A Marriage Built on Ashes

Chapter 8: Divided Under One Roof

Sloane

I stood in the middle of my living room, staring at the box I'd just opened. Inside were things I'd shoved in the back of my closet five years ago and never looked at again. A Stanford sweatshirt. His Stanford sweatshirt, the one he'd left at my apartment the week before he dumped me.

I pulled it out, and something fell from the pocket. A receipt. Dinner at that Italian place we used to go to, dated three days before the breakup. On the back, in his handwriting:

"Ask her. Tonight. Don't be a coward."

My breath caught.

Ask me what? Had he been planning to propose? To move in together? And then his father...

I crumpled the receipt in my fist. No. I couldn't do this. Couldn't wonder about what might have been. That version of Cade was dead. The man waiting for me in that townhouse was someone else entirely.

Nina walked in, took one look at my face, and put down the coffee.

"What did you find?"

I showed her the receipt. She read it, her expression darkening. "Sloane..."

"Don't. Whatever you're about to say, don't."

"He was going to propose. You know that, right? And then something changed his mind. Something big enough to make him destroy you instead."

"It doesn't matter now."

"Doesn't it? Because in two weeks, you're going to marry him. And you still don't know why he really left." I threw the sweatshirt back in the box, buried the receipt at the bottom. "I'm not marrying him for answers about the past. I'm marrying him to save the company and find out who killed grandmother."

Nina studied me for a long moment, her expression softening from skepticism to worry. "Are you sure about that?" she asked quietly. "Because from where I'm standing, you're walking back into the same fire that burned you the first time."

“Can I really say I have a choice?”

“But do you love him?” she asked, cutting to the chase.

“It’s complicated.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only answer I have,” I snapped, folding a blazer with more force than necessary. “I don't have the luxury of thinking about love right now. I’m thinking about survival. I’m thinking about everything my grandmother worked her whole life to build.”

She started packing my books. “Just promise me you know what you're doing. This isn't just a business deal, Sloane. You’re living in his space. That kind of proximity... it changes things. It brings up things you’ve tried to bury.”

“I’ll have boundaries, and I’ll let him know that” I said. “He has his wing, I have mine. We're partners in a transaction. That's it.”

“He was always your blind spot,” she reminded me quietly. “Just don't let the 'transaction' cost you more than you’re prepared to pay.”

She helped me carry the final boxes down to my car. The trunk was full, and the backseat was stacked with the few pieces of my life I couldn't leave behind. Nina hugged me tight at the driver’s side door, her grip lingering a second too long.

“If he breathes on you the wrong way, you call me,” she whispered. “I don't care about the will. I'll come get you.”

“I'll be fine,” I promised, though I could feel the lie sticking in my throat. I got into the car and watched Nina in the rearview mirror until I turned the corner.

When I pulled up to the gated entrance of his townhouse, the iron bars slid open. The house was a modern fortress of glass, steel, and dark stone. It was exactly the kind of place a man with Cade’s secrets would build.

He was waiting in the foyer when I walked in. He didn't offer to help with my bags, and I didn't ask.

“The guest wing is through the kitchen and up the rear stairs,” he said, checking his watch. “I’ve cleared it out for you. It has its own bathroom and a walk-in closet.”

“I'll find it,” I said, hauling my suitcase toward the stairs.

The room was large and smelled like expensive linen and something woody, like cedar. I spent the next three hours unpacking. I unpacked my clothes with aggressive precision, lining up my shoes and hanging my blazers.

By 10pm, I was exhausted. I walked out to the kitchen to get a glass of water, trying to be silent. I found Cade standing by the window in the living room, staring out at the city. He had changed into a plain black t-shirt and grey sweatpants. It was the most casual I had seen him in years, and it made him look dangerously human.

“Hungry?” he asked without turning around. “There's milk and some fruit in the fridge,” he said as he saw me. “Help yourself to whatever's in the pantry.”

“I'm just getting water,” I said, opening a cabinet. “Where are the glasses?”

“Left of the sink,” he said, leaning his back against the glass. “I usually have coffee going by seven in the morning. In case if you want some, there's always a full pot.”

“I brought my own machine,” I said, pouring the water. “I'll set it up in my suite. It’s easier that way.”

Cade watched me for a second. “You don't have to hide in the guest wing, Sloane. It’s a big house.”

“It's easier if we don't trip over each other,” I replied, keeping my voice flat. “I'm here for the investigation and the will. I'm not here to play house.”

“We have to live here for ninety days. We should at least be able to share a kitchen without it being an ordeal.”

“We can share a kitchen, Cade. We just don't need to share a schedule.” I put the glass in the sink and turned to leave. “Goodnight.”

I fell on my bed, staring at the ceiling. I knew Cade was just down the hall, likely just as uncomfortable with this to be likely awake.

I hated being here. I hated that I had to rely on him to save my grandmother’s legacy and find out if my family were criminals. But there was a darker, more frustrating feeling buried under the anger. A part of me, the part I wanted to cut out, felt a strange sense of relief that I got to know, and that I wasn't doing this alone.

I rolled onto my side and pulled the blanket up to my chin. My mind kept drifting to grandmother’s letter. My life was divided into “before” and “after” this moment. I was trapped in a house with a man I didn’t want to trust, investigating a family I no longer knew, and I realize that the truth might be the most dangerous thing I would ever find.

What if the investigation didn't just destroy my family? What if it destroyed me, too?

Cade’s POV

I watched her walk out of the kitchen until she reached the carpeted stairs. I stayed in the kitchen for a long time after she left, staring at the glass she had used.

Coming back into her orbit was harder than I’d planned. For five years, I had built a version of Sloane Hartford in my head, the heiress who didn't understand why I had to leave. But the woman upstairs wasn't that girl. She was sharper, harder, and she looked at me like I was some kind of virus she was trying to build an immunity to.

I rest on the sofa as I thought about what I had done five years ago. I had hurt her on purpose once. I told myself it was protection. I wasn’t sure I believed that anymore, but it was the only way I could get her to stay away for her own good, and while I went after the people who had hurt my sister. I had thought I was protecting her. Now, I’ve had her dragged her right into the middle of something worse.

About half an hour later, I get up to head to my bedroom, but then I saw something downstairs. Or someone.