I Left Them in Grief Chapter 06

I Left Them in Grief Chapter 06

A funeral home employee stepped through the crowd and approached Brennon.

“Are you the husband of Maren Ashford?”

Brennon nodded, still dazed.

The employee placed the urn in his hands.

“These are her remains. She died from a fall–it appears to have been intentional. We’re very sorry for your

loss.”

Brennon’s hands shook as he lifted the lid. Inside, catching the light, sat a pair of diamond earrings he would

have recognized anywhere.

He stared at them for a long moment. Nobody moved.

Then his whole body convulsed–and he collapsed to his knees, coughing up blood.

The video cut out there.

I watched that clip three months after it happened, sitting behind the counter of a little bakery Maeve and I

had opened on a side street overseas.

The news cycle had moved on by then. Ashford Capital had observed a month of silence following Mrs.

Ashford’s passing.

Brennon, as the CEO, had taken an indefinite leave–grief, the official statement said. He hadn’t been back to

the office since.

As for Selah–the moment I was gone, Brennon wanted nothing to do with her.

Word got out that she’d been behind more than a few things that had been blamed on me. When Brennon found out the full picture, he threw her out of the house.

Callum and Elodie hadn’t been spared either.

Brennon had packed them off to a private boarding school, citing their coldness toward their own mother.

They weren’t allowed home.

Someone in the comments wrote: [He clearly loved her so much. If I were his wife, I’d have been head over heels.]

I made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh and went back to spreading chocolate ganache on a loaf.

If that person had lived even one week of what I had, they wouldn’t be writing things like that.

I was the bakery owner now. Word had gotten around the neighborhood that I knew what I was doing, and business was steady. The regulars were warm.

I’d assumed that was how the rest of my life would go.

Then, two years later, I walked out of a kitchen supply shop with a new baking sheet under my arm–and felt

someone staring at me.

I turned around.

Brennon.

Two years had done something to him. The polish was gone. He’d lost weight he couldn’t afford to lose, and he looked a decade older–hollowed out, unsteady, like a man still waiting to hit the ground.

He was staring at me like he’d seen something he couldn’t trust.

I kept my face neutral, gripped the bag, and walked toward the bakery.

“Maren–wait.” His voice cracked on my name.

I didn’t stop. I walked faster.

Footsteps behind me, then a hand closed around my wrist–hard enough that I flinched.

“It’s you.” He was breathing like he’d been running for two years and had just now stopped. “I’d know you

anywhere.”

He stepped forward, arms already moving to pull me in.

I drove my heel down onto his foot.

He hissed and stumbled back. I put two steps between us.

“I don’t know you.” My voice came out in the local language, sharp and clear despite the tremor underneath it. “And if you put your hands on me again, I’m calling the police.”

Brennon stood there, wincing, and still looked at me like I was the only thing in the world.

“You’re my wife,” he said. “You have the same scar by your eye–you got that because of me. I’ve never forgotten-” His voice broke. “You faked it. You didn’t actually die.”