Chapter 12

Every day he lay in that cold private room and reassembled the timeline of Vivienne's last weeks in his head. Every day he understood better how much he had ignored her.

In his dreams she turned and walked away without looking back. "Vivi—don't go. Don't throw me away—"

He ate when ordered. He didn't speak. The only word that got a reaction out of him was her name.

The Thornes put him through grief counseling. Nothing. They hired women who looked like Vivienne. He threw up. He pushed them away with whatever strength he had, shaking.

"Get out. Get out. I'm not doing that to her again."

Two years felt like a lifetime. He missed her into physical collapse—coughing up blood, losing consciousness, coming to with her name still on his lips.

Then—an ordinary day—a candid street photograph was posted to a gossip blog, and the internet lost its mind.

"Wait. WAIT. Is that Seraphina Ashford's daughter?"

"She looks seven months along."

"Oh she is glowing. And that man beside her is gorgeous."

"Take this down before Killian Thorne or Julian Ashford see it. Don't throw her back to the wolves. Please, OP, delete this post."

That comment rocketed to the top. OP scrubbed the post. Too late. A fan account had already screenshotted it.

In Killian's hospital room, Catherine was holding the phone out to him.

"Baby. Look. I'm telling you. It's her."

They had been having some version of this conversation for two years. Killian didn't even look up anymore. His father had given up on him. His mother refused to. She'd been the one quietly keeping search teams running.

He glanced at the screen out of reflex.

His whole body jolted.

The woman in the photo was softer, rounder—pregnant, obviously. A man was cupping her elbow as she walked. His face was tipped toward her in an expression Killian had only ever seen men wear around the people they loved most.

He would know her from a mile away.

"She's pregnant."

He said it like it was happening to someone else. The Vivi who had once told him she would only ever love him. Pregnant. By someone else.

His chest iced over. After all he had done to find her, she had found someone else.

Then the fear: she was punishing him. She had done it in a rage at him and Celeste, and she'd come back when the hurt wore off.

He forced calm into his lungs. Doesn't matter if she's had a child. She comes back, she stays, that's all.

He stared at the man beside her. The hatred arrived clean and complete.

"She wouldn't be hiding unless this bastard had hidden her for two years."

He called Julian. "I found her."

Julian saw the photograph. He went perfectly quiet. And then perfectly cold.

"The Ashfords will conduct a full search."

He hung up and looked at the man holding his sister's elbow and said aloud, "Whoever you are, you're going to wish you hadn't touched her."

Killian hung up and tried to get out of bed. His legs, unused for months, buckled instantly.

Catherine caught him. "Baby. She's not going anywhere now that we can see her. Get healthy first. You don't want her to see you like this."

The thought of Vivienne flinching at the sight of him snapped him awake. He glared at the man in the photograph with a loathing that would have boiled water.

"I will not lose to him."

He started eating. He started physical therapy. He started lifting.

Julian called, voice clipped. "Killian. The man in the photo is a Harrington."

Killian's jaw tightened. "Sebastian Harrington."

"He's based in Europe. That's why we couldn't trace her. He hid her over there."

"He can be a Harrington. He can be royalty. Steal my fiancée and he pays."

Meanwhile, Vivienne and Sebastian Harrington were in a black car cruising up the Hudson toward the Harrington country estate. She watched familiar American skyline stream past her window, feeling a little unreal.

Two years ago she had gotten on a plane to London because she needed not to see a single person she recognized.

She'd ended up working for Sebastian Harrington. He had recognized her face on day one. Her search had been going viral then.

She had begged him, trembling. He had smiled, soft. "Don't worry. I will never give you up to anyone."

What she hadn't realized was how much Killian and Julian had escalated. They had put nine-figure bounties on her. Her life in London had been destroyed. She had been stalked, catfished, ambushed for footage, once nearly kidnapped.

Sebastian had shut all of it down. When her landlord evicted her because strangers were camping outside her building, he had taken her in. When she had been sleeping rough for three nights, he had brought her home.

Tears pricked at the memory. She still couldn't understand why they had not let her go. She had left. Peacefully. Quietly. And they had hunted her so hard she had almost died.

She looked at the man beside her. After Killian, she had sworn off men. Sebastian had asked. She had said no. He had asked the next day, and the next, and the next. She had held him off, guilty and terrified.

One night, a little drunk, he had put his forehead against hers and said: "Vivi. I know someone hurt you. But you can't make me pay for him. It isn't fair to either of us."

She had thought about that for weeks.

When she had finally said yes, he had said I love you every morning, every night, for months. He did not tease her. He did not belittle her. He would say, "Vivi. You can't keep letting the worst person you've ever met decide what you deserve. You deserve love. We're going to be happy the rest of our lives."

Two years, boss to friend to fiancé to husband. Six months ago they had married, small ceremony in the English countryside. Now she was carrying his daughter.

She had burned the last of her old life. Whatever Killian or Julian did, they couldn't touch her anymore.