Chapter 3 - ADRIAN BLACKWOOD
Adrian Blackwood did not look like a man who rescued strangers from landslides.
He looked like a man who owned the mountain.
Evelyn discovered that forty-eight hours later when she entered the Blackwood Building in Boston.
She hadn't planned to come so soon.
Then Adrian sent her a plane ticket.
First class.
One-way.
No explanation.
Evelyn almost refused on principle.
Instead, she purchased her own ticket.
That mattered.
She wasn't leaving one powerful man's control to step directly into another's.
At 2:15 p.m., she walked through the forty-story tower wearing a charcoal suit she hadn't touched in years.
No floral dress.
No military-wife cardigan.
No sensible shoes selected for commissary errands.
Her dark hair fell in polished waves over her shoulders.
Her mother's watch rested at her wrist.
She looked into the mirrored elevator doors.
For one startling second, she recognized herself.
Not Nathan's wife.
Evelyn Carter.
The elevator opened on the executive floor.
A man waiting outside stared at her.
Then smiled.
“Ms. Carter?”
Not Mrs. Hayes.
Evelyn felt something shift inside her.
“Yes.”
“Mr. Blackwood is expecting you.”
Adrian's office occupied the corner of the building.
He stood beside the windows with Boston spread behind him.
He wasn't wearing the destroyed suit she remembered.
Today he wore black trousers, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled once, and no tie.
His right hand was still healing.
Small scars crossed his knuckles.
Evelyn stopped when she saw them.
Adrian followed her gaze.
“Occupational hazard.”
“Of running a private equity company?”
“Of ignoring evacuation orders.”
That answered one question.
“Why were you there?”
Adrian's amusement disappeared.
He turned toward the window.
“My younger sister died in a landslide eighteen years ago.”
Evelyn went still.
Adrian continued.
“We were children. Our father owned a cabin in Colorado. There was a storm. The slope failed.”
His voice remained controlled.
Too controlled.
“I got out.”
“She didn't.”
Evelyn understood immediately.
“You went back because of her.”
“I go whenever Blackwood Relief is deployed to a major landslide zone.”
“You run a disaster-response foundation?”
“My mother started it after Lily died.”
He looked at Evelyn.
“That day, our thermal team detected a second heat signature after the military rescue unit shifted east.”
Her throat tightened.
“Me.”
“You.”
“So you didn't randomly find me.”
“No.”
“Why did you personally come?”
Adrian was silent.
Then:
“Because everyone else said the slope was too unstable.”
Evelyn stared at him.
“That doesn't answer my question.”
“Yes, it does.”
She understood.
Everyone else had decided the risk was unacceptable.
Adrian had heard that sentence once before.
About his sister.
He had refused to hear it again.
Evelyn looked at his injured hands.
“Thank you.”
“Don't.”
“For saving my life?”
“For turning me into something noble.”
His gaze hardened.
“I wasn't noble. I was angry.”
“At Nathan?”
“At everyone who decided you could wait.”
Silence filled the room.
Adrian walked to his desk.
Then he placed a photograph in front of her.
A little girl, perhaps nine, grinning beside a teenage boy.
On her finger was a silver ring far too large for her.
Evelyn looked down at her own hand.
“The ring…”
“Was Lily's.”
Evelyn immediately started removing it.
Adrian stopped her.
“No.”
“But—”
“She bought two from a roadside craft market. One for herself. One for me.”
His voice softened.
“She said matching rings meant I'd always come back for her.”
Evelyn couldn't speak.
“I didn't.”
The words were almost inaudible.
Adrian looked at the ring.
“I've worn mine ever since.”
“Then why give it to me?”
His eyes met hers.
“Because that day I finally did come back for someone.”
The room became painfully quiet.
Evelyn swallowed.
Adrian broke the tension first.
“So.”
He gestured toward the chair.
“Are you divorced?”
A laugh escaped her before she could stop it.
“No.”
“Disappointing.”
“You've known me for approximately six hours total.”
“Seven.”
“You counted?”
“I own several companies. Numbers matter.”
She laughed again.
Adrian stared at her.
Not possessively.
Almost curiously.
As though he hadn't expected the sound.
Then his expression changed.
“What?”
Evelyn asked.
“You should do that more often.”
“Do what?”
“Remember you're alive.”
That sentence followed her long after she left his office.
Back in Virginia, Nathan entered his house and found Evelyn's closet half empty.
For the first time in his adult life, Colonel Nathan Hayes panicked.
He called her.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
He opened the location-sharing application they had once used.
Location unavailable.
His pulse accelerated.
Then he noticed something on the dresser.
Her wedding ring.
Nathan stopped breathing.
Beside it was a short handwritten note.
I haven't disappeared. I simply went somewhere I wanted to go. Please don't wait up.
Nathan read it three times.
Then his phone rang.
Claire.
He stared at her name.
For years, he would have answered immediately.
Tonight, he declined the call.
Thirty seconds later, she called again.
He declined again.
Nathan looked at Evelyn's wedding ring.
Then at the empty side of the closet.
And finally understood the beginning of a truth he was nowhere near ready to accept.
May you like
Evelyn had not become more understanding.
She had stopped being his.
