Chapter 170
She leaned down and kissed his cheek. He didn’t lean into it.
Aspen walked out of the office. The moment the door clicked shut behind her, her expression hardened into a mask of pure calculation.
She pulled out her phone, thumb hovering over her contacts. There was no mechanic to call this time, no shady arrangement to make. This had to look like a tragic, emotional mistake. Her mistake.
Two hours later, Jocelyn sat at her desk in the Wolfe Hotel, the quarterly budget open in front of her. The numbers kept blurring.
Every time she blinked, she felt it again — Gaston’s cold lips on hers. The soaked wool of his jacket under her hands.
He had not spoken to her in two days. He slept in the guest room. He was gone before she woke.
“Focus,” she muttered to herself.
On the Long Island Expressway, Aspen drove her white convertible with the top down despite the chill, her hair whipping loose around her face.
On the passenger seat, her phone displayed Kieran’s GPS location — a live feed from the tracker her mechanic had quietly installed in his car the month before. He was ten miles ahead.
𝗥о𝘮an𝖼e 𝗇𝗼𝗏е𝘭𝘀 о𝘯 𝘨𝘢l𝗇о𝘃𝗲𝗅𝘀.𝘤𝗼m
She pressed the accelerator. The engine roared.
She needed to crash near him. He had to be the one to find her. He had to be the one to pull her from the wreckage.
A sharp curve appeared ahead. A guardrail. A steep embankment dropping away on the other side.
Perfect.
She picked up her phone and typed a text to Kieran.
Coming to apologize. Please don’t be mad. I can’t live without you.
She hit send.
Then she yanked the steering wheel to the right.
The car skidded. The tires screamed against the asphalt in a high, horrific pitch.
Crunch.
The car slammed into the guardrail. Metal crumpled like paper. The airbag deployed with the force of a punch to the face.
Aspen screamed — and this time, it was not acting. Pain exploded through her wrist.
The car spun and came to rest in a ditch. Smoke began pouring from the hood.
Ten miles ahead, Kieran’s phone buzzed on the center console. He glanced at the message.
Coming to apologize…
He frowned. Then he checked his rearview mirror. A column of black smoke was rising into the sky behind him.
His heart stopped.
Not again.
He slammed the brakes and spun the car around in the middle of the highway, tires burning rubber, and raced back toward the smoke.
The waiting room of Southampton Hospital was sterile and white. The only sound was the low hum of the vending machine in the corner.
Kieran paced. There was dried blood on his white dress shirt — Aspen’s blood. He had pulled her from the smoking car himself.
He kept seeing her limp body. He kept hearing her whimper — the same helpless sound Jocelyn had made in the attic.
The double doors swung open and a doctor stepped through.
“Mr. Douglas?”
Kieran stopped. “How is she?”
.