The End of a Marriage (Colette and Matheo) novel Chapter 200

Chapter 200

Graham’s head throbbed with a relentless buzz, a dull, incessant ache

that seemed to pulse in time with his frayed nerves. Sleep had evaded

him for two weeks, leaving his eyes bloodshot and rimmed with dark

shadows. The scruff on his jaw had grown into a thick, unkempt

beard, the once–sharp edges of his appearance dulled by neglect. At

35, Graham looked a decade older, the strain of the past weeks

carving lines of exhaustion into his face. Worry, he had learned, could

age a man overnight.

But it wasn’t the sleepless nights or his disheveled appearance that

gnawed at him–it was the guilt. Heavy and suffocating, it wrapped

around him like a vice. Isla was gone. The girl his father had

entrusted to him, the girl he had sworn to protect, had vanished

under his watch. And he had failed her. Miserably.

The guilt was a constant companion, but it was often overshadowed

by something far more paralyzing: fear. A raw, spine–chilling fear that

kept him awake at night and drove him to the edge of reason during

the day. Isla had never been beyond the safe, familiar borders of

Willow Creek. She was innocent–too innocent–and oblivious to the

cruelty the world could unleash. Graham shuddered to imagine what

might have happened to her in the weeks since she’d disappeared.

His life in New York felt like a distant memory now. Two weeks ago,

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his billion–dollar company had been on the brink of sealing a

lucrative deal with a major European firm. It was a deal he had been

meticulously preparing for months, one that could have secured

billions in investments. But his absence had cost them dearly.

Without him to oversee the negotiations, the opportunity had slipped

through their fingers.

And then there was the mall project in Los Angeles–a high–stakes

venture that was already behind schedule. Every day the project was

delayed meant millions of dollars lost, and yet Graham couldn’t bring

himself to leave Willow Creek. He had chosen to stay, pacing the halls of Thornfield Manor, staring down the empty driveway, and clinging

to the faint hope that Isla would walk back through the front door.

But she hadn’t.

When the local police failed to uncover any leads, Graham decided to

take matters into his own hands. He had reached out to his network

of contacts, tapping into the resources of the city’s best private investigator. For two grueling weeks, he waited, the silence stretching unbearably thin. And then, finally, there was news.

The investigator had tracked Isla to a small, obscure town on the border of Georgia and North Carolina called Magnolia Ridge. It was a hundred miles from Willow Creek, and Graham had no idea what could have led her there. He struggled to make sense of it. Why had she run? What had happened to make her flee the only home she’d

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ever known?

As he drove the long, lonely road toward Magnolia Ridge, these

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