The early hours of the morning after her wedding dawned gray and cold. Selina stood alone at the edge of the sea, the hem of her wedding dress stained with salt and sand, the veil trailing behind her like a ghost. The letter still burned in her coat pocket.

  She hadn’t slept. She hadn’t cried. Instead, she had counted every coin Damon left her. Measured it. Weighed it. Pnned around it.

  She could vanish, just like he wanted. She could hide—disappear into some city where no one knew her name—and live with her baby as a single mother: jobless, without a degree, scraping by on the scraps Damon thought would be enough. He thought the money would buy her silence, buy her exit. That she’d stay hidden long enough for the divorce to be clean—for her to disappear before it ever came back to haunt him.

  But she couldn’t go back. She was pregnant. And she couldn’t just appear before her family and expin what had happened.

  Selina lifted her chin against the biting wind, watching the first rays of sunlight on the horizon slice through the gray and steel-blue water, creating an orange-crimson path.

  She would do what she had always done. Survive. Endure. And let no one—not even her husband—stand in her way.

  She had no illusions left.

  No fairytales.

  No whispered wishes.

  But she had herself. And she had a pn.

  The world had already stolen everything else.

  It wasn’t going to steal from her child, too.

  Selina walked into Edgar Bckwell's study that morning with her head held high, wrapped in a practical coat and silence.

  Moments ter, Edgar entered — tall, composed. His eyes narrowed when he saw his daughter-in-w waiting in her wedding dress. Confusion flickered across his face for the briefest second. Something was clearly very wrong. Already mid-scowl, he braced himself, no doubt expecting theatrics from the Vale girl.

  Instead, he found Selina seated neatly in a wingback chair, ankles crossed, hands folded like a woman with nothing to prove. Her confidence stood in stark contrast to the way she looked.

  He closed the door without a word and sat across from her.

  “I take it Damon isn’t here with you,” he said.

  “No,” Selina replied. “And he never intended to be.”

  Edgar tilted his head. That, at least, surprised him.

  Selina didn’t fumble for emotion or soften her words. She was past that.

  “I imagine you already guessed that what Damon said about the night of the engagement party wasn’t a lie,” she said. “You know your son better than anyone. And let’s face it — no one except my parents and Aunt Catherine believed something happened between us anyway.”

  A flicker passed over Edgar’s face—not surprise, not concern. Just quiet confirmation.

  “But Damon,” she continued, “had nothing to lose. He doesn’t live here. He doesn’t walk these streets. He doesn’t hear his name whispered behind closed doors. Not sure he would care either way.

  “I do. My family does.”

  She leaned forward, composed and steady.

  “I married him to keep this town quiet. To protect my sister—so she wouldn’t be painted as the girl who lost her fiancé to her younger sister. To protect my family’s name from becoming another scandal.”

  She paused.

  “But now that he’s disappeared—on our wedding night, no less—I’m in a worse position than before.”

  Edgar said nothing.

  Selina rose slowly.

  “I can’t stay here. And I can’t go back to the city alone. So I’m going to Berlin. Quietly. Before anyone notices Damon’s absence.”

  Still, he said nothing.

  “I’m not asking for permission,” she added. “Just his address.”

  She didn’t flinch as she met his eyes.

  “Your son created a mess. I’m letting you know I’m going to clean it up.”

  She turned to go, then paused at the door.

  “I’ll keep the Bckwell name out of more scandal, if I can. But you should know I’ll protect myself first.”

  Then she left.

  Edgar stayed seated, watching the door long after it closed.

  That girl.

  He prided himself on his ability to judge people quickly and accurately — and very rarely was he wrong. Fewer still ever managed to surprise him. But Selina Vale Bckwell had surprised him.

  She wasn’t afraid to tell the truth. Wasn’t afraid to act.

  She had the spine of a brave person—and the instincts of a survivor.

  There was fire in her eyes.

  He wasn’t angry. At least, not with her. If anything, he was... amused.

  Edgar felt something inside him finally rex.

  The truth is—the truth he couldn’t tell anyone, not even his wife—when Edgar first met Margaret as a young woman, he knew she was lovely, but she wasn’t suitable for Damon. That was why he waited all these years to marry them off.

  Margaret was the self-sacrificial type. If they had married, she would have given in to all Damon’s whims.

  One could see that’s something Selina would never do.

  That girl would be either the best or the worst thing that ever happened to his son. She would either forge him into a better man—or burn him with the same fire burning inside her.

  And truth be told, with the irritation he felt toward Damon’s careless disappearance, Edgar wasn’t sure which outcome he preferred.

  It all depended on one thing: whether Damon finally chose to grow into the man he was meant to be—or Selina would chew him up and spit him out.

  Edgar leaned back in his chair, folded his hands, and smirked faintly.

  Either way, it would be one hell of a show.

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  Author’s Note:

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