Chapter 29
Mia’s apartment was small enough that no one could disappear into another wing.
I liked that.
I hated almost everything else.
I worked. I slept badly. I sold Dad’s house because every room inside it carried too much history for me to live there alone. I told myself that leaving the estate had been necessary.
Some mornings I even believed it.
Then I would hear a deep voice in a crowded hallway and turn before reason could stop me.
Alexander did not call.
That hurt.
The absence of calls should have made leaving easier.
It did not.
One Thursday, the clinic receptionist appeared at the nurses’ station looking alarmed.
“Grace? A military officer is asking for you.”
Mia looked up from a chart.
“If it’s your husband, I am charging admission.”
It was Ethan.
He stood in the reception area in uniform, with two security officers positioned discreetly near the entrance.
“Mrs Reeves.”
“Grace.”
His expression softened by half a degree.
“Grace. I have something for you.”
He handed me a cream envelope embossed with an official seal.
Inside was an invitation to a Congressional Medal of Honour ceremony honouring General Alexander Reeves.
Beneath it lay a small handwritten card.
I will return your rings on Saturday.
I read the sentence twice.
“I’m not going.”
Ethan’s face remained professionally blank.
“Understood.”
“Good.”
“A vehicle will arrive at sixteen hundred.”
I stared at him.
“I just said I’m not going.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then why is a vehicle coming?”
“Because the General anticipated that statement.”
Mia turned away to hide a laugh.
“There is also a gown at your apartment,” Ethan continued. “And a security detail remains assigned to you.”
My temper flared.
“I left.”
“The General is aware.”
“Then why am I still being guarded?”
For the first time, Ethan answered not as an officer but as a man who had watched Alexander fail spectacularly at emotion for years.
“Because his concern for your safety did not expire with the contract.”
The words unsettled me.
“Did he send you to say that?”
“No. He would be horrified by the inefficiency of indirect messaging.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
Ethan saw it and seemed relieved.
“Saturday, sixteen hundred. You may refuse to get in the car. No one will force you.”
He left.
Mia waited five full seconds.
“We’re opening the gown.”
“I am not going.”
“Of course not. We are merely examining the dress you will not wear to the ceremony you are not attending.”
The gown was black, elegant, cut with enough restraint to look formal and enough precision to make me feel like someone stronger than I had been in recent months.
I hated that Alexander had chosen correctly.
Saturday arrived.
At 3:55 p.m., I was dressed.
