"Okay," I said finally. "The cabin. For now. Until I figure out... what comes next."
Relief flickered across his features, quickly masked. "I'll make the arrangements," he said, already reaching for his phone. "You can leave tomorrow morning. Or tonight, if you prefer. Whatever you want, Grace."
The words hung between us, loaded with meaning beyond their simple content. Whatever you want. As if my wants mattered. As if my choices were valid. As if I were a person with agency rather than a possession to be controlled.
It was a start. A small one, perhaps, but a start nonetheless.
"Tomorrow is fine," I said, turning back to the window, suddenly exhausted by the conversation, by the decision, by theweight of everything still unresolved between us. "I need time to pack. To... prepare."
He nodded, already typing something into his phone—instructions to staff, perhaps, or directions to the property, or whatever arrangements were necessary to transform his promise into reality. "Of course. I'll have everything ready by morning."
He moved toward the door, then paused, looking back at me with an expression I couldn't quite read. "Grace," he said, my name soft on his lips. "Whatever you decide, wherever this leads... know that I meant what I said. I love you. Not as a possession. Not as a prize. But as a person. As yourself. As the woman who has changed everything about who I thought I was, who I could be."
The words hit me with unexpected force, resonating in places I'd thought had gone numb, had died under the weight of betrayal and disillusionment. But I couldn't respond, couldn't acknowledge the emotion behind them, not now, not with everything still raw and bleeding inside me.
"Goodnight, Rafe," I said instead, a dismissal he accepted with a slight nod before leaving, closing the door softly behind him.
I stood at the window long after he'd gone, watching darkness fall over the grounds, over the world that had been my entire existence for months. Tomorrow I would leave. Would have a taste of the freedom I'd once dreamed of, had eventually stopped hoping for. Would have space to think, to process, to decide what came next in a life that had been irrevocably altered by forces beyond my control.
The thought should have brought relief, excitement, a sense of possibility. Instead, it left me feeling strangely hollow, as if I were stepping into a void rather than toward a future I could shape for myself.
Because the truth—the truth I wasn't ready to admit to Rafe, or even fully to myself—was that I had no idea who I was anymore without the identities that had defined me. Not Grace O'Sullivan, daughter of Patrick, sister of Sean and Michael and Connor. Not Grace the captive, the object of Rafe Conti's obsession and eventual affection. Not Grace the law student, the independent woman carving out her own path.
Just... Grace. Alone. Undefined. Adrift in a world that had never really wanted her, had never really seen her as anything but a pawn, a possession, a means to an end.
The realization was both terrifying and strangely liberating. If I was no one, I could become anyone. If I belonged nowhere, I could go anywhere. If no identity defined me, I could create my own, on my own terms, according to my own desires rather than the expectations of men who saw me as property rather than person.
It was a start. A painful, uncertain one, but a start nonetheless.
I slept that night for the first time in days—a deep, dreamless sleep that left me feeling if not refreshed, at least more clear-headed when morning came. I showered, dressed in comfortable clothes suitable for travel, and packed a small bag with essentials. There wasn't much I wanted to take from this place—most of the clothes, the books, the personal items had been provided by Rafe, were reminders of a captivity I was eager to leave behind, if only temporarily.
But I did take the journal I'd been keeping, the one place I'd been honest about my feelings, my fears, my evolving relationship with the man who had taken me against my will and somehow become... something else to me. Something I still couldn't quite name or categorize or justify, even to myself.
A knock at the door announced Marco, who would be driving me to the cabin. His expression was professionallyblank as always, giving no hint of what he thought about this development, about my temporary release from captivity, about whatever story Rafe had told to explain my departure.
"The car is ready, Ms. O'Sullivan," he said, reaching for my bag. "Whenever you are."
I nodded, taking one last look around the room that had been both my prison and my sanctuary for months. Felt nothing—no nostalgia, no relief, no emotion of any kind beyond a vague sense that I was leaving one chapter behind and stepping into another, with no idea what words might be written there.
"I'm ready," I said, following Marco into the hallway, down the grand staircase, through the foyer toward the front entrance where the car waited.
Rafe stood by the door, his expression carefully neutral despite the tension I could see in his shoulders, in the set of his jaw. He held out a small envelope as I approached.
"Keys to the cabin," he said, his voice steady despite the emotion I could see lurking behind his eyes. "Address. Security codes. Details about the car, the accounts I've set up for you. Everything you need."
I took the envelope, our fingers brushing briefly in a contact that once would have sent electricity through me but now felt... distant. Muted. As if I were experiencing it through layers of insulation, of protective numbness.
"Thank you," I said formally, tucking the envelope into my purse. "For this. For... respecting my decision."
He nodded, his eyes never leaving mine. "Call if you need anything," he said. "Anything at all, Grace. Day or night. I'll answer."
The simple offer, the lack of pressure or expectation or demand, touched me more than grand declarations or passionate embraces could have. This, perhaps, was the truestevidence of change—his willingness to let me go, to respect my need for space and time despite his own desires.
"I will," I promised, though we both knew it might be a lie. Might be the last words we ever spoke to each other, if I decided that disappearance was the only path forward I could bear.
He stepped back, allowing me to pass, to walk through the door into the bright morning sunlight. Marco held the car door open for me, and I slid into the back seat, not looking back as we pulled away from the house, down the long driveway toward the gates that had kept me contained for so long.
The gates opened automatically as we approached, and for the first time in months, I passed through them without guards, without Rafe beside me, without the weight of captivity pressing down on my shoulders. We turned onto the main road, heading toward the highway that would take us to the Berkshires, to the cabin, to the space and solitude I'd demanded.
