Emery’s POV
Two days pass, but the conversation at the park lingers in my mind like an unhealed wound.
I replay Landon's words in quiet moments—his promises, his certainty, the fierce conviction in his eyes when he swore he would never let them win. I want to believe him. I do believe him. But believing isn't the same as healing, and some wounds run deeper than love can reach.
Landon notices.
I catch him watching me during breakfast, his coffee forgotten in his hand, his brow furrowed with concern. He finds me distracted when Elsie reaches for me, my responses a half-beat too slow, my attention drifting toward shadows that shouldn't exist in morning light.
"You're somewhere else," he says quietly, his hand covering mine across the table.
"I'm right here." I force a smile that doesn't quite fit. "Just tired."
He doesn't argue. But I see the questions gathering behind his eyes.
The invitation arrives by courier that afternoon—thick cream paper, elegant script, the kind of correspondence that carries weight even before you read the words.
"Bruce Walsh," Landon says, scanning the card. "He wants us at his country club tomorrow. Casual lunch, he says. A chance to reconnect."
I look up from where I'm folding Elsie's laundry. "The investor who pulled out?"
"The same." His jaw tightens. "I should decline. After the gala, after everything—"
"We should go."
The words surprise us both.
Landon sets down the invitation and crosses to me. "You want to spend an afternoon with someone who abandoned us over tabloid gossip?"
"I want to show him that gossip was wrong." I smooth a tiny onesie between my fingers. "Appearances matter now more than ever. If we hide, they win."
He studies my face for a long moment. "Are you sure?"
"No," I admit. "But I'm going anyway."
* * *
The country club is everything I expected—rolling green hills, whitewashed buildings, the kind of deliberate elegance that whispers old money without ever raising its voice. Bruce Walsh greets us warmly enough, his wife Reagan already making pleasant small talk, but I feel the assessment beneath every interaction.
They're watching. Everyone is always watching.
Lunch passes in a blur of careful conversation and forced smiles. Bruce asks about the company. Landon deflects with practiced ease. Reagan compliments my dress.
By the time dessert arrives, Bruce excuses himself to take a call. Reagan follows shortly after, leaving Landon and me alone at a table overlooking the eighteenth green.
"Walk with me?" he asks.
We leave the terrace and follow a stone path that winds through manicured gardens. The afternoon sun is warm on my shoulders, but I can't shake the chill that's settled into my bones.
We walk in silence until the main building disappears behind a hedge. Until there's no one to overhear.
Then Landon stops.
"What have you been carrying since the park?"
The question catches me off guard. I turn to face him, and something in his expression—patient, worried, utterly focused—makes my carefully constructed walls tremble.
"I don't know what you mean."
"You've been somewhere else for two days." He steps closer, close enough that I can see the gold flecks in his brown eyes. "Something I said, something that happened—talk to me."
The words build in my chest like pressure against a dam. I try to hold them back. I've spent so long holding everything back.
Then the dam breaks.
"You asked if I still trusted you." My voice comes out raw, scraped against edges I've been smoothing for months. "At the park, when you promised to protect me. And I realized I couldn't answer."
His face falls. "Emery—"
"I felt erased in that house." The confession spills out before I can stop it. "Every day, piece by piece, until I couldn't remember who I was anymore. I begged you to see it. I begged you to protect me from what they were doing."
"I know." His voice cracks. "I know you did."
"And you didn't come." Tears burn my eyes, but I keep talking. "You turned away. You stayed silent. You let them use my softness as a weapon against me until I had to kill that part of myself just to survive."
I see him flinch. See the guilt carve itself deeper into his features.
"Do you understand what that cost me?" My voice breaks on the question. "Do you have any idea what it took to become someone who could fight back?"
He doesn't answer with words. Instead, he takes my hand and pulls me behind a stone pavilion, away from any watching eyes, hidden from the world we're both so tired of performing for.
Then he wraps his arms around me and holds on while I tremble.
"I'm sorry." His lips press against my hair. "I'm so sorry."
"Landon—"
"I was a coward." The words come out broken, desperate. "I saw what they were doing to you, and I told myself it wasn't that bad. That you were strong enough. That keeping the peace was more important than keeping you safe."
I try to pull back, but he holds me tighter.
"You deserved better." His voice shakes. "You deserved a husband who stood between you and his family from the very beginning. Who chose you loudly, publicly, without hesitation."
"I just wanted you to see me," I whisper.
"I see you now." He pulls back just enough to cup my face in his hands. His thumbs brush away tears I didn't realize had fallen. "I see all of you. The woman you were. The woman you've become. And I will spend the rest of my life proving that I've changed."
I search his eyes for the Remington heir—the polished mask, the calculated distance, the man who let his family destroy me through silence.
I don't find him.
Instead, I see something raw and real. Something vulnerable in a way I've never witnessed. Not the son of Portia Remington, bound by legacy and expectation. Just Landon. The man who loves me. The man who finally understands what he almost lost.
"I was so alone," I breathe.
"Never again." His forehead presses against mine. "I swear to you, Emery. Never again."