Chapter 6 - The Hunt and The Collision
Six months later.
Rockport, Maine.
The Atlantic wind was sharp with the scent of salt, pine needles, and coming winter. Gulls wheeled over the gray harbor, crying out against the roar of the incoming tide that battered the rocky granite cliffs.
On the main street of the coastal village, tucked between a lobster co-op and a vintage bookstore, stood a small shop with a freshly painted sage-green door. The wooden sign hanging above read: *The Draftsman’s Hearth – Architectural & Interior Restorations.*
Inside, the air was warm with the scent of dried lavender, cedar shavings, and cinnamon tea.
Elena Vance—she had discarded the name Cole the day she stepped onto the bus at Port Authority—stood behind the solid oak drafting table. She was wearing a thick, cream-colored wool sweater that fell loosely over her enormous, round belly.
She was thirty-one weeks pregnant.
Her cheeks were flushed with health, her dark hair was gathered in a loose braid over her shoulder, and her skin possessed that luminous, ethereal glow of a woman who had fought through the storm and emerged victorious on the other side.
The first two months in Maine had been hell.
She had spent six weeks in a local clinic, hooked up to intravenous progesterone, her hands trembling every time she felt a sharp cramp in her lower abdomen, terrified that she would lose the only piece of love she had left.
The local doctor, an elderly woman with gentle hands, had sat by her bed and held her fingers. *“You’re safe now, honey. The baby is holding on. But you have to let go of the ghosts in your head. A broken heart can kill a pregnancy faster than low hormones.”*
So, Elena had let him go.
She had buried Adrien Cole deep in the frozen soil of her past. She hadn't looked at a single news article. She hadn't opened a financial paper. She had poured her soul into restoring old Victorian cottages along the coast, earning enough to pay her medical bills and build a warm, safe nursery in her grandmother’s seaside cottage.
“Elena, you shouldn't be standing on your feet for so long,” called out Hannah, a local girl who helped run the shop’s front desk. “Sit down before that little girl decides to kick your ribs out.”
Elena laughed, resting a hand beneath the curve of her belly. The baby responded instantly, rolling against her palm with a strong, distinct thump that made her breath catch in pure joy.
“She’s stubborn, Hannah,” Elena said with a smile. “She gets that from her…”
She stopped herself.
*From her father.*
Even now, six months later, the phantom of Adrien Cole occasionally drifted through her thoughts. Not with longing, but with a dull, distant ache, like an old surgical scar before a rainstorm.
Suddenly, the brass bell above the front door jingled.
“We’re closing in ten minutes!” Hannah called out from the back office.
The cold ocean wind swept inside, bringing with it the scent of wet asphalt and rain.
Elena looked up from her blueprints, a welcoming customer-service smile ready on her lips.
“Hello, how can I help—”
The words died in her throat.
The pencil slipped from her fingers, clattering against the oak drafting table and rolling off the edge onto the polished pine floor.
Standing in the doorway was a ghost.
Adrien.
He looked as if he had walked through the fires of hell to get there.
He wasn't wearing his bespoke suits or his immaculate overcoats. He wore a dark, rain-soaked wool jacket, heavy boots, and his hair—usually styled with military precision—was damp, messy, and falling into his face.
He had lost weight. His cheekbones were hollowed out, his jaw covered in a three-day shadow of dark stubble. But it was his eyes that terrified her.
They were sunken, rimmed with red, and filled with a desperation so raw, so violently agonizing, that he looked like a man drowning three feet from the shore.
Adrien stood frozen in the doorway, staring across the room.
His gaze dropped slowly from her face down to her chest, and then… to her stomach.
When his eyes landed on the massive, unmistakable swell beneath her cream sweater, every muscle in his body visibly gave way. A shudder ripped through his broad shoulders, so violent he had to reach out and brace his hand against the doorframe to keep from collapsing.
“Elena,” he choked out.
His voice wasn't the calm, commanding baritone of the Cole Group CEO. It was cracked, ruined, stripped down to bare nerve endings.
Elena’s heart surged into her throat, beating with frantic, wild terror. Her hands flew instinctively over her belly, wrapping around her unborn child in a fierce, protective shield.
“Get out,” she whispered.
Adrien took a step forward, his boots leaving wet, muddy prints on the clean floor. “Elena… please.”
“Hannah! Call the police!” Elena shouted, backing away toward the wall until her spine hit the bookshelf. “Get out of my shop, Adrien! Get away from me!”
May you like
“Don’t call anyone! Please, don’t!” Adrien raised his hands, palms open, trembling uncontrollably. He stopped five feet from the counter, dropping his head as if he couldn't bear the blinding light of her presence. “I’m not here to hurt you. I swear to God, Elena, I’m not here to take you back. Just… don’t run. Please. Don’t run from me again.”
***
