---- Chapter 6 Almeda Hughes POV: The road stretched out before me, a ribbon of asphalt leading away from a life | had finally escaped. My phone buzzed on the passenger seat. It was a text from Gladys. "He stood on the lawn for almost an hour after you left. Just staring. I've never seen him like that. Are you sure about this, Almeda?" | pulled over to the shoulder of the highway, my hands tight on the steering wheel. 'I'm more sure of this than I've been of anything in six years," | typed back. Her reply was almost instantaneous. 'Where will you go?" "Home. To the house my parents left me." There was a long pause before her next message came through. 'I' ve had it professionally cleaned and the utilities kept on, just in case. The key is under the mat. Please, be safe. A lump formed in my throat. Even in her guilt, Gladys had cared for me. She had given me a lifeline | never knew | had. ---- "Thank you, Gladys. For everything." | put the phone away and merged back into traffic. A few hours later, | was pulling into the driveway of a small, charming clapboard house in a quiet, tree-lined town hundreds of miles from Hector's world. My home. The pet crematorium had been discreet and compassionate. A small, carved wooden box now sat on the passenger seat. It felt impossibly light. | found the key exactly where Gladys said it would be. The air inside the house was clean and fresh, not musty and forgotten. Everything was just as | had left it, covered in white sheets like sleeping ghosts. It was a time capsule of a life before Hector Porter. | spent the next few days in a quiet haze, setting Buddy's ashes on the mantelpiece and slowly, methodically, reclaiming my space. | planned to open a small restaurant, a dream | had deferred for six years. My cooking wouldn't be 'functional' here. It would be my passion, my art, my new life. Hector had been right about one thing. The prenup was ironclad. | walked away with a one-time settlement. It wasn't his billions, but it was more than enough to start over. It was the price of my freedom, and | considered it a bargain. He thought the money was a leash; | saw it as my escape fund. ---- Hector Porter POV: The divorce papers sat on my desk, a monument to my own stupidity. Her signature was a clean, elegant script. Mine was an angry slash. | threw them into a drawer, out of sight. | didn't want to look at them. | didn't want to think about what they represented. She left over a dog. A damned dog. The thought was infuriating. It was insulting. For days, | told myself | was better off. The house was quieter. Jacob was happier with Helene doting on him. Everything was as it should be. Geneva' s memory, embodied by Helene, was finally where it belonged, at the center of our home. But a strange emptiness had taken root. |' d find myself waiting for the scent of coffee in the morning, only to remember Almeda wasn't there to make it. I' d come home expecting the quiet hum of a house being run with silent efficiency, and instead find chaos-takeout containers overflowing the trash, Jacob' s toys strewn everywhere. Helene tried. She fluttered around, playing the part of the perfect homemaker, but it was a clumsy performance. She burned the toast. She couldn't figure out the washing machine. She had no idea about Jacob's allergies, nearly giving him a granola bar with almonds in it. | found myself growing irritated with her, with the constant, ---- cloying sweetness that was so different from Almeda's quiet competence. "She'll be back," | muttered to myself in my office one night, staring at a blank screen. "She has nothing. She'll realize her mistake and come crawling back." But a week turned into two, and there was only silence. | called my head of security, a man whose discretion | trusted. "Find out where Almeda Hughes is," | ordered, using her maiden name for the first time in years. "| want to know what she's doing. Report back to me only." "Mr. Porter," he said, a note of hesitation in his voice. "Are you sure? After..." "Just do it," | snapped, and hung up. A few days later, my security chief, a burly man named Mark, stood in my office doorway, a file in his hand. "Sir, we've located Ms. Hughes." As Mark was about to enter, Helene came bustling down the hall, carrying a tray. She didn't see him and collided with him, spilling coffee all over his suit. "Watch where you're going, you clumsy oaf!" she shrieked, her sweet facade vanishing in an instant. Her face was contorted in an ugly sneer. "Do you know how expensive this dress is? I'll have Hector fire you for this!"