Chapter 13
1085 Words
Chapter 13
Love and Revenge
Time did not heal us.
That was the first thing Anthony said one morning as we sat at the small kitchen table in my coastal house, coffee cooling between us, sunlight spilling through the open windows.
“People say time fixes everything,” he added, stirring his cup absently. “It doesn’t.”
I watched the steam rise, then fade. “No. It just makes the pain quieter.”
He nodded. “Quieter doesn’t mean gone.”
Months had passed since the day I ran into him by the harbor. Months since the shock of seeing a dead man breathing had cracked my reality open. Somewhere in those months, grief stopped sitting between us and started turning into something else.
Not suddenly. Not dramatically.
Naturally.
We settled into a rhythm that felt safe. Mornings began with walks along the water. Some days we talked. Other days we didn’t. Silence never felt heavy between us. It felt earned.
Anthony knocked on my door one afternoon with a paper bag in his hand.
“You forgot to eat again,” he said.
“I had coffee.”
“That’s not food.”
I smiled faintly. “You sound like my father.”
Anthony snorted. “That’s alarming.”
He handed me the bag. “Bread. Cheese. Something warm. You don’t need to punish yourself to prove you survived.”
I studied him for a moment. “You’re very good at this.”
“At what.”
“Seeing things people try to hide.”
He met my gaze evenly. “So are you.”
That was when I realized something important.
Anthony never tried to fix me.
He didn’t rush me through healing. He didn’t push me to forgive. He didn’t tell me how strong I was like it erased what I had endured.
He simply stood beside me.
Love crept in through the cracks left by betrayal.
It arrived the night I woke from a nightmare, my breath sharp and panicked, only to find Anthony sitting in the chair across the room, reading quietly.
“You didn’t wake me,” I said hoarsely.
“You didn’t ask me to leave,” he replied.
It arrived the first time I laughed without guilt. The first time my body didn’t tense when someone raised their voice. The first time I realized I wasn’t bracing for disappointment.
One evening, as we walked along the harbor, I said quietly, “I don’t feel broken anymore.”
Anthony slowed, turning to me. “You never were.”
I stopped walking. “I was.”
“No,” he said firmly. “You were wounded. There’s a difference.”
The word stayed with me.
Wounded.
Not defective. Not lacking.
Just hurt.
Eventually, the conversations changed.
“She won’t stop,” Anthony said one night as we sat on the balcony, the sea dark and endless in front of us. “Valerie.”
I didn’t ask who he meant. “No.”
“She didn’t stop with me,” he continued. “She won’t stop with James. And she won’t stop with the baby.”
“I don’t want revenge,” I said slowly. “I don’t want to wake up angry every day.”
Anthony turned toward me. “Neither do I.”
“But I do want justice.”
His mouth curved into a small, approving smile. “That, I can help with.”
We talked quietly. Carefully. Not with fury, but with clarity.
Anthony explained everything he had done. The offshore accounts. The trusts. The way his nephew and niece now controlled everything Valerie thought she would inherit.
“She still thinks she has access,” he said. “She doesn’t.”
I shook my head slowly. “She built her life on lies.”
“So did James,” Anthony replied.
I exhaled. “James doesn’t even know how fragile his company is.”
Anthony’s brow lifted. “Fragile how.”
“Because he never understood it,” I said calmly. “He trusted me to run it. And I did.”
Anthony studied me, impressed. “You’re terrifying.”
I smiled. “Only when necessary.”
We never spoke about ruining them with glee. There were no fantasies of screaming confrontations or public humiliation.
We spoke about consequences.
Truth surfacing.
Structures collapsing under their own dishonesty.
“This won’t be loud,” I said one afternoon as we reviewed documents together. “It will be quiet. Precise.”
Anthony nodded. “They won’t see it coming.”
“And that’s not cruelty,” I added. “That’s inevitability.”
Something shifted between us during those conversations. Not darker. Stronger.
One night, as we cooked together, Anthony said casually, “I love you.”
I didn’t drop the pan. I didn’t freeze.
I turned toward him. “I know.”
He smiled softly. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
“I didn’t say it back,” I teased.
“You don’t need to,” he replied. “Not yet.”
But later, as we sat on the couch, my head resting against his shoulder, I said quietly, “I love you too.”
He kissed my hair. Nothing rushed. Nothing demanding.
Weeks later, Anthony grew quieter than usual.
“You’re thinking too loudly,” I told him as we stood on the balcony one evening.
He laughed under his breath. “Am I that obvious.”
“Yes.”
He hesitated, then reached into his pocket. “I didn’t plan a speech.”
“That’s probably for the best,” I said.
He knelt anyway.
Not dramatically. Not urgently. Just deliberately.
“Daphne,” he said, voice steady. “We didn’t fall in love because we were broken. We fell in love because we chose honesty. I don’t want a future defined by survival. I want one defined by peace.”
He opened the box.
The ring was simple. Elegant. Honest.
“I want to marry you,” he said. “Not to replace what we lost. But to build something that’s real.”
I didn’t feel fear.
I didn’t feel doubt.
I felt calm.
“Yes,” I said. “I choose you.”
Anthony stood and pulled me into his arms, holding me like something precious but never fragile.
As the ocean stretched endlessly before us, I realized something else.
This wasn’t revenge disguised as love.
This was love that refused to let injustice stand.
And together, we were unstoppable.
- Writer
