Chapter 145
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.
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 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.
Because no matter how much it hurt, living without love was a pain she could not willingly choose.
The helipad at the top of Graham’s office building was a stark, open space, surrounded by the hum of the city below. The winds whipped fiercely around Isla as she stepped out of the building, her hair tangling wildly in the breeze stirred up by the helicopter’s whirring blades. She imagined the noise they must be making, but her ears remained silent as always. The movement of the world around her felt disjointed, like a muted movie playing out in real time.
Inside the helicopter, the pilot greeted her with an easy smile, his demeanor a welcome contrast to the heavy thoughts weighing her down. Before they took off, he turned to her, speaking slowly and carefully. “Mr. Lancaster told me about your situation,” he said, gesturing toward her ears. Isla stiffened slightly at his mention of Graham, unsure of where this conversation was heading.
But then the pilot chuckled, his tone light. “You couldn’t talk to me through the headphones, so I figured a mirror would do.” He pointed to a small mirror installed near the front, angled so that she could clearly see his face. “This way, you can read my lips if you need to.”
For a moment, Isla was struck silent, her throat tightening with unexpected emotion. She had spent so much of her life navigating a world that rarely considered her needs, often feeling invisible and left to adapt on her own. To encounter this small but thoughtful gesture, even from a stranger, felt profoundly touching.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “That’s incredibly kind of you.”
The pilot waved off her gratitude with a laugh. “Don’t thank me, Ms. Thank Mr. Lancaster. He was pretty clear about it—if you had any discomfort on your way home, I’d be out of a job.” He grinned, his humor infectious. “I believe him too, so I made sure to set this up right.”
Isla’s lips twitched into a small, reluctant smile. The idea of Graham threatening to fire someone for her sake was absurd and yet... believable. It was exactly the sort of thing he would do—direct, uncompromising, and unexpectedly protective. She let out a soft laugh, more out of reflex than genuine amusement, but the sound carried a bittersweet edge.
As the helicopter lifted off, Isla turned her gaze to the window. The city below grew smaller with every passing second, its sprawling buildings shrinking into miniature models. People moved like ants, their lives continuing, oblivious to the storm raging within her.
She sat back, staring at the landscape as it blurred into a patchwork of roads and rooftops, her thoughts churning like the rotors above her. Graham’s gesture had shaken her. For weeks, she had convinced herself that he was cold, indifferent, and calculating—that he cared for her only insofar as it suited his plans. Yet, this moment contradicted all of that.
The pilot’s words echoed in her mind. *“I believe him.”* And she believed him too. Graham had done this for her—not out of obligation, but because he cared enough to think ahead, to ensure her comfort in a way most people wouldn’t have considered.
Her chest tightened as conflicting emotions swirled within her. If Graham cared for her, even in this subtle, quiet way, had she made the wrong decision? Could she have misjudged him? She had spent so long preparing herself to walk away, to guard her heart from the pain of a loveless marriage. But what if Graham wasn’t as indifferent as he seemed? What if, in his own guarded and reserved way, he was trying to show her something he couldn’t articulate?
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