Chapter 4 - The Hard Road to Trust
For the next three weeks, we lived in one of Richard’s private penthouse suites in San Francisco, far away from the mansion and the trauma it held.
True to his word, Richard changed everything. He canceled all his international business trips. He stepped down from daily operations at his tech firm. He spent every waking moment trying to rebuild the bridge between himself and his sons.
But trauma doesn't disappear overnight.
Whenever Richard entered a room too quickly, Noah would flinch. If Richard raised his voice even slightly in excitement over a game, Liam would hide behind my legs. It broke Richard's heart every single time, but he never got angry. He just sat on the floor, at their level, and patiently waited for them to come to him.
And through it all, there was me.
Richard didn't treat me like an employee anymore. He treated me like a partner. We cooked dinner together, laughing as flour dusted his expensive shirts. We sat on the balcony after the boys went to sleep, drinking wine and talking until 2:00 AM.
I learned about his late wife, about his fears of being a single father, and about the immense pressure he felt to provide a "perfect" family for his sons—which was why he had been so easily blinded by Victoria’s flawless façade.
"I don't know what I would do without you, Emily," he said one evening, the city lights reflecting in his dark eyes. He reached out, his fingers gently brushing a stray lock of hair behind my ear. The touch sent a jolt of electricity straight to my heart.
"You won't have to find out," I whispered, realizing in that moment that my feelings for him had shifted from professional loyalty to something much deeper.
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But our peace was about to be shattered. Victoria’s wealthy family had hired the best lawyers in the state, and the next morning, the news broke: Victoria Lane had been released on bail.
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