This Heiress Doesn’t Fight Anymore Chapter 07

This Heiress Doesn’t Fight Anymore Chapter 07

Bluehaven Island did sunsets like nowhere else.

I carried my bucket and took the long way home.

Milo kept pace beside me, going on about the seagulls he’d snapped that afternoon.

“Come on, Maren, give me one smile. You’ve got this face and you’re wasting it looking half–dead all day.”

He aimed his camera at me.

“Smiling takes effort. I’m in power–save mode.”

Milo cracked up.

We were just reaching my gate.

A black Maybach sat on the curb like it owned the street.

The door opened.

Graham stepped out.

It had only been a few days, but he looked like he’d dropped ten pounds.

His suit, the kind that was always pressed to perfection, was wrinkled.

Stubble darkened his jaw. His eyes were bloodshot, hollowed out. He looked at me like a man who’d been

crawling through a desert and just found water.

His eyes fixed on me.

Then they slid to Milo.

Something dangerous flickered across Graham’s face.

“Maren.”

He closed the distance in three steps. His voice cracked. “Come home with me.”

I stopped.

I looked at the man I’d once loved enough to die for.

Nothing. I felt absolutely nothing.

“I think you’re looking for someone else,” I said.

Graham grabbed my hand.

His fingers were ice–cold and shaking.

“I know everything.”

His voice dropped to something close to begging. “I was wrong. About all of it. I put you through hell and I

couldn’t even see it.”

“Come back. We’ll get married. Tomorrow, if you want. Just come back.”

I watched him beg. The great Graham, on the verge of falling apart in front of me. It was almost funny.

“Graham.”

I peeled his fingers off, one at a time.

“My heart’s already damaged, so I really can’t handle the stress of a screaming match right now. And you’re standing in front of my gate. I need to get inside and go to sleep.”

Graham’s face went white.

He stood there like I’d hit him.

“Maren…” He stared at me, lost. “How can you talk to me like I’m a stranger?”

“How would you like me to talk to you?”

I yawned, rubbing the red marks his grip had left on my wrist.

“Want me to drop to my knees and beg? Would that feel more normal to you?”

Graham’s mouth opened, then closed. The pain in his eyes was almost unbearable to look at.

“I know you’re angry. You have every right. I didn’t see what was happening. I chose Brielle on that yacht and

I..”

He reached for me again. “Bennett threw Brielle out. The whole family knows the truth now. Your parents are

so sick with guilt Mom even collapsed. Come home. You’ll be Mrs. Caldwell. For real this time. I swear.”

“Hey. Mr. Caldwell.”

Milo had seen enough.

He planted himself between us, flashing those sharp canines, zero respect in his voice.

“She said you’re in the way. So move. And maybe stop manhandling women who already told you no. It’s not

a good look.”

Graham’s eyes went cold. The kind of cold that made boardrooms go silent.

He turned the full weight of who he was on Milo.

“Move,” Graham said. Low. Lethal.

Milo didn’t flinch. “Or what?”

They stood chest to chest, a heartbeat away from throwing punches.

My head was starting to throb.

“Milo.”

He spun around. “Don’t worry, Maren. I’ve got you!”

“Take this inside for me.” I shoved the bucket at him, stepped around Graham, and pushed through my gate.

Bang.

The gate swung shut in Graham’s face.

I slid the lock.