(Amelia's POV)
Distance isn't freedom.
It's delay.
I learned that the hard way.
For eight years, Kingston had been my small, quiet refuge—a place that didn't ask questions, where I could breathe without constantly bracing for memory.
Mornings there were slow. Predictable. I'd built a life so compact that nothing unexpected could fit inside it. Every decision, every hour, bent around one truth that didn't waver. Lucas came first. Always.
So when the envelope arrived that morning—thick paper, legal seal pressed like a wound I already recognized—I knew immediately that the past had finally found its way to my door.
I didn't open it at once. I stood at the counter with my fingers resting lightly on it, feeling the weight of something I didn't need to read to understand.
The air in the kitchen smelled of toast and cinnamon. Lucas sat at the table, his spoon clinking softly against his bowl. Ordinary sounds. They steadied me.
Still, I could feel the pulse of dread behind my ribs, steady and certain. Survival teaches you to recognize danger before it introduces itself.
When I unfolded the letter, the words were efficient and bloodless—just legal language arranged with the precision of a scalpel.
Blackwood Developments had acquired controlling interest in the Kingston Waterfront Project. And buried in the fine print of my consulting contract was a clause I'd forgotten existed: mandatory executive mediation in the event of ownership transfer.
Location: Toronto.
The name of the city landed like a bruise.
I read it again, slower this time, tracing each sentence as if a loophole might appear under my breath. It didn't. Walking away would mean breach of contract.
Breach meant financial collapse. Professional ruin. Everything I'd rebuilt since leaving Ethan would crumble in a single choice.
"Mom?" Lucas's voice broke through the fog.
He was watching me, chin propped in his hands. There was oatmeal on his sleeve and a crease across his cheek from where he'd slept too long on one side.
"That's bad news," he said.
I forced a small smile. "Complicated news."
He frowned. "That's worse."
I crossed to him and pressed a kiss to the top of his head, breathing in the scent of him—soap, sugar, safety. "I have to go to Toronto for a few days," I said carefully.
He stiffened in my arms. "That's where he is."
My hands froze. "Who?"
"The tall man," he said after a pause. "From the shiny building. He looked at me like he lost something."
I tried to steady my breath, but my chest felt tight. "You remember him?"
Lucas shrugged and took another spoonful of oatmeal. "He didn't smile."
Neither did I.
That night, after he was asleep, I sat at the kitchen table with my laptop open and the letter beside it. The contract glowed on the screen—Clause Fourteen, Executive Oversight and Continuity.
A sentence I'd skimmed years ago, trusting distance to protect me from ever needing to read it again.
I stared at the cursor blinking like an accusation. Then I booked a train ticket to Toronto before fear could talk me out of it.
The city greeted me like a scar—familiar, rigid, impossible to forget. Even the skyline looked like it was built to make people feel small. I checked into a hotel instead of returning to the apartment Ethan and I had once shared. I didn't trust memory to behave if I gave it walls.
The next morning, I walked into Blackwood Tower. The building hadn't changed. Still an exhale of glass and steel, still more monument than office. I told myself it didn't matter. I told myself I was older now, stronger.
The elevator rose too quickly, my reflection flickering in the mirrored panels until I barely recognized my own face.
He was already there when I arrived—of course he was. Ethan stood near the far window, back turned, posture precise. The skyline stretched behind him like it owed him something.
When he turned, the years fell away too easily. He looked older, yes, but not diminished. Just sharper, more controlled. The kind of man who never lost unless he decided the loss was worth something.
We didn't acknowledge the history between us. Not at first.
The lawyers spoke in polished tones. Numbers. Deadlines. Strategic courtesy. I kept my voice even, the calm of someone who had learned that composure could be armor if you wore it long enough.
Then Ethan shifted the rules.
"Ms. Cross's continued involvement is essential to the project," he said. His voice was smooth, detached. "Remote consultation won't suffice."
"My work has always been remote," I said. "That's never been an issue."
"Circumstances change."
"So do people."
A flicker crossed his expression—brief, unreadable.
"This project needs on-site management," he said.
The lawyer beside him slid a document across the table. "Revised terms. Increased compensation. Relocation assistance."
"And if I decline?"
Ethan didn't hesitate. "Then the project collapses, and your firm absorbs the liability."
There it was. The trap hidden in civility.
"You're forcing this," I said quietly.
"I'm protecting my investment."
"
And if your investment destroys lives?"
He didn't flinch. "Business isn't personal."
The lie stung, mostly because I'd once believed him when he said it meant safety.
The meeting ended without resolution, but his meaning was clear enough. I walked the city that evening until the sky turned the color of bruised metal. My feet ached, and my thoughts looped through every possible choice, but all the roads led in one direction—back toward the thing I'd tried to outlive.
fI I refused, I lost everything I'd built for Lucas.
If I agreed, I risked everything I'd kept buried.
The next morning, his assistant called to request a private meeting. I should have said no. I said yes instead.
His office was high above the city, the kind of space that made people feel replaceable. He stood at the window again, watching the streets below.
"You know why you're here," he said without turning.
"I know I'm being cornered."
He faced me then. "You always hated losing control."
"I learned that from you."
The silence that followed wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't entirely hostile either. Just heavy. Familiar.
He walked to his desk and slid a folder toward me. "Final terms."
I opened it. The compensation was generous. Authority. Security. Stability. Then I saw it—Clause Sixteen: Residency Requirement, Toronto.
"This isn't a mediation," I said. "It's leverage."
"It's reality."
"For you."
"For both of us." His tone softened, almost imperceptibly. "You didn't come back by accident."
Anger pushed through my composure.
"Don't rewrite my reasons."
"Then tell me the truth," he said. "Why did you leave?"
The question hit like a bruise pressed too hard. I closed the folder. "You don't get that answer anymore."
He studied me for a long moment, something unreadable in his eyes. Then he nodded once. "Sign. Stay. Or walk away knowing you chose pride over stability."
He placed the pen beside the contract. The room felt too still. My hand hovered for a heartbeat, then lowered.
The pen's weight surprised me.
I signed.
The sound of the ink dragging across paper felt final, heavier than any goodbye.
When I set the pen down, I realized I was shaking—not visibly, but enough to feel the tremor in my pulse.
Ethan didn't say anything. He didn't need to. The contract between us had always been more about silence than words.
As I walked out of that office, I could feel the city closing around me again. Toronto had never been a place—it had been a wound, and I had just agreed to reopen it.
I told myself it was for Lucas. For stability. For the future.
But deep down, I knew better.
This wasn't just a return. It was the beginning of something I had no control over.
And this time, silence wouldn't save me.