Chapter 18: Paid in Full

Sammy fell asleep at nine in the guest room with the stone under his pillow and one foot out of the blankets.

I stood in the doorway until his breathing went slow.

Then I texted Killian one line: Come to the study. Ten o'clock.

He came at ten exactly, in a dark sweater, with his hands empty.

I had lit the desk lamp, and I sat behind my father's desk with a paper in front of me.

"Sit," I said.

He sat in the chair on the other side.

I turned the paper around and pushed it to him.

"Roz drew it up yesterday. I signed it this morning, before the board."

He read the first line, and I watched his face change.

"Mireille. This is a note for the Peabody debt."

"All of it. Every dollar you paid to every creditor, down to the last invoice."

"It's mine now. I owe it to Hayes Holdings, and I'll pay it."

"I never wanted it paid."

"I know," I said. "That's why I'm paying it."

He put the paper down very carefully.

"You think I stayed for the money," I said. "Constance told me what you said to her on Saturday. That I stayed three years because I owed you."

"You believed a good enough apology would buy me back."

His throat moved.

"Yes," he said. "I did. I thought if I said sorry well enough, you would have to stay."

"I don't have to do anything."

"The house is mine. The debt is mine. Nothing is owed, Killian, in either direction."

"If I walk across this room, it is because I want to."

He sat with his hands flat on his knees and did not use them.

"You have taken every reason away from me," he said.

"Good. Now you only have the real one."

I stood and came around the desk.

I stopped in front of his chair, and he looked up at me.

"Rule one," I said.

"Say it."

"I don't touch you unless you say so."

"Touch me."

He did not move for a second.

Then he stood so slowly that I felt each inch of it.

He put his bare palm against my face.

It was warm, and the healed line of the cut lay across my cheek.

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