The man who once swore he'd spoil me for the rest of my life, who promised I'd never suffer—that man was dead. The years had killed him.
I couldn't stay here. There was one thing I still had to do.
I clenched my teeth, braced my elbows against the ground, and dragged myself forward inch by inch.
Dirt, gravel, snapped twigs. They carved bloody lines across my body, still raw from surgery.
I didn't know how long I crawled before I finally saw the edge of the woodland.
There was light.
I threw everything I had left into reaching it, but two tall figures stepped into my path.
Giles's bodyguards.
They looked down at me. Nothing but contempt and amusement in their eyes.
"Mrs. Gilbert, CEO Gilbert says if you won't apologize, you're never stepping out of these woods."
"Bathroom, sleep—you do it right here on the ground."
One of them delivered it without inflection.
"Honestly, Mrs. Gilbert, just apologize already. You know what kind of money CEO Gilbert's got? There's women lined up out the door waiting for him to keep them. You're an orphan—latching onto a man like him is more luck than you deserved in ten lifetimes. And you won't even give him a kid because you're scared it'll hurt…"