Chapter 526

Chapter 525:

Carmen nodded. She believed him. She had seen what the Collins family did to their enemies — had experienced it herself, in ways she was only now beginning to fully understand.

But as Justin gathered her close, as she let herself be held by the man she had never stopped loving, one thought cut through the relief and the rage and the fragile hope of reconciliation.

Conrad Sterling had destroyed her life once.

She would not let him do it again.

Returning to the deafening energy of Manhattan from the picturesque, suffocating silence of Aspen had been a jarring transition. The two months since the New Year’s trip had blurred past in a relentless cycle of board meetings and social obligations. The snow had long since melted, replaced by the aggressive green of a New York spring — a cruel reminder of time’s indifference.

The physical healing from the Philadelphia car accident was nearly complete. The bruises had faded, and her fractured ribs had mended under Gaston’s relentless, almost terrifyingly attentive care. But the emotional aftermath of the false pregnancy alarm had quietly mutated into something darker. Back in New York, the unspoken pressure of producing a Collins heir had crept back into Jocelyn’s life like a slow-acting poison. Two months of meticulously tracking her cycle, of hope rising and falling with the tide of her own body, had worn her down to something thin and fraying.

She needed a moment of quiet.

𝘛𝗁𝘦 𝘣e𝗌𝘁 r𝖾vіе𝘸𝗌 𝗼𝘯

Seeking a brief reprieve from the crushing weight of it all, she had retreated to the master bathroom of their Manhattan penthouse. The morning sun spilled across the cold marble floor in long, pale bars.

Jocelyn sat on the edge of the sunken tub, her bare legs pulled to her chest, staring at the plastic ovulation test in her hand.

One red line.

It felt like a judgment. Months of tracking temperatures, timing intimacy with the precision of a military campaign, and pretending the failure didn’t land like a physical blow. The delay was pulling her nerves taut, stretching them until they threatened to snap entirely.

She took a ragged breath, her chest shuddering. She tossed the plastic stick into the wastebasket. It hit the bottom with a hollow clatter. Jocelyn pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes, fighting the heavy, suffocating wave of inadequacy that washed over her.

The bathroom door opened.

Gaston walked in wearing a custom silk robe, his dark hair still tousled from sleep. The moment he crossed the threshold, he stopped. His eyes moved across her posture, the discarded wrapper on the counter, the tension radiating from her spine.

He didn’t ask. He didn’t need to.

He crossed the marble floor in three long strides, slid his large, warm hands beneath her arms, and lifted her effortlessly off the cold tile. He set her on the wide marble vanity and stepped between her knees, crowding her space in the way that had always felt like shelter rather than intrusion. He pressed his lips to the sensitive skin just beneath her ear.