Chapter 7 - The Confrontation of Hearts
For a long, agonizing moment, neither of them moved. The crackling fire in the hearth was the only sound in the cabin.
Ariana’s eyes drifted from Adrian’s haggard, snow-dusted face down to his trembling hands, where he still clutched the tiny gold bracelet like a lifeline.
“How did you find me?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper, devoid of the anger Adrian had braced himself for. It was worse—it was calm, detached, and distant.
“The bracelet,” Adrian choked out, taking a slow step forward across the pine floorboards. “It fell out of the locked drawer in my study three days after you left. Ariana... I swear to God, I didn’t know. If I had known about our daughter—if my mother had told me—”
“Your mother didn’t tell you because she knew you would only care about the heir, not the woman carrying it,” Ariana interrupted, her voice hardening slightly as she stepped between him and the bassinet. “And don't blame Eleanor for your own blindness, Adrian. You didn't look at me in three years. You looked through me. You saw a quiet wife who didn't fit into your high-society ambitions with Vanessa Harrington.”
“I was a fool,” Adrian confessed, his voice breaking as hot tears finally spilled over his lashes—tears he hadn't shed since he was a child. He dropped to his knees right there on the wooden floor, the proud billionaire reduced to a beggar. “I was arrogant, blind, and cruel. But I’m not that man anymore. I canceled the wedding. I threw Vanessa out of my house. I walked through snowstorms and searched every dark corner of this state because my soul felt like it was being ripped out of my chest. Please... let me see my daughter.”
Ariana stared down at him, her chest rising and falling rapidly. The ghosts of three years of neglect, of quiet tears shed in empty bedrooms, and of walking out into the freezing night alone hung heavily in the space between them.
She turned slowly toward the bassinet.
May you like
Adrian crawled forward on his knees, holding his breath as he peered over the edge of the wicker basket.
Inside, wrapped in a pale pink blanket, slept a tiny baby girl with a tuft of dark hair and miniature fingers curled into tight fists. On her tiny wrist, loose and secured with a pink ribbon, was the matching twin to the bracelet he held in his hand.
