Chapter 8
Elara
The door opened.
Julian filled the doorway in black loungewear—cashmere sweater, tailored slacks. His hair was damp from a recent shower. He looked like he'd stepped out of a Tom Ford ad.
His eyes swept the room: clothes scattered on the floor, the half-packed suitcase, my red-rimmed eyes, Mamá's desperate expression.
"Grandfather said you changed your mind about Boston." His voice was arctic. Not a question. An accusation.
Mamá rushed to fill the silence. "Yes! Yes, she did! She was just being shy earlier, you know how she is, but she really wants to go, don't you, Elara?"
I opened my mouth to contradict her, but Julian spoke first.
"I was walking past when I heard you two arguing." His gaze locked onto me. "Something about getting me drunk? Making me 'responsible' for you? Making sure 'something happens' in Boston?"
The oxygen left the room.
"Mr. Julian, no, that's not—" Mamá started.
"I heard enough, Mrs. Vance." He stepped inside, and suddenly the room felt smaller. Suffocating. "So this is the game. You spend a year playing the devoted little sister, and when that doesn't work, you switch tactics. Play hard to get in the study, then change your mind suddenly. And in Boston, what? You spike my drink? Corner me in a hotel room? Create a situation where I have to take 'responsibility'?"
Each word was a knife.
"That's not—" I tried.
"Don't." The command in his voice made me flinch. "I should have seen this coming. All that innocent stalking, all those 'accidental' encounters, all those little gifts and favors. You were building up to this, weren't you? Waiting for the perfect opportunity."
He turned to Mamá, and the contempt in his expression was devastating. "And you. Coaching your daughter on how to trap a Vane. Very ambitious, Mrs. Vance. Very calculating. I almost admire it."
Mamá's face crumpled. "Please, I didn't mean—we weren't trying to—"
"If you want to keep your position at Blackwood Estate," Julian said softly, "I suggest you control your daughter. Because if I hear one more scheme, one more plan, one more pathetic attempt to force yourself into my life—" He looked at me. "—I'll file a restraining order. And your mother will be out on the street within twenty-four hours."
I should have felt pain when I heard this, but now I just felt... relieved.
Because he'd finally said it out loud. The truth we'd both been dancing around for a year.
"I never wanted to trap you," I said quietly. "But you're right about everything else. I stalked you. I made you uncomfortable. I refused to hear 'no.' And I'm sorry."
His eyebrow rose. Not in forgiveness—in suspicion.
"I'm not going to Boston," I continued. "Not now, not ever. I'm going to focus on school, get into a good college, and move as far away from you as possible. You'll never have to see me or think about me again."
For a moment—just a fragment of a second—something flickered in his eyes. Confusion? Doubt?
Then it was gone, replaced by cold dismissal.
"Good." He turned toward the door. Paused. "And Elara? The next time you feel the urge to leave sticky notes in my briefcase or save pictures of me to your phone—" His eyes found mine in the reflection of the window glass. "—remember that you disgust me."
The door closed with a soft click.
The silence afterward was deafening.
---
Mamá collapsed onto my bed, shoulders shaking. "We're ruined. We're ruined. He'll fire me, and we'll have nowhere to go, and it's all your fault, why couldn't you just—"
"Stop." My voice came out hoarse. Broken. "Just... stop."
I looked at the suitcase. The pink dress spilling out. The careful planning for a trip I'd never take.
"You asked me earlier why I'm giving up," I said. "I'm not. I'm choosing myself. I'm choosing a future where I'm not someone's unwanted burden. Where I'm not—" My voice cracked. "—where I'm not nothing."
"But without the Vanes—"
"I'll study. I'll get scholarships. I'll work." Each word steadied me. "In four years, I'll have a degree. A career. A life that doesn't depend on whether Julian Vane finds me tolerable."
Mamá looked at me like I was speaking another language. Maybe I was.
"Four years is a long time," she whispered.
"Four years is better than a lifetime in a cage."
I thought of the Glass House in the Hamptons. The psychiatric holds. The courtroom where they'd taken Lily. The ocean that had finally freed me.
I will not go back to that. Never again.
"You should leave, Mamá." I turned back to my desk. "I have studying to do."
"Elara—"
"Please."
The door closed softly. I heard her footsteps fade down the hallway.
I picked up my calculus textbook with shaking hands. Opened it to the problem set I'd been working on.
The numbers blurred. I wiped my eyes and forced myself to focus.
In my previous life, I'd abandoned math for love. Let my grades slip for a man who'd never wanted me.
Not this time.
I wrote the answer carefully. Moved to the next problem.
Outside my window, October darkness fell over Blackwood Estate. Somewhere in this mansion, Julian was probably telling his grandfather about the crazy Vance girl and her scheming mother. Somewhere, Mamá was crying into her cleaning supplies.
And somewhere in the future—a future I'd already lived once—Lily was waiting to not exist.
I'm sorry, baby. I'm so sorry. But I can't bring you into this world again. Not like this. Not into his hatred and her desperation and my stupidity.
I pressed my hand to my flat stomach.
I'll make them pay for what they did to you. I promise. But I can't... I won't...
The pencil snapped in my hand.
I stared at the broken pieces, graphite smudged across my palm like ash.
Like the ashes I'd tried to gather from the snow outside Blackwood's gates. Like the urn I'd carried into the ocean.
A sob built in my chest—huge, terrible, suffocating.
I shoved my fist into my mouth to muffle it.
Not now. Not yet. Study. Focus. Survive.
Numbers were safe. Derivatives were logical. Mathematics didn't care if you were loved or hated, wanted or discarded.
I worked until my hand cramped. Until the tears dried. Until I could breathe without feeling like I was drowning.
The compass necklace was gone. Julian's hatred was finally spoken aloud. Mamá's dreams were shattered.
And me?
I was free.
For the first time in two lifetimes, I was finally, terribly, completely free.