Chapter 1
Chapter 1:
The phone call that would rearrange the rest of Lara Ashworth’s life came on a Tuesday, which felt about right. Mondays were for catastrophes. Wednesdays were for regret.
But Tuesdays — Tuesdays were for quiet decisions that only looked small from the outside.
“Lara, years ago we arranged a marriage for you at home.” Her mother’s voice carried the particular weight of a woman who had rehearsed this speech in the shower. “Now that you’ve almost recovered, we were wondering — would you be willing to come back to Thornfield? To get married p>
A pause. Then Dorothy added, in a softer register, “If you still don’t want to, I’ll speak with your father again. We can cancel the whole thing p>
Lara sat cross-legged on the bed in her darkened room, the phone pressed to her ear, the curtains drawn against the late afternoon sun.
Downstairs, the bass from the party speakers thumped through the floorboards like a second heartbeat — steady, relentless, someone else’s joy vibrating through her bones.
She should have said no. That was the sensible answer, the expected one, the answer Dorothy had clearly braced herself for. Lara could hear it in the way her mother held her breath — that anticipatory flinch of a woman preparing to be disappointed gracefully.
Instead, Lara heard herself say: “I’m willing to return and get married p>
The silence on the other end lasted three full seconds. Long enough for Lara to count the thumps from the floor below. One. Two. Three.
“You’ve really accepted?” Dorothy’s voice cracked with disbelief, as though Lara had just announced she was taking up skydiving or moving to a monastery or doing anything other than the one thing Dorothy had spent years hoping she’d do.
“I’ve accepted.” Lara kept her voice level, clinical almost — the tone she used for client presentations and for keeping herself from unraveling. “But I need a couple of weeks to wrap things up here in Halcombe. Resign from work. Tie up loose ends. You can start preparing the wedding p>
She gave a few more instructions — practical things about dress fittings and guest lists and the particular shade of ivory her grandmother would insist upon — and then she hung up.
The moment the call ended, the noise from downstairs crashed into the silence like water flooding a dry room.
Bass, laughter, the clink of glasses, and somewhere in the middle of it all, a chorus of voices butchering Happy Birthday with the cheerful imprecision of people who’d had too much champagne.
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Bridget Nolan’s birthday party. Organized, of course, by Callum Hargrove and Declan Thorne.
Because apparently the girl had been in their lives for barely a month, and already she warranted the full production — catered food, a playlist, enough flowers to stock a florist’s shop.
Lara uncrossed her legs and pressed her bare feet against the cold hardwood floor. She was not going to think about it. She was going to sit in this room and finish the Henderson account and be an adult about all of this.
That resolution lasted approximately four minutes.
Footsteps in the hallway. Light, quick, with the deliberate tap-tap-tap of someone who wanted to be heard approaching. Then a knock — playful, three little raps — and before Lara could respond, the door swung open.
Bridget stood in the doorway, haloed by the warm light from the corridor, holding a Black Forest cake with both hands like a ceremonial offering. Her makeup was meticulous — a full hour’s work, at least — but someone had smudged whipped cream on her cheek, and whether that was an accident or a calculated detail, Lara honestly couldn’t tell anymore.
“Lara!” Bridget’s eyes — wide, dark, perpetually startled, the kind of eyes that made men want to solve problems — blinked three times in quick succession. “Come have fun with us. Please? Everyone’s asking where you are p>
No one was asking where she was. Lara was quite certain of that.
“I’m working,” Lara said, not moving from the edge of her bed. “Go enjoy the party p>
The shift was instantaneous.
Bridget’s lower lip trembled — not a lot, just enough — and her eyes went glassy with the precision of an actress hitting her mark.
“Lara… is it that you don’t like me? Is that why you’re making excuses p>
There it was. The script. Lara had watched this performance enough times to recognize the beats: the wounded voice, the downcast eyes, the implication that Lara was the villain in a story where Bridget was merely trying to be kind. It was beautifully done, really. If Lara hadn’t seen her rehearse the same trembling lip on Callum last Wednesday — over a parking spot, of all things — she might have fallen for it herself.
“Save that act for Callum and Declan,” Lara said, her voice flat as a closed door. “It doesn’t work on me p>
She stood and moved to shut the door.
A clean ending.
A period at the end of a sentence.
But Bridget’s hand shot out and caught the doorframe.
The timing was wrong, or perhaps it was exactly right — Lara was already pushing the door closed, and Bridget’s fingers were there, pale and slender, wedged between wood and wood.
The crack was small but audible.
“Ah p>
Bridget yanked her hand back. The skin across her knuckles had already begun to purple, a bruise blooming in real time like ink dropped in water.
And that was when Callum and Declan appeared at the top of the stairs, as if summoned by the sound of a woman in distress — which, Lara supposed, was more or less exactly what had happened.