Chapter 115
Chapter 2
Her eyes flicked back to him. Graham. Her stepbrother, at least in name. He had been a distant figure in her life, appearing only a few times a year when he visited their father at the estate. He never stayed long, always busy, always with somewhere else to be. She barely knew him, yet she had always felt a quiet yearning for his approval, a longing for a connection that had never quite materialized.
Now, as he stood on the dais, commanding the attention of everyone in the church, Isla felt that longing again—a desperate need to reach out to him. To talk to him. To share the weight of this unbearable loss with someone who might understand.
But she didn’t move.
Her eyes fell back to the red-haired woman, her grip on Graham’s arm unrelenting. Those nails, so sharp and polished, felt like a warning. They kept Isla rooted in her seat, silent and still. What would she even say to him? What right did she have to intrude on his grief when she was nothing more than the stepdaughter, the afterthought?
Helplessness surged through her, a tide that threatened to drag her under. Tears welled up, but she blinked them back, her hands gripping the edge of the pew so tightly her knuckles turned white. Graham began to speak, his voice low and steady, but Isla couldn’t focus on the words.
Graham had begun to speak now, his deep voice reverberating through the church, commanding the kind of attention that only he could. Everyone seemed captivated, hanging onto his every word as though he were imparting some profound truth. It was a power he had always possessed—a quiet magnetism that drew people in, silencing rooms and stealing focus.
But not Isla.
She sat rigidly in the back row, far removed from the front where Graham stood at the dais with his statuesque girlfriend seated close by. Isla had no interest in his words. She couldn’t hear them anyway. Born deaf, she had spent her life observing the world in ways others didn’t, relying on lip-reading and gestures to understand the swirl of conversation around her. Today, though, she didn’t even try.
What could he possibly say that she hadn’t already heard?
Empty condolences. Flowery phrases about loss and strength. Words that would never reach the hollow ache in her chest. She didn’t need to read lips to know what his speech would be—a eulogy polished and poignant enough to move everyone around her to tears. She could see it in their faces, the way the crowd leaned in, their eyes glassy with emotion.
But none of it mattered to Isla. Not the words. Not the tears. Not the well-meaning murmurs of strangers who barely knew her. Because she knew the truth: no one cared for her. Not really. The only man who ever had, who had loved her unconditionally, was gone now.
Her papa.
Isla bit her lip hard, her hands gripping the edge of the pew to keep herself steady. She forced her gaze downward, away from the dais and the sea of sympathetic faces. The weight of their pity was unbearable. They didn’t know her. They didn’t know what Robert Lancaster had meant to her—the man who had loved her when no one else had, who had stayed when even her own mother had left her behind. They couldn’t possibly understand the depth of her grief.
Her eyes stung as she fought back the tears threatening to spill. She had promised herself she wouldn’t cry here, not in front of these people. Not in front of Graham.
Years ago, as a little girl, Isla had developed a life-sized crush on the enigmatic young man who visited their home a few times a year. Graham had been tall, handsome, and effortlessly charming, a figure so far removed from her world that he might as well have been a star in the sky. But that admiration had been her undoing. Afraid of embarrassing herself, of blurting out something foolish or inappropriate, Isla had kept her distance from him whenever he visited.
That distance now felt insurmountable.
As the pallbearers carried the casket to the grave, the congregation moved outside, following solemnly behind. Isla hung back, letting the crowd surge ahead. She wanted to disappear, to fade into the background, unseen and unnoticed.
From her place at the very back, she watched as Graham took his place at the front, his girlfriend glued to his side. Isla’s eyes flicked to the woman—slender and poised, her perfectly manicured crimson nails resting lightly on Graham’s arm. A picture-perfect pair, she thought bitterly. The kind of couple who belonged in glossy magazines, their polished smiles concealing lives she could never touch.
Isla felt small in their shadow. Small and invisible. And that was exactly how she wanted it.
The ceremony continued, the priest speaking solemn words as the coffin was slowly lowered into the earth. Isla stood ramrod straight, her nails digging into her palms as she forced herself to hold back the sob threatening to escape. She had been holding onto Robert for as long as she could, clinging to the fragile belief that he was still with her in some way. But this—this final act of saying goodbye—shattered that illusion.
She whispered softly, her lips trembling as the words escaped. “Goodbye, Papa. I hope you’ll be happier up there, in heaven, than you were here with me.”
The tears came then, hot and relentless, spilling down her cheeks in streams she couldn’t control. She let them fall. No one was watching her, after all. She had made sure of that.
But then she felt it—the weight of a gaze.
Her head lifted slightly, her tear-streaked face glancing forward. And there he was. Graham Lancaster, standing at the front of the crowd, his dark eyes scanning the sea of mourners. When his gaze landed on her, it stopped.
For a moment, Isla froze, her breath catching in her chest. His eyes didn’t waver, locked on her with an intensity that felt almost invasive. She had seen Graham look at people before—with charm, with amusement, even with indifference. But this... this was something else.
His gaze pierced through her, taking in her tear-streaked face, her trembling lips. She felt as though he could see everything she had been trying so desperately to hide—her grief, her vulnerability, her anger at being so exposed in this moment.
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