Page 6 of Crushed Vow
Feeling stronger, I stepped into the hall, heading toward the living room.
But something caught my attention.
The front door was cracked open. Ethan stood there, half outside, talking in a hushed tone.
“I don’t care how you found us. She’s not ready. Stay away.”
My heart stopped.
The door slammed open with a force that rattled the walls. Ethan stumbled back, nearly falling.
And then I saw him.
Drenched in rain. Hair tousled. Black suit wrinkled and clinging to his tall frame. That same cold fire burning behind his eyes.
Cassian Moretti.
My past. My trauma.
And the man I once thought I loved.
Standing in my safe space.
Uninvited.
Unforgiven.
Chapter 2
CHARLOTTE
“Charlotte.”
He said my name like it carried weight. Like it was something sacred he’d spent a lifetime trying to hold onto and was terrified to break now that he had it again.
He stood there—soaked to the bone, hair matted, and eyes that burned like a dying star. He looked... haunted. Like he hadn’t slept in months. Like I wasn’t the only ghost in the room.
I stayed silent. Watching him. Measuring the space between us like it was a cliff I had no intention of crossing.
My thoughts blurred, collapsing into each other—memories I had buried scraping their way to the surface. The feel of his hands, once tender, then cruel. The sound of his voice when he told me to leave like I was nothing. The dark ward. The restraints. The endless silence.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered. “You moved on.”
Twelve months. Twelve fucking months. And he hadn’t searched for me. At least, not fast enough. Not loud enough. Not before the damage was done.
“You vanished,” he said, voice low. “One second you were at my study, the next—gone. I tore through the city trying to find you, but it was like you disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“And in all that time?” I hissed. “You couldn’t even try harder? You let my father rewrite my life. I spent a year locked in a psych ward, Cassian. A year thinking I’d lost my mind. A year thinking you didn’t give a fuck.”
His hands trembled at his sides. He stepped forward. I stepped back.
“I didn’t know,” he said. “If I had—”
“But you didn’t. You never know until it’s too late, right?” I snapped. “So how is your wife? And her unborn baby?”
His face drained of color. “What?”
“My father told me. Said you got married. Said she was pregnant.”
