The Man Who Never Looked Away novel Chapter 349

When Lavinia walked into the Gilmore Estate, Maeve happened to be walking out to greet her.

The moment Lavinia saw the guarded, cautious smile on Maeve's face, she knew something serious was going down today.

She caught Maeve's arm. "Maeve, why did she ask me to come over? What happened?"

Maeve's mouth opened and closed a few times before she finally swallowed hard. "You should go ask her yourself."

Lavinia's stomach dropped.

Filled with a creeping sense of dread, she stepped into the study. Judith was sitting in an armchair by the window, her reading glasses perched on her nose, a photo album resting on her lap. She was slowly turning the pages.

Lavinia forced a bright smile as she approached. "What are you looking at?"

"Just some old photos," Judith replied with a faint smile, slowly raising her eyes to look at Lavinia.

For some inexplicable reason, meeting that familiar gaze sent a shockwave through Lavinia's chest.

The way the older woman was looking at her seemed to carry the weight of a thousand unspoken words.

"The court finalized it yesterday?" Judith asked.

Lavinia hesitated for a moment before nodding. "I did my best with that marriage. But we just weren't meant to be."

"I don't blame you for it. But that's not why I asked you here."

"What is it? Did something happen?"

Judith handed her a black-and-white photograph.

It was a picture of Judith in her youth, wearing a mink coat and cradling a little girl dressed in silk.

Lavinia immediately stepped in to comfort her. "You only set up the blind date. You never forced us to get married. Everything that happened after that was our own choice. The fact that we didn't work out just means it wasn't meant to be. It's not your fault. Please don't blame yourself."

Judith reached up, wiping her tears, and pulled a color photograph from the album.

"I only just saw this picture recently. When I heard that the Pure Heart Bakery belonged to your family, I had Maeve secretly take me there. I never imagined I'd see this photo hanging on the wall."

Lavinia recognized it immediately. It was the photo Charley had restored from an old negative—a picture of her mother from when she was young.

In the photo, Lavinia's mother, Liana Lowell, was wearing a floral dress, standing by the lake in a park, smiling gently at the camera.

"That's my mom when she was twenty-five. It was the year she met my dad, before they got married," Lavinia explained.

Judith tapped a spot on the woman's neck in the photograph. "Look right here."