Chapter 249
Chapter 32
As the car weaved through the dense traffic toward the helipad, Isla sat in silence, staring out the window but seeing nothing. The chaos – of the city outside seemed a cruel reflection of the turmoil in her heart. Her thoughts churned, pulling her back into memories she had
tried to bury for so long.
All her life, Isla had yearned for a family–a warm, loving family that would hold her close and love her unconditionally. As a little girl, she had watched other children with their fathers, laughing and playing, and she had always felt the absence of her own biological father like an aching void. She had told herself stories about him, imagined what he might be like. Was he kind? Did he think of her? Did he miss her the way she missed the idea of him? Those questions had haunted her, unanswered, for years.
Her stepfather had been good to her–kind and patient in his own way -but Isla had always sensed the distance between them. No matter how much he tried, she couldn’t help but feel that she was an outsider in his life, a responsibility rather than a joy. And when her mother passed away, the loss was like a gaping wound, ripping through her world and leaving her exposed.
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Chapter 249
For so long, she had blamed herself. She had been young, too young to understand the randomness of loss, and the thought took root in her fragile heart: maybe she was cursed. Maybe she was the reason her father had left, why her mother was taken too soon. The fear of being the cause of misfortune clung to her, even as the years passed
and she grew older.
And then there was Robert. His warmth, his care, his unwavering presence had been her anchor. Yet even with him, that gnawing fear never truly went away. She lived in terror of losing him too, of being left utterly alone. It wasn’t rational–she knew that. But no amount of reason could quell the cold dread that settled in her chest whenever she thought about the possibility.
Now Robert was gone, and the hollow ache of her childhood fears returned with a vengeance. She felt like a tree uprooted, her life flung into a storm she couldn’t control. The thought of navigating the world entirely alone–without her mother, her father, or Robert–was almost too much to bear.
It was that same fear that had made Graham’s proposal both a dream and a nightmare.
On one hand, it seemed like salvation. A family. Stability. A place where she might finally belong. Isla had always craved those things so desperately that, for a fleeting moment, she had considered saying yes. She could imagine the life they might build–on the surface, it
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would look perfect. She would never be alone, never feel like a
drifting shell of a person with no one to care for her.
But deep down, she knew the truth. Graham didn’t love her. He never had. His proposal wasn’t an act of affection or devotion but a calculated move, a cold and practical solution to some problem she couldn’t fully understand. And Isla knew herself well enough to know
what that would do to her.
She could survive being alone. It would hurt, it would be painful beyond measure, but she could endure it. What she couldn’t endure was the slow unraveling of her heart, the constant ache of loving someone who would never love her back.
If she said yes, she would spend her days longing for the warmth of his touch, for a look in his eyes that spoke of more than duty. She would lie awake at night, listening to the sound of his even breathing beside her, and wonder what it would feel like to be cherished, truly cherished, by him. It would break her–slowly, completely. And she wasn’t sure she would ever recover from that.
Tears blurred her vision, but she blinked them away, determined to keep her composure. The car stopped at the helipad, and she drew in a shaky breath, steeling herself for what was to come. She would leave, go back to Willow Creek, and find a way to survive the loneliness that awaited her.
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Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.
