Page 3 of The SEAL's Duchess
She only smiled. “I’m not saying rush into anything. But maybe opening that door again could be good for both of you.”
His jaw flexed. The air between them darkened with unspoken history. “I won’t put her through what we went through again. What happened with Miranda?—”
The memory hit like it always did—walking through the door after a 24-hour shift, to his mom rocking a screaming Ellie, and a note on the counter.
Three lines.
I can't do this. I'm sorry. Don't try to find me.
His hands had shaken so badly he'd dropped the paper. Ellie's screams had echoed through the empty house—three months old and already abandoned.
“Was one person,” Grace said quietly. “One woman who made a terrible choice. That doesn't mean everyone will.”
The words hung between them as Ellie tugged on his pant leg. “Story, Daddy. Home?”
“Of course, bug.” He smoothed her hair, pushing Grace’s words aside.
Ellie was healthy and happy.
Alone was safe and predictable. Alone didn't wake up one morning and decide motherhood wasn't worth the trouble.
Twenty minutes later, he buckled her into her car seat. She was already half-asleep, thumb tucked in her mouth.
He paused, soaking in the sound of her soft breaths.
At home, he carried her sleeping form inside. He laid her gently in bed, tucked her bear under her arm, and brushed hair from her forehead.
“Lub, Daddy,” she mumbled.
“Love you too, bug.” He kissed her cheek.
He was a good father. He provided for her, loved her with everything he had. That was what mattered.
Downstairs, he moved through his nightly ritual—windows, doors, the tree line. The same checks he'd done every night since coming home to find Miranda gone.
As if locking the doors now could somehow lock out the past.
The house was too quiet without Ellie’s chatter, but the familiar actions steadied his hands, calmed the restlessness in his blood.
It was enough.
It had to be.
2
The car'sheater battled the Alaskan cold while Ivy Lambourne stared out the passenger window at the endless snowy wilderness. After more than twenty hours of travel, the silence and scale of Alaska made the Lambourne estate feel like a garden plot.
“Magnificent country,” George’s voice boomed in the confined space beside her, his enthusiasm undimmed by jet lag or the daunting task ahead of them. “Wait until we hit the coast—that’s where the real show starts.”
Ivy nodded absently, her mind already calculating transport costs, weather delays, and permit timelines, while her brother waxed poetic about the adventure of it all. He was already sketching out their Alaskan future—comparing the landscape to the Scottish Highlands, spinning out revenue plans, dropping names she hadn’t even known were on their contact list. He could conjure profit out of fog, and people believed him.
But someone had to run the numbers, and that someone was always her.
She shifted, shoulders already sore from the flight. The spreadsheets were building themselves behind her eyes—projected costs, break-even timelines, contingency plans. All of it riding on this one deal.
Two years since their father’s funeral—since she’d packed up her life in London, walked away from her dream job, and stepped back into a house full of debt, cracked stonework, and five hundred years of expectations.
George skimmed messages on his phone. “Sounds like the mayor’s pulling out all the stops for us. You know how Americans love a show.”
