Manhattan hits Jake like a physical assault.
I watch him through the town car window, watching my city through his eyes for the first time. The noise. The vertical sprawl. The sheer density of humanity packed into concrete towers that block out everything but themselves.
His jaw is tight. His hands rest on his thighs, fingers spread like he's grounding himself against sensory overload.
"There's no sky here." His voice is dry, almost wondering. "Just buildings pretending to be mountains."
I almost laugh. The observation is so perfectly Jake—practical, blunt, seeing straight through to what's missing rather than what's present.
But laughter feels dangerous now. Like something that might crack open into crying if I let it start.
"You get used to it," I say instead.
"Do you?" He looks at me, really looks, and I see the question underneath. Did you ever actually get used to this? Or were you always suffocating?
I don't answer. The car pulls up to the building where I grew up, and suddenly I'm twenty-one and six and fourteen all at once, every version of myself colliding in the lobby where doormen still remember my name.
The elevator doors open and Maria is there, her face crumpling the moment she sees me. She knows me too well. Stayed when my parents traveled and the nannies rotated through like seasonal help.
"Miss Adison." Her arms wrap around me, warm and fierce and smelling like the kitchen where she taught me to make hot chocolate at midnight. "Thank God. Thank God you came."
I hold her tighter than I should. "Thank you for calling me."
"He would have let you find out after." Her voice drops, thick with something that sounds like anger on my behalf. "I couldn't let that happen."
Zachary stands behind her, professional in his pressed suit, but I catch the flicker of surprise when his gaze lands on Jake. Not that I came—he'd told me my father expected that. But that I brought him.
The cowboy. The scandal is waiting to happen.
"Miss Ward." Zachary nods, then extends his hand to Jake with the smoothness of someone who usually negotiates as a pro. "Mr. Sullivan. Welcome."
Jake shakes it. "Appreciate the jet."
"Of course." Zachary's expression doesn't change, but I see him calculating. Measuring. Filing Jake away as a variable he'll need to account for later. "Your father is awake, Miss Ward. He's been waiting."
My stomach drops. "How bad is he?"
"Weak. But lucid." Zachary pauses. "He'll want to see you alone first."
I glance at Jake. He squeezes my hand once, then lets go.
"I'll be here," he says. "Go."
The walk to my father's bedroom feels like crossing a continent. Every step takes me further from the life I've built and closer to the one I escaped. The hallway smells like furniture polish and expensive flowers.
I stop at his door. Breathe. Push it open.
The sight of him steals my breath.
Richard Ward—diminished, pale, propped against pillows in the room where he once seemed invincible. The man who commanded boardrooms and controlled empires now looks like something the world is slowly erasing.
He sees me. His eyes sharpen, and for a moment he's himself again. The father who terrified me. The father I wanted desperately to please.
"Adison." My name is a rasp. "You came."
I can't speak. Can't move. Just stand in the doorway watching him die in slow motion.
"I hid it from you." He doesn't wait for accusations. Confesses before I can form words. "The diagnosis. Because I wanted you settled first. Married to Charles. Safe. Provided for." His hand lifts slightly from the blanket, then falls back like the effort exhausted him. "Before I ran out of time to ensure it."
The rage rises so fast it chokes me.
"You were going to let me find out after you died?" My voice shakes. "That was your plan? Protect me by keeping me in the dark until it was too late?"
"It was the only way to—"
"I came with Jake." The words cut through his justification like a blade. "He left his ranch for me. Flew across the country to be here. For me."
Richard's expression sharpens despite his weakness. Something dangerous flickers behind the exhaustion.
"You brought Sullivan here?" Each word is precise. Furious. "To my home?"
"He's my fiancé." I hold up my left hand. The ring catches the afternoon light streaming through windows that overlook a city I no longer belong to. "Jake is my destiny. My future husband."
"Impossible." The word cracks out of him with pain. "You didn't think about the consequences. Didn't ask—"
"Yes, without your permission." I step closer, watching his face contort with emotions he's too weak to hide. "I'm not your property, Dad. I'm not a merger you can negotiate. I'm your daughter, and I chose Jake."
"You chose a man twice your age who's been in love with your mother for twenty years." His voice rises, sharper than it should be for someone this sick. "You chose to throw away everything I built for you—"
"You built a cage. I escaped it."
We argue—clipped, vicious, familiar. The same patterns we've carved into each other for years. I push. He dismisses. Neither of us yields.
Then his face contorts.
Pain. Real pain. The kind that turns skin gray and makes strong men whimper.
A nurse rushes in, appearing from somewhere I didn't notice, already reaching for the IV. Painkillers. Dosages I don't understand. Medical terminology that sounds like surrender.
I watch my father's features smooth into drugged calm. Watch his eyes fight to stay open even as the medication pulls him under.
"I will marry Jake." I say it clearly. Need him to hear it before he's gone completely. "Nothing you say will change that."
Richard's hand twitches. His voice comes out barely a whisper, slurred but desperate.
"You cannot. Not now. Not when my enterprise is under threat."
I stare at him without comprehension. The words don't fit together. Don't make sense in any context I can access.
"What do you mean?"