Chapter 291
She patted my shoulder and pulled out her phone. “I looked up this Knox woman.” She handed me her phone. “Her name is Evelyn Knox. She really isn’t Audrey.”
The entire drive to our hotel, I couldn’t stop scrolling through Evelyn Knox’s background on my phone. Her digital footprint was extensive.
As the daughter of Australia’s Parker family dynasty, her life was an open book. Every birthday, school achievement, and social appearance had been documented since her parents took her from New York to Australia.
I zeroed in on the last five years. The timeline was damning.
When Audrey was nursing me back to health in that coastal clinic, Evelyn was getting married to Adrian Knox and announcing her pregnancy.
When Audrey became my grandfather’s caretaker after our separation, Evelyn was already a mother dealing with serious heart complications.
Nothing matched up. Not a single overlap.
I scrolled through photo after photo, article after article, each one hammering the same point: this woman couldn’t be Audrey. The evidence was overwhelming, irrefutable.
Audrey was gone. Dead because of me. Never coming back.
And Evelyn Knox? Just some stranger with my wife’s face.
“Blake.”
Rachel’s voice pulled me back. She reached for my hand. “You need to stop torturing yourself.”
I stared out the window, the city blurring past.
“She wouldn’t want this, you know,” Rachel said softly. “Audrey wouldn’t want you falling apart over someone who just happens to look like her.”
I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of the past ten months. The drinking. The smoking. The handful of pills I’d swallowed that night at her grave.
Every breakdown, every moment at rock bottom, Rachel had been there. Picking me up. Keeping me alive.
I gently pulled my hand away from hers.
Rachel, thank you.” My voice sounded hollow even to me. “But I think we need some space from now on.”
Audrey’s POV
“You handled that well.”
Adrian leaned back in his seat as we parked in the hotel garage. He glanced over with that cold stare I’d grown used to. “Thought you might crack when you saw him.”
“Funny how he was the one who lost it.”
1/2
Chapter ८५ ।
I checked the backseat. Emma was out cold in her car seat, breathing softly, totally dead to the world.
“I told you I was over him,” I said once I was sure she couldn’t hear us. “Said I’d act like I didn’t know him, and I did.”
I took a breath. “But what was that about him causing my death? Why bring that up? Even if I’m not Audrey anymore, hearing you throw that in his face felt wrong.”
Adrian looked genuinely surprised. After a moment, he frowned. “Didn’t you notice what happened after I said it? He backed off. Immediately.”
“That guilt is his Achilles’ heel. I used it because it works. Without it, we’d still be standing there with him grabbing at you.”
He had a point. Didn’t mean I liked it.
“Just drop it going forward,” I said, staring at the dashboard. “I don’t care if he’s responsible for what happened seven months ago.”
“I don’t need his guilt trip. Don’t want it. He doesn’t deserve that much of me.”
–
Adrian watched me for a long moment before looking away. “Fine. Won’t mention Audrey Sinclair around Parker again.”
He turned back, his voice dropping. Just remember who you are now, Evelyn Knox.”
He got out, lifted Emma from her seat, and headed toward the hotel without waiting.
I followed with our bags, keeping quiet.
I knew exactly what he meant. He thought I still had feelings for Blake.
Truth was, it was because I didn’t love Blake anymore that I wanted my name kept away from his. But explaining that to Adrian was pointless. His mind was already made up.
h
