I didn't go to work the next day.
I couldn't.
Not after standing between two men—the one I used to love, and the one whose kiss still burned on my lips.
Instead, I stayed home, curled on the window seat of my old room in the Blake mansion, where nothing had changed… and yet everything had.
The walls were still painted lavender. The books still lined the shelves.
But I was no longer the girl who once cried into her pillow when Ethan brought a girl home from uni.
I was no longer afraid of the dark.
I was afraid of what I was becoming.
A knock on the door startled me.
Before I could respond, the door opened.
James stood there, a man who didn't knock twice, his gaze heavy with something unreadable.
"I know you didn't want to see me," he said, "but I need to talk to you."
I looked away. "This isn't the time."
"Then tell me when it is, Amelia. Because I'm tired of waiting for the perfect moment to tell you something I should've said years ago."
My heart skipped.
He stepped inside, closing the door gently behind him. "Sit."
"I am sitting."
"Stand then," he said sharply. "Because this isn't something you should hear curled up like a scared child."
That tone. That urgency. Something shifted in my stomach.
I stood, arms crossed. "Talk."
He took a breath—then another. And then he said it.
"I knew your biological mother."
Silence.
I blinked. "What?"
"I didn't just know her," he said, voice shaking slightly. "She worked for my family."
My world tilted.
"Her name was Sophia Moore. She was my nanny for five years. I was seven when she disappeared. Everyone said she left, ran away. But I remembered her, Amelia. Her kindness. Her laugh. She loved me like her own."
"No…" I whispered. "You're lying."
He shook his head. "I didn't know it was your mother until last year. I started looking into her past. And I found records that connected her to you. To the Blakes. To… your adoption."
I took a shaky step back. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"Because I wasn't ready to give you another reason to walk away."
My breathing became ragged.
"So, what does this mean? That our lives were tangled before I ever met you?"
James nodded slowly. "More than you know. Your mother… she didn't die in an accident like the Blakes told you. She was dismissed. She was pregnant. With you. And she was framed."
My legs gave out.
I collapsed onto the edge of the bed.
The pain in my chest was deafening.
All these years, I thought the Blakes took me in out of love.
But what if it wasn't kindness?
What if it was guilt?
What if they were hiding something?
James crouched in front of me, his voice barely a whisper. "You needed to know the truth, Amelia. And I couldn't keep it from you anymore. I—I care about you too much."
Tears slipped down my cheek. My voice cracked.
"What else are you hiding?"
James looked away.
And that's when I knew—this wasn't the only secret.
But before I could push him further, my phone buzzed on the nightstand.
A message from an unknown number.
> "If you want to know who really killed your mother… stay away from James Windsor."