Chapter 52 Fifty Two
Later in the evening that same day, Kennedy Walton sat on the edge of his bed, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped beneath his chin.
The room was dark except for the faint glow of the city lights filtering in through the partially drawn curtains.
He hadn’t turned on the lights.
He didn’t want clarity.
He wanted to sit in this ache, this disbelief, this unbearable weight pressing against his chest.
Antonia Adams.
After all these months.
After everything.
He squeezed his eyes shut, but her face rose behind his lids instantly. The way she had looked when their eyes met in that conference room, startled, guarded, wounded. Like a woman who had learned to armor herself because love had failed her too deeply.
And she had been pregnant.
The image twisted his insides.
His jaw clenched, muscles tightening as he dragged in a shaky breath. His hands trembled slightly beneath his chin, betraying the control he had perfected over the years.
Pregnant.
Engaged.
To another man.
A tear burned behind his eyes before he could stop it.
“No,” he muttered hoarsely, opening his eyes again as if the word could undo reality.
But it couldn’t.
She had moved on.
Built a life without him.
And the worst part, the part that hollowed him out from the inside, was that he had no one to blame but himself.
He leaned forward, resting his forehead against his clasped hands, breathing slowly as memories clawed their way to the surface.
He had had the opportunity.
So many opportunities.
And he had wasted every single one.
He had convinced himself he was doing the right thing.
The company was everything.
He wasn't getting involved with any woman after Ruth.
But pressure from his mother was choking.
Antonia had walked into his life quietly. Soft-spoken. Competent. Intelligent in a way that didn’t need to announce itself. She hadn’t demanded his attention. She hadn’t chased him.
She had simply existed.
And somehow, that had undone him.
The fake engagement had started as a solution. A convenient lie to appease his mother’s endless concern about his personal life.
Just business, he had told himself.
Just temporary.
But the lie had blurred, softened, then shattered entirely.
He could still remember the first time he realized he cared.
The first time they shared a kiss
The first time they made love.
He had called it a mistake
Because calling it something else would have meant admitting his true feelings for her.
And he had promised not to feel such for another woman besides Ruth.
His mind drifted, unbidden, to Ruth.
Ruth Walton.
His late wife.
The ache shifted, morphing into something older, heavier.
He leaned back on the bed, staring at the ceiling now, memories rearranging themselves painfully.
Ruth had been fire.
Brilliant. Passionate. Demanding in the way that made people either rise to the challenge or crumble beneath it.
He had risen at first.
They had married young. Too young. Two ambitious souls convinced love alone could conquer anything.
But love had never been the problem.
Time was.
Or rather, his absence.
He had been everywhere except where she needed him to be.
Meetings. Flights. Deals. Expansion plans. Late nights and early mornings, all justified by the promise of one day.
One day, things would slow down.
One day, they would travel.
One day, he would be home more.
Ruth had believed him.
Until she didn’t.
He remembered coming home one night, very late, to find her asleep on the couch, still dressed, a cold cup of tea on the table beside her.
He had kissed her forehead, murmured an apology she barely heard.
And then he had gone to bed.
Over and over again.
The cracks had been subtle at first. Silence where there used to be laughter. Distance where there used to be warmth.
And then came the arguments.
“You’re never here, Kennedy.”
“I’m doing this for us.”
“For who, exactly?”
He had never known how to answer that.
The night she died replayed in fragments he tried not to touch.
The phone call.
The hospital lights.
The unbearable finality.
And the guilt.
God, the guilt.
He had buried himself in work after that. Let grief harden into discipline. Into control. Into walls no one could climb.
Antonia had come along years later.
Gentle where Ruth had been fiery. Patient where Ruth had been demanding.
And still, he had made the same mistake.
Different woman. Same ending.
His chest tightened violently as realization settled like a cruel verdict.
I don’t learn.
A tear finally escaped, sliding down his cheek before he could stop it. He brushed it away angrily, as if offended by his own weakness.
She was pregnant for another man.
It was too late now.
He squeezed his eyes shut again.
Or could it be…?
No.
The thought was dangerous. Reckless.
She would have told him.
Wouldn’t she?
But then another thought followed, colder, sharper.
You didn’t give her the chance.
He swallowed hard.
He had let her walk away. Let pride and fear dictate his actions. Let his mother believe Antonia had betrayed him.
And now…
Now she belonged to another man.
Austin.
The name burned.
And that face.
Kennedy dragged a hand down his face, frustration coiling tight in his chest.
Austin looked like him.
The man in the photograph.
The man Ruth had kept hidden away among her belongings.
He had found it by accident just weeks ago, while sorting through boxes he had ignored for years. A simple photograph, worn at the edges, of Ruth smiling beside a man whose face he hadn’t recognized, but whose features had unsettled him deeply.
Same eyes.
Same jawline.
Same quiet intensity.
It had shaken him more than he cared to admit.
And now Austin appeared in his life like a ghost dragged from the past, wearing that same man’s face.
But Austin denied it.
Or had he lied?
The possibility gnawed at him.
What if Ruth had secrets he never knew about?
What if his absence had driven her toward someone else?
The thought made his chest ache anew.
“I wasn’t there,” he whispered into the quiet room. “Never enough.”
And now, history was repeating itself with brutal precision.
Antonia had looked at him today like a stranger.
No warmth. No longing.
Just restraint.
And pain.
His throat tightened as another tear threatened, and this time, he didn’t fight it.
He had lost her.
Completely.
Not because another man had taken her.
But because he had never truly claimed her when it mattered.
He rolled onto his side, curling slightly.
For the first time in a long time, Kennedy Walton allowed himself to feel it all.
The regret.
The longing.
The unbearable knowledge that some doors, once closed, never opened again.