Chapter 2
She grabbed her sunglasses and cap and left so quickly it was almost a retreat.
Cillian stayed where he was, his gaze following her back. Emotion roared under his stillness, violent enough that for one second, it looked ready to drag him under.
Then his phone rang.
“Cillian, where are you?”
“Meeting a client.”
“You just got back to the country. What client?” The person on the other end paused for a few seconds. “Wait. No way. Did you actually take over that divorce case from August Zane? Come on. You run Halewood. Since when do you personally handle tiny domestic cases like this?”
Cillian did not answer that.
“Do something for me.”
“What?”
“Look into Felix Lowell.”
Harlow walked out of the cafe on weak legs.
For six years, the name Cillian Emerson had stayed locked in the most hidden corner of her heart. Because the breakup had hurt too much, she had never expected them to meet again.
Seeing him today without warning had thrown her completely off balance.
Her phone rang.
Calista’s soft little voice pulled Harlow back from the mess inside her head.
“Mommy, when are you coming home?”
“Soon, baby. Mommy’s coming back right now.”
Harlow returned to Westbrook Court, Rowan Wilder’s condo.
Last night, after Felix beat Harlow, he disappeared. The police could not reach him. Afraid he might come back and hurt her and Calista again, Harlow had taken her daughter and fled the Lowell house overnight. Rowan had let them stay with her without asking for a single explanation first.
After the Gideons went bankrupt, all Harlow’s old friends vanished.
Only Rowan Wilder stayed exactly as she had always been. One phone call, and Rowan opened the door.
The moment the door opened, Calista ran over and threw herself into Harlow’s arms.
“Mommy!”
“Baby.” Harlow crouched down, ready to kiss her daughter’s forehead.
Then she looked at Calista’s face, a face that carried seven or eight parts of Cillian Emerson, and went still.
When Calista was very small, everyone praised how pretty she was. They all said she had inherited Harlow’s looks, and Harlow had always believed her daughter looked like her.
Until she saw Cillian again today.
Only then did she realize, with a cold twist in her stomach, that the older Calista grew, the more she resembled him.
“Mommy, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Harlow swallowed the emotion down. “Was Calista good at Aunt Rowan’s house?”
“Yes, yes, yes. Calista was super good. She even helped me water my little plant earlier.” Rowan Wilder came out of the bathroom, wiping her hands. “So? Harlow, what did the lawyer say?”
Harlow gave Rowan a look, then took Calista into the bedroom first and handed her a quiet book.
“Play by yourself for a bit, okay? Mommy and Aunt Rowan are going to talk. I’ll come in after.”
“Okay.”
Calista loved her quiet book. She could role-play with it by herself for ages.
When Harlow returned to the living room, Rowan already had fruit waiting. Harlow sat down and told her everything that had happened at the cafe with Cillian.
“What?” Rowan nearly exploded. “You’re telling me Cillian Emerson is taking your divorce case? The head of Halewood is personally handling a divorce? That man sneezes and bills six figures.”
“Head of Halewood?”
“You didn’t know?” Rowan pulled up an interview on her phone. “Look. Cillian Emerson is the chief executive of Halewood International now. You’ve heard of Halewood, right?”
“The top-tier international law firm?”
“Yes, that Halewood. Apparently they have more than thirty offices worldwide, over two thousand lawyers, and annual revenue north of a billion.”
Harlow glanced at the article and finally understood. The poor boy from back then had become a titan at a white-shoe firm.
No wonder every gesture now carried that expensive, tempered polish. Wealth had burnished him into something untouchable.
How the tables had turned.
“Harlow.” Rowan narrowed her eyes. “Is he still not over you?”
“Of course not. He came to laugh at me.”
“Oh please. Do you know what Cillian Emerson’s time is worth now? If he wasn’t still hung up on you, would he really spend that time just to watch you squirm?”
“I’m married and have a child. With his current status, he could have any woman he wanted. Why would he still be hung up on me?”
“Harlow, I’ve always wanted to ask.” Rowan’s voice softened, just a little. “What happened back then? You liked Cillian so much. You chased him forever before you finally got him. Why did you suddenly dump him and marry Felix Lowell, that garbage pile in a suit?”
Harlow fell silent.
It had been too long.
Looking back now served no purpose.
“Fine, fine. We won’t talk about it.” Rowan saw that Harlow did not want to continue and did not push. She changed the subject quickly. “What are you going to do next?”
“Find another lawyer. No matter what it takes, I need to get divorced first.”
Harlow did not sleep that night.
Her mind had already been carrying too much, and Cillian’s appearance only made the weight harder to bear.
Around three or four in the morning, she finally drifted off for a little while. Not long after, her early alarm dragged her awake.
Harlow turned it off and went into the bathroom to wash up and cover her injuries with makeup. Once she had pulled herself together, she went to wake Calista.
“Mommy, why have you been wearing a hat and sunglasses these two days?” Calista asked curiously.
“Because Mommy got a beauty treatment. The doctor said I need to keep my face covered so it heals faster.”
The night Felix hit her, Calista had been asleep and had not seen it. Harlow was grateful for that. If she could, she wanted her daughter to go her whole life without witnessing that kind of violence.
“Mommy is already pretty enough. You don’t need beauty treatments.” Calista wrapped her arms around Harlow’s neck. “Mommy is the prettiest mommy in the world.”
Warmth spread through Harlow’s chest.
Calista had been sweet and thoughtful since she was little. Her birth had healed Harlow’s shattered heart back then. Her daughter was the mercy the universe had given Harlow after shoving her, brutally and without apology, into the dark.
“Thank you for the compliment, baby. In Mommy’s heart, you’re the prettiest baby too. Now, shall we get up and get ready for kindergarten?”
“Okay.”
Harlow kissed her daughter and helped her change and wash up.
After breakfast, mother and daughter chatted while waiting for the elevator in the hallway.
The doors opened.
Harlow stiffened.
Cillian Emerson was standing inside.
He wore a perfectly tailored dark-gray suit. The crisp white collar of his shirt framed the clean line of his jaw. He was only standing there, doing nothing, yet a steady, contained force seemed to fill the elevator around him.
Harlow’s hands closed around Calista’s shoulders.
Why was Cillian Emerson here?
