14 Chapter 14 ALL THESE YEARS
The realization sat in my gut like bad sushi as I slid into my car, the metallic tang of Sera’s blood still clinging to the upholstery.
“She woke up.” I cut off the panic before it could spiral. Margaret had been a ghost in these halls since the shooting-another casualty of this nightmare. First Edward, now Sera. The grief hung on her like a second skin.
“She’s-”
I watched Sera like a hawk.
“Hey,” Ethan exhaled. “Mom called us and said Sera had woken up.”
I exhaled. “She’s in the hospital. There was an… incident.”
“Margaret.” My voice sounded rough even to me. “I was about to call you.”
I swallowed. “Yeah. I will.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I fished it out with my other hand, not wanting to let go of Sera’s.
I was frowning so hard, I probably had a unibrow. “Editor?”
KIERAN’S POV
But with Celeste…
There was a pause. And then, “Isn’t this Sera’s phone?”
“Well, yes, but…”
Elaine’s voice sharpened. “Now that I’ve satisfied your curiosity, put Sera on.”
She went by only Seraphina-neither Blackthorne nor Lockwood-and over the past decade, she’d published more than ten books. A 4.6-star average. A devoted fanbase.
All those hours she’d spent locked in her room…
The thought of Sera dying was like my own silver bullet to the heart.
“Kie.” Celeste cut in, catching my hand. “How are you?”
“I’m Elaine, her editor. Could you kindly give the phone to her?”
Margaret let out a heavy sigh of relief. A pause. Then, so quiet I almost missed it: “Do you… Do you think she’d want to see me?”
Ethan stood there, fist raised to knock, Celeste hovering behind him.
She huffed. “Look at you.” She cupped my cheek, her thumb swiping under my eye. “You’re dead on your feet.”
His jaw tightened. “How is she?”
“Oh, thank the gods,” Margaret sobbed, and I heard a shuffle like she’d dropped into a chair. “How is she?”
“Kieran.” Celeste drew my attention back to her. “Go home, please. We’ll take care of Sera.”
Celeste tilted my chin back to her. “Stop worrying. Go.”
I nodded, stepping into the hallway and pulling the door shut behind me. “She did. But she’s asleep again.”
“That your ex-wife is a bestselling author? That she’s sold half a million books worldwide under a pen name?”
I turned to Ethan. “Don’t leave her alone. We still don’t know if the threat’s passed.”
After I hung up, I grabbed my phone and typed out Sera’s pen name into my Google search. My jaw dropped at the results.
The walls of the room suddenly felt too close, the air too thick. I needed to get out.
“Lady, what do you mean by ‘editor’?”
“But she’ll live?” Margaret’s voice wobbled, thick with tears. “My daughter won’t die?”
The weight of exhaustion pressed down on me, undeniable now. “…Yeah. Okay.”
S
Margaret sniffed. “I understand. Thank you, Kieran. I know you two are divorced, and you
don’t have to-”
“Yeah, just as I’ve told you,” she snapped. “Who is this?”
Ethan patted me on the shoulder. “You should go home, man. Get some rest; we’ll take it from here.”
But my feet stayed rooted to the floor, an instinctive resistance flaring in my chest. Sera and her siblings had never been close-and after everything, I couldn’t shake the need to shield her from the family that had failed her so badly.
My breath left me in a rush, guilt curdling in my chest. I turned to look at her, sleeping soundly in the hospital bed. How isolated from me had she felt that she’d kept this part of her hidden?
“What does that mean?”
Her voice was shaky with anxiety when she said, “Did something happen? Is she okay? Is she-?”
We’d shared a life, a child-and yet, we’d truly been strangers all these years.
“How’s my favorite wordsmith doing?” A woman’s cheerful voice cut me off. “You ghosted me for two days! Writer’s block? Look, I know divorce sucks, you could be in a mental slump, but you’re newly single, girl! Go live a little-your readers need that sequel. That man never deserved you anyway.”
Celeste and I had been affectionate since she returned-teasing touches, lingering hugs -but we hadn’t kissed. Not once. And now, striding through the parking lot, I realized that it hadn’t been an accident.
A dry laugh. “Oh, this is rich. She said you didn’t know.”
I forced a smile, trying to cover up my uneasiness and surprise at what I’d just done. Brief confusion and hurt flashed in Celeste’s eyes, but she covered it up and stepped back, her hands falling from my face.
“On initial examination, the doctor said everything looked good. She just has to rest a lot, and she has a long road of healing ahead of her.”
14 Chapter 14 ALL THESE YEARS
I nodded and forced my legs to move away from Sera’s door.
I answered warily. “Hello-”
She’d been writing, building a career for herself.
“Kieran, her hus-” I caught myself in time. It was one thing to let the hospital staff believe we were still married; it was another to introduce myself that way. “Her
ex-husband.”
An unfamiliar name flashed on Sera’s screen: Elaine.
She hadn’t been hiding.
The temperature dropped. “Ah. The divorced ex-husband. Why do you have her phone?”
This time, I nodded.
I’d vaguely wondered why she never asked for money, but I chalked it up to the fact that
she subsisted off the Lockwood family funds and never thought of it twice.
Our hands lay entwined on the hospital blanket. When was the last time we’d touched
like this? Not during the divorce. Not during our marriage. Had we ever?
“Know what?”
The phantom warmth of Celeste’s lips still burned against my skin, and I couldn’t explain
why I’d moved. Why I’d avoided it.
But where was this feeling exactly from?
She was an… author? What the fuck?
I looked at the woman who’d been my wife for ten years-the woman I’d never truly
known.
“No.” My thumb brushed Sera’s knuckles. “She’s not going anywhere.”
“She’s Daniel’s mother.” The lie came easily. “Divorced or not, she’s my responsibility.” At least, that’s what I had been telling myself.
Her grip tightened. “Not you. You don’t owe her anything, Kie.”
A tired sigh escaped me. “She’s Daniel’s mother, Celeste. I won’t let my son grow up
without his mother.”
It happened in a heartbeat-Celeste smiled, her eyes trained on my lips, but just before she could make contact, I shifted, and her lips pressed against my jaw instead.
My mouth fell open, and I glanced at Sera sleeping peacefully, unaware of the bomb that had just been dropped on my head.
Hypocrite, a bitter voice hissed in my head. You hurt her worse than any of them. She
hadn’t even trusted me enough to share her writing.
“Go on, now,” she murmured, too soft, too careful.
Even now-with her awake and resting-the image of her bleeding out on that bridge
played behind my eyelids every time I closed them. How close I’d come to losing her.
Again.
“She’s… unavailable.”
I pushed off the stool beside her bed, my muscles stiff from days of barely moving. But as I
swung the door open, I froze.
“She will be.” My grip tightened on the phone. “But no visitors yet.”
“Fine.”
She’d begged to take my place at Sera’s bedside. I’d refused. Not just because Margaret
was barely holding herself together, but because the thought of walking away made my
wolf snarl.
I shrugged. “Someone had to watch over Sera.”
I pulled the phone away from me, frowned at the name, and put it back. “Ma’am, I think
you have the wrong number.”
“No, you’re not.” She shouldered past Ethan, her sky-high heels putting her nearly at my eye level. Her fingers framed my face, her blue eyes roaming all over me. “When was the last time you slept?”
He gave a grim nod.
14 Chapter 14 ALL THESE
SE YEAR
Elaine gasped. “Oh, poor Sera! Is she okay? Can I come to see her?”
Just watched the steady rise and fall of Sera’s chest like it held the secrets of the universe.
“Take care of her, Kieran.” Elaine’s tone held a warning.
It made no fucking sense. I’d spent ten years aching for her. So why did the thought of kissing her now feel… wrong? Like crossing a line I couldn’t uncross. Like if I did, there would be no going back.
I ground my teeth. Over the last couple of weeks since the funeral, Sera had made it a point to stay away from her family, not hiding her intention to cut all ties. Even injured and enervated, she’d wanted me to leave. I could only imagine what kind of welcome Margaret would receive.
My mind flashed to Sera in the locker room, her palm cracking across my face before I
could close the distance between us. I hadn’t hesitated then.
Just as I hung up the phone with Margaret, Sera’s phone on the side table rang.
“I think we should give her some space for now,” I said carefully. “Let her fully recover. And you also need to rest, Margaret; you’ve gone through a lot of heartache in such a
short time.”
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