Unforgiven: The Billionaire's Amnesiac Ex-Wife novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: White Roses

Lydia's POV

Hillcrest Cemetery was bright and cold on Sunday, and the grass was still wet from the night.

I got there at ten to eleven and stood at the foot of my mother's grave with the little gold moon at my throat.

The stone was plain gray granite.

ANNE GARRICK, it said, and two dates.

I had stood in front of it every March for eleven years, and every March somebody had been there first.

White roses, no card, laid against the stone.

I used to think it was the funeral home.

Stefan came up the gravel path at eleven exactly, in a dark coat, carrying white roses wrapped in brown paper.

He stopped three feet from me.

"How did you know?" he said.

"Every year they were already here when I came. Nobody at the funeral home had ever heard of them." I looked at the roses. "Then I remembered the headstone, and it wasn't hard."

He nodded, and stood there holding the roses in both hands.

"Go on," I said. "She's been waiting for you a lot longer than I have."

He went down on one knee in the wet grass.

He laid the roses on the stone, and for a while he didn't say anything.

"Mrs. Garrick," he said at last. "I'm Stefan Kingsland."

His voice broke on the name, and he started again.

"I was in the car. I told her to stop, and she wouldn't, and I didn't make her."

He bowed his head.

"I should have opened the door. I called for help, and then I got back in. That's the part I can't forgive."

The wind moved in the cedars.

"Your daughter is the best person I've ever met. I'm not asking you to let me near her. I'm only telling you I know what I did."

I put my hand over my mouth.

I knelt down next to him and put my hand on the cold granite.

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