Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

Ophelia

Three hours after I received the news that Keane Stone was awake, I’m sitting on a private jet bound for Greenwich, staring blankly out the window as the world below blurs by. Keane has been alive all this time. The words loop in my mind, surreal and relentless, a truth I’m struggling to wrap my head around.

Keane is alive and I can’t understand how.

The fragments of information I have don’t add up to anything coherent. His parents did take him off life support—that much wasn’t a lie. I remember the cold finality of that, the way his mother confirmed he was gone. But somehow, even after all hope seemed lost, Keane kept breathing on his own.

They moved him to their home in Greenwich and for years, he lay there, suspended between life and death, sustained by sheer chance and the funds from his father’s estate. It still doesn’t explain where the fuck Rowan Stone is. He never got along with his younger brother, but mostly because their mother had fun building a rivalry between them. You’d think that after all these years and knowing that his brother is in a coma he’d give two fucks, right?

Wrong.

Keane has been cared for by maids, private nurses, and therapists—all paid by his trust who have tended to him in quiet secrecy, watching over him while the world assumed he was gone. When his condition changed—when he finally opened his eyes—they sent him back to the hospital to run tests, to see how much of him had come back.

And now that they need his guardian they called me. Not Rowan—me. Why am I the only person legally authorized to make decisions for him?

Who in their right mind left me as his guardian.

And if I’m his guardian, why did no one call me when his father passed? Why was I left completely in the dark for all these years? If I ever see Rowan again, I’m going to give him a piece of my mind.

He’ll also have to explain to me how this all worked. The doctors had no certainty he’d ever wake up, no guarantee he’d be anything more than a body lying in a bed. Why would his parents lie to the world? I can understand, maybe, why they’d keep him away from me. But to let everyone believe he was gone?

I stare out the window, watching the clouds blur past, and try to process it all. Keane has been alive, somewhere out there, all this time—and now I’m flying across the country to see him. A man I grieved, a man I buried in my heart, only to find out he’s been lying in that suspended state for years—alive, unreachable.

How am I supposed to make sense of any of this?

I glance around the cabin, feeling almost detached, like I’m watching someone else’s life play out in front of me. The soft hum of the engines, the faint sway of the plane, even the polished gleam of the leather seats—it all feels distant, unreal, like I’m floating outside of my own body. Like any second, I’ll snap out of it and find myself back in bed, curled up beside Haydn, with no phone call, no impossible trip into the past.

Beside me, Haydn shifts, reaching over to rest his hand gently on mine. He doesn’t say anything, but his fingers tighten just slightly, reminding me that he’s here. That he didn’t let me do this alone, even though he can only spare a couple of days before training pulls him back.

I’m grateful he came, grateful for the way he grounds me, but I can’t ignore the unspoken question lingering between us: what does this mean for us?

Keane is my past—the part of me I thought I’d closed off, healed from. Haydn is here, now, flesh and blood, the man who held me together when I thought I’d never feel whole again. But with Keane awake, everything feels tangled, uncertain, like I’m being pulled in two directions by forces I can’t control.

Am I supposed to go back to Keane, to honor the promises we made? Or am I meant to stay with Haydn—the man who loves me now, who’s been here for me in ways I never thought anyone could?

I let out a shaky breath, and Haydn’s hand squeezes mine, his silent reassurance grounding me in the chaos swirling inside. His voice breaks through the quiet. “It’s going to be fine. We’ll figure it out once we talk to the doctors. You said it yourself—he has a brother. Lang said he’d start looking for him in a couple of days. Something about a business trip or being off the grid . . . I didn’t catch all of it.”

I nod, but his words don’t soothe the plethora of emotions rushing through me. Fear, doubt, confusion—they’re all there, a tangled mess that I can’t unravel. I glance over at Haydn, his quiet resolve etched into the lines of his face. The way he looks at me—like he’s absorbing some of my pain—makes my throat tighten. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel,” I whisper, the admission hanging between us like a fragile thread.

Haydn’s gaze softens, his thumb brushing gently over my knuckles. “You don’t have to feel anything specific. This . . . it’s too much for anyone. Just take it one breath at a time.”

One breath at a time. Easy to say, impossible to do when every breath feels like it’s clawing its way out of my lungs.

If only it were as simple as listening to the doctors and pretending today never happened. But it’s not. It’s never that simple. I want to believe I can walk into this mess without falling apart, without unraveling everything I’ve fought so hard to rebuild. But the truth is, I don’t know if I can. The thought of seeing Keane, of looking into his eyes, terrifies me. What if I’m pulled back into that world, into the grief and the promises I’ve long since buried?

The flight drags on, each minute stretching into an eternity. Every mile brings me closer to Keane, to the man I thought I’d lost forever. And the closer we get, the harder it becomes to breathe. To ignore the ghosts of the past creeping in, stirring up emotions I thought I’d buried for good.

“Do you think . . .” I start, my voice barely audible. “Do you think he’ll remember me?”

Haydn turns to me, his expression unreadable for a moment. Then he nods, his eyes meeting mine with quiet understanding. “I think some things are too powerful to forget, even in a coma.” His voice softens. “But remember, Pia . . . he’s waking up to a world he doesn’t recognize. Time has passed but he won’t know anything beyond five years ago. You’ll have to be gentle and understanding.”

As long as Haydn understands my role here, we’re probably going to be okay, right? I swallow hard, trying to process what they mean. I’m not the same woman Keane left behind, and I’m not sure if the woman I am now could love the man he was back then.

The plane begins its descent, and my heart races, torn between the life I’ve built and the life waiting for me in that hospital room.

Keane is alive.

I lean back, closing my eyes, trying to summon his face as it was—before everything fell apart. Flashes of memory come, jagged and fragmented. I can still hear his laugh. I can see the way his eyes lit up when he looked at me. But those moments are tangled now with darker ones—memories of the accident, the blood, the losses.

We were so happy but after that night . . . everything changed. One moment, he was there, full of life and promises, and the next . . . nothing. Just silence.

A deafening silence I finally quieted, and now it’s back. Fuck, how am I supposed to survive my past one more time?