Chapter 126 Greyson was coming home
Cassie
The words surprised me as much as they surprised her. She sobbed a harsh, grateful sound that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside her chest.
"You shouldn't," she said through her tears. "I don't deserve it."
"I know," I said softly, and I meant it. "But holding onto this anger is killing me. And you're the only one who was brave enough to tell me the truth."
It was the truth. In coming here, in confessing what her family had done, she was defying the very machinery that had torn Greyson and me apart. She was choosing our happiness over family loyalty, risking her own relationships to give us a chance at healing.
Meagan took a shaky breath, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. "There's more, Cassie. Things you need to know about why Greyson left."
My heart clenched. "Vivian?"
"It's over. Finally, completely over." Meagan's voice gained strength as she spoke. "He went back to New York to end it for good. The child she has—Emma—she's not his. Vivian has been lying for years. The father is your ex Jake Turner. Greyson found out, confronted her, made her sign the divorce papers. He's free, Cassie."
The revelations kept coming, each one restructuring my understanding of the past two years. A child that wasn't his. A lie that had chained him to a woman who had manipulated his grief and guilt. The shadow that had always loomed over our relationship—the ex-wife who claimed to need him, the child who supposedly shared his DNA—had been built on deception.
"He's flying back," Meagan continued, leaning forward in her chair. "Tonight. He's not coming back for the business or the family or out of obligation. He's coming back for you. Only you."
I stood up abruptly, pacing to the window that looked out over the garden I'd been cultivating in my solitude. The roses were blooming now, their heavy heads nodding in the evening breeze. I'd planted them after Greyson left, needing something beautiful to grow from the wreckage of my life.
"It's too late," I whispered, pressing my palm against the cool glass. "Too much has happened. Too much damage."
"Is it?" Meagan's voice was gentle now, coaxing. "Look, I know I have no right to ask this after what I've put you through, but... he loves you. He has always loved you. Even when we were poisoning him against you, even when he was trapped in that nightmare with Vivian, you were the one he dreamed about. You were the one he talked about when he thought no one was listening."
I closed my eyes, remembering the last real conversation we'd had before everything fell apart.
"The miscarriage," I said suddenly, the realization hitting me like lightning. "He wasn't just grieving the loss. He was carrying your family's poison. He thought our baby dying was somehow his fault for choosing me over family duty."
Meagan nodded miserably. "And you were grieving alone because he couldn't be present for something he'd been convinced was a blessing in disguise."
The cruelty of it took my breath away. We had both been drowning in that loss, but separately, isolated from each other by lies and manipulation when we most needed to lean on each other.
My phone buzzed against the coffee table, the sound sharp in the emotional heaviness of the room. Aiden's name glowed on the screen—a reminder of the life I'd been building without Greyson, the careful steps I'd been taking toward something simpler, cleaner. Something that didn't carry the weight of family manipulation and old wounds.
"You should answer it," Meagan said quietly, rising to leave. "before I go... there's something else you should know. Greyson isn't the same man who left here three months ago. The man coming back has fought his way free of all of it—the lies, the guilt, the ghosts. He's ready to choose you over everything else. The question is whether you're ready to let him."
She slipped out the door, leaving me alone with the echoing truth. I stared at the phone as it rang, Aiden's photo smiling up at me. Handsome, uncomplicated Aiden who brought me coffee and asked nothing of my past. Who offered a future without the messy complications of old love and family trauma.
The ringing stopped, and a moment later, a text appeared: "Hope you're having a good evening. Looking forward to tomorrow night. Sweet dreams."
Tomorrow night. Our third date. The evening that might determine whether I was ready to move forward with someone new or whether I was still too broken for love of any kind.
Before I could process the thought, my phone lit up again, vibrating insistently in my hand. This time, it was an unknown number with a New York area code. My breath caught. I knew. With a certainty that shook me to my core, I knew.
I swiped to answer, my hand trembling. "Hello?"
"Cassie." His voice was rough with exhaustion, with the weight of a thousand unsaid things. It was the sound of home and heartbreak all at once. "It's me. I'm at the airport. My flight boards in twenty minutes."
Greyson was coming home. And the only thing more terrifying than that was the traitorous, hopeful leap of my heart, the part of me that was already running to him, even as the rest of me screamed to hang up the phone and text Aiden back to cancel ...