Dusk Snow Hides All Return (Rowan and Adrienne) novel Chapter 10

Chapter 10.

After looking after a cold–strikken Desmond, Adrienne made another stop at the company.

By eleven at night, she finally wrapped up that endless cross–border M&A meeting

Walking out of the conference room, she checked her phone out of habit.

The screen was clean. A few work emails. Nothing from Rowan.

She rubbed her throbbing temples and slid into the car.

When the driver asked where to, she almost said home. Then the words shifted on her tongue. “The Ashford Estate.”

The car glided forward. City lights streaked past the window.

Adrienne leaned back and closed her eyes. But all she could see was the look in Rowan’s eyes when he walked out of the Detention Center–calm to the point of lifeless. Her chest tightened out of nowhere.

Irritated, she unbuttoned her collar, trying to shake off the uneasy feeling crawling up her spine.

Just stopping by to check on him.

He’d just gotten out of that place today. He was still hurt.

It’s what a fiancée is supposed to do. That’s all, she told herself.

The car turned into Brookridge Estates and pulled up outside the Ashford gates.

The whole house was pitch black. Only the motion light above the front entrance cast a faint yellow glow.

Normally at this hour, there’d at least be a lamp on in the living room. The household staff should be in the kitchen putting together a late–night meal. Tonight was dead quiet. It felt wrong.

Adrienne hit the doorbell. Waited a long time. No answer.

The unease in her chest started to swell. She keyed in the code and let herself in.

The entryway light was off. A single floor lamp dimly lit the living room.

Three figures sat on the couch: Mr. Ashford Sr., Mrs. Ashford, and Desmond.

The air in the room felt frozen, thick with a heavy silence.

Adrienne changed her shoes and stepped inside. Her eyes went straight to the coffee table in the center of the living room.

Two documents sat there, laid out neat and square.

Her steps

stalled. An awful feeling grabbed her heart instantly.

She crossed the room in a few strides and picked up the papers.

The white A4 paper and black headings seared her eyes in the dim light.

Voluntary Declaration of Severance of Parent–Child Relationship.

Engagement Dissolution Agreement.

Messaging app, texts, and every possible way to contact him all vanished into the void.

She whipped around to Mr. Ashford Sr. and Mrs. Ashford, her eyes bloodshot. “When did he leave?! When was the last time either of you contacted him?!”

Mrs. Ashford was thrown by the look on her face. She fumbled for her phone, pulled up the text, and held it out. “This… this one. We… we lied and told him we had to go to a charity gala. Told him to grab a cab home himself…”

Adrienne read the words on the screen and felt like a fist had slammed into her chest.

She practically ripped her own phone out, pulling up her message/thread. The message she’d sent him-“Meeting at work, I’ll come by later“-still sat there.

Two messages. Sent minutes apart.

She and his parents, right when he had just walked out of the Detention Center with his body and soul in pieces, had all chosen to abandon him and take care of someone else who was perfectly fine.

“Ha…” Adrienne let out a low, dry laugh. Raw self–mockery and panic laced through it.

Mr. Ashford Sr. stammered, trying to explain. “I… I thought he was just throwing a fit… He’s pulled this kind of thing before, a few r days, some sweet–talking, and he’d come around…”

Before?

Adrienne suddenly remembered the calm look in Rowan’s eyes when he left the hospital room, the cold touch of his fingers peeling hers off, and his back as he walked out with the police officers without ever looking back.

That wasn’t throwing a fit. That was a heart that had stopped.

A wave of pure, drowning panic crashed over her.

She didn’t spare the three of them behind her another glance. She spun around and bolted for the stairs, took them two at a time, and shoved Rowan’s bedroom door open.