—of having to explain why I'd left without saying goodbye—made my chest tight with panic.
"Don't answer it," I said quickly. "Please."
Mama studied my face, then declined the call without another word.
The phone rang three more times during dinner, and each time we let it go to voicemail. Each ring felt like Edward's voice calling my name, demanding an explanation I didn't have the strength to give. How could I tell him that his Mother had won so completely that there was nothing left to fight for?
"I think I'll go to bed early," I said. "The flight was exhausting."
"Of course, honey. Your room's all ready."
But sleep wouldn't come. I lay in my childhood bed, staring at the ceiling and listening to the familiar sounds of home—the air conditioner cycling on and off, the old house settling,the distant sound of Texas cicadas that was so different from London's urban noise.
Around midnight, Mama's landline rang. Then my cell phone. Then the landline again. Someone was very determined to reach me, and I had a sinking suspicion I knew who.
Finally, mercifully, the calls stopped. In the silence that followed, I allowed myself to imagine Edward in his London office, staring at the acquisition papers that would tell him everything. The timeline of his Mother's manipulation, the systematic destruction of my company, the careful orchestration of my exile.
Would he understand then? Would he realize that this had never been about choosing between love and career, but about Victoria's determination to remove me from the equation entirely?
It didn't matter now. I was three thousand miles away, my visa status about to expire, my career in ruins. Whatever Edward felt or understood about his Mother's machinations couldn't change the fundamental reality. Victoria had won.
I rolled over and closed my eyes, trying to summon the peace I'd once found in this room. The texture of my childhood bedspread was soft against my cheek, worn from years of use and washing. But all I could think about was Edward discovering that the woman he'd been forced to choose had already made the choice for him.
In the end, perhaps that was the kindest thing I could do. Let him remember us as a beautiful impossibility rather than a love that died slowly under the weight of family disapproval and professional obligations.
The last thing I heard before finally falling asleep was my phone buzzing with another international call that I'd never answer.
Because sometimes the kindest thing you can do for someone you love is let them hate you for leaving instead of watching them destroy themselves trying to save you.
I'd given Edward the gift of distance.
Now it was up to him to decide what to do with it.
CHAPTER 17
Edward
"You absolute bastard."
Cece Evans burst through my office door, her red hair wild and her eyes blazing with fury. She slammed a thick manila folder onto my desk with enough force to scatter the acquisition papers I'd been staring at for hours, trying to understand how completely I'd been played.