Audrey's POV
Dinner was great. Bonding again with my family was great. But as soon as I excused myself to my room, the weight of everything came back. My room looked the same as when I left it—soft colors, familiar perfume on the curtains—but I looked different. Older. Tired.
I grabbed my phone and finally checked who had been emailing me nonstop. Call me. It's urgent. I'm in El Salvador, the email said.
Switching on my old phone felt like opening a wound. It buzzed immediately—hundreds of missed calls and unread messages.
"Simon… why do you keep emailing me?" I muttered. "And what made you think I'm in El Salvador?"
Locking my door, I finally answered.
"Well, for a start, I love you," Simon's voice came through the line, bold as always. "And I had no plan on giving up on you, dear Audrey. So here's the thing: we got news there was no record of Audrey Anderson on any flight that left the airport. The police assumed it was a kidnapping. I did a little digging because I was worried. Found some pretty interesting stuff. Put one and two together, and voilà, here I am."
"Excuse me?" I frowned. "What are you talking about?" I assume Jeremy didn't even care if I were kidnapped, why would he? I thought—well—I hated myself for being disappointed in him.
"Well, I found out a Shepherd private jet picked up an important guest that same day and it clicked. You're Audrey Shepherd Anderson—the heiress of the Shepherd Anderson family. It explains everything. Your expensive taste. Your sense of fashion. Which I don't care about, by the way. But it makes me wonder why you actually stood there and let the Gillians think you were an orphan."
"You really have a very vivid imagination, Simon," I said coldly. "But seriously, I want you to stop. Please. Let me just have some peace, okay? I'm going through a lot right now and all I want is to forget."
"I'm sorry, Audrey. That's not happening," he said. His voice softened, but there was a stubborn edge to it. "I know you care about me. I know we have some connection. You can deny it all you want. I might have to compel you to admit it or just try the hard way and win you over all over again."
I shook my head. His charm wasn't working on me anymore.
"So as much as I'd like to show up at your doorstep," Simon continued, "I figure your family would kill any Gillian they see—and well, my stupid nephew deserves it. But for now, I want to keep my head long enough to win you over. So meet me at the Hawia Sky Hotel… or I'll come to your house. You pick."
"What makes you think you can force my hand?" I snapped. "You're in my country, and I can actually make sure you're on the next flight back to Anderia. Don't, for one second, take me for the same Audrey—your nephew's ex-wife."
"My bad, Audrey, I just—" Simon tried to say, but I ended the call and threw the phone across the bed.
He could be charming, but I was done. Done with the Gillians.
Simon's POV
The line went dead.
She hung up on me.
For a moment, I just stared at the phone in my hand, fighting the urge to throw it against the wall. Nobody hangs up on Simon Gillian. Nobody.
But she did.
Audrey Shepherd Anderson. The woman who'd haunted me for years, the one I should have fought for the moment I saw her. The one my idiot nephew didn't deserve.
I poured myself a glass of whiskey, though my hands were already steady. It wasn't nerves—it was anger. Anger that she still thought she had to carry everything on her shoulders. Anger that she thought she could cut me off with a single word.
But underneath the anger was something worse. Something that made my chest tighten.
Fear.
Because for the first time, I'd seen it in her voice. The break. The exhaustion. The way she was grasping at strength when she had nothing left to give.
She was hiding. She was running. And not just from me.
I downed the whiskey in one gulp and leaned back, staring at the ceiling of the hotel suite.
"She still thinks I'm chasing her for fun," I muttered. "As if this is a game."
No. This wasn't a game.
I remembered her smile—bright, unguarded, rare. The way she peeled shrimp for Jeremy, the way she fussed over everyone but herself. The way she carried the Gillians' insults like armor and never once let her crown slip, even when she hid it.
And the way she looked at me, once, just once, when she thought I wasn't paying attention. A look that burned through me and branded me forever.
I should've stepped in then. Taken her. Protected her.
Instead, I played along. Let my nephew have her. Watched her get crushed.
Not this time.
If she thought hanging up on me was the end, she was wrong. Audrey didn't know it yet, but she was mine. Whether she wanted to admit it or not.
I pulled out my phone again and opened a file I'd been building—every piece of information I'd collected since the day she disappeared from Andoria. Flight logs. Hospital visits. Security footage. I had half a map of her life already, and soon I'd have the rest, especially her life here before she moves to Andoria.
She could run. She could slam doors in my face. But I'd never stop.
I wasn't Jeremy. I wasn't going to let her slip through my fingers.
"You can hate me for it, Audrey," I said to the empty room, "but I'll drag you back into the light, kicking and screaming if I have to."
And if her powerful family tried to stand in my way?
Let them.
I was Simon Gillian. And I'd already decided—Audrey Shepherd Anderson would be mine.