Chapter Text
Present day (Australia)
Ryan returned home long after the dinner crowd had dwindled and the kitchen lights at Eden & Ember were shut off, but the exhaustion sat strange under his skin tonight. His body was tired, yes, muscles heavy and feet aching, but his mind… his mind was buzzing. Buzzing with questions, with blurry memories that felt like smoke he could almost grasp before they dissolved into nothing. His thoughts crackled like static, like the echo of something just out of reach, something he was now desperate to find.
It infuriated him how his brain gave him nothing tangible. Nothing solid. Nothing he could hold up and say: Yes. I know this. I remember this.
But still… he knew he wanted answers.
No. He needed them.
He moved around his flat on autopilot, keys tossed somewhere, shoes kicked off, shirt pulled over his head and discarded. The warm shower hit his shoulders and back, steam filling the small bathroom, and yet it did nothing to soften the tension in him. His mind went back to the same questions that had haunted him for years.
If there had been someone in his past life who loved him… someone he had loved…
Why hadn’t anyone come looking for him?
The water slid down his face, hot enough to sting, and he let it.
Had his past life been that insignificant? That unremarkable? That easily erased?
Or… had it been everything?
Something so heavy, so painful, so complicated that it was better left buried in the fog of his mind?
He clenched his jaw, chest tightening in that way he hated… the feeling of something breaking without making a sound.
He thought of calling Marina.
Every time he had spiralled, every time the fog weighed too heavily, or the panic crept up his throat, she had been the voice that steadied him. She had a way of grounding him, of reminding him that the life he had now was real, that he existed, that he mattered.
But something inside him… quiet, stubborn, ancient… told him he couldn’t make that call tonight.
This… this part of himself… he needed to face it alone.
He dried off, pulled on old, soft sweats and a worn t-shirt that smelled faintly of detergent and rosemary. He settled on the couch, phone and laptop in front of him. He exhaled slowly, bracing himself.
Instagram first.
He typed Penelope Bridgerton, and two profiles popped up.
The first was public.
Her author page.
Photos from book promotions.
Smiling softly at podiums.
Holding a microphone during readings.
Press tours. Book signings.
There were even images from the New South Wales State Library… where he had seen her, where something in him had stirred without permission.
He scrolled slowly, each swipe like tugging at a thread tied somewhere deep in his ribs.
Why did she feel so familiar? Why did looking at her face feel like remembering a dream you didn’t know you had? The account wasn’t very old. A few months. Probably created when her book launched, he guessed.
He clicked the second profile
Private.
No posts visible.
Only a display picture.
A close-up of two hands intertwined… one slender, one larger. An emerald ring glinted on one of the fingers.
His throat tightened.
Probably her Fiancé.
Or husband.
The thought sliced through him, sudden and sharp and irrational. Why should it matter to him? Why did it sting?
He threw his phone to the far corner of the couch, the dull thud echoing in the quiet room.
He leaned his head back, eyes shut tight, trying to slow the frantic thrum in his chest.
Just… breathe.
Calm down.
Think.
After a moment… a long, suspended moment… he opened his eyes.
Colin.
The name again.
Who was Colin?
He needed to know.
This time he reached for the laptop. Google’s search bar glowed back at him, a blank gateway.
He typed Colin.
And without him deciding to, without thinking… his fingers completed it.
BRIDGERTON.
He hit enter. And the world stopped.
It was him.
His face.
His smile.
His eyes.
Image after image flooded the screen… interviews, event photos, business articles.
“Colin Bridgerton: The youngest business tycoon…”
“The Bridgy Table expands international…”
“Son of Edmund and Violet Bridgerton…”
“The British Business Excellence Awards…”
His throat closed.
There was press coverage of charity galas, award functions, economic forums, family photographs in glossy magazines… and then…
Her.
Penelope.
With him.
Standing at what looked unmistakably like their wedding. Her hand in his. Her smile radiant. His gaze fixed on her with a kind of devotion that made the air around him feel thin.
His heartbeat slammed against his ribs so hard he thought his chest might crack open. His head pounded, pressure building like something inside him was about to burst.
The laptop screen blurred. His breathing turned shallow. His vision tunnelled.
He pushed the laptop away so violently it slid to the floor.
He tried to stand. But his legs gave out. He fell back onto the sofa, palms shaking, heart racing like he was drowning.
And in that moment… in the quiet of his flat, surrounded by the life he built from the ashes of a past he didn’t remember… Ryan felt like a ghost in his own skin.
His name was Colin.
He had been loved.
And he had left someone behind. Everything he had ever known cracked.
He pressed the heel of his hand to his sternum as if he could hold himself together by sheer force. His skin felt too tight for his body; his thoughts were too loud for his skull.
He swallowed, tried to sit up straighter, but the room felt tilted, his blood rushing with a dizzy heat.
He needed to move.
He pushed himself to his feet again, as his feet held him straight up this time he started pacing the length of the living room in uneven strides. The wooden floor felt cold under his bare feet, grounding him and yet not enough.
He kept dragging his hands through his hair, palms rough against his scalp, trying to keep his mind from spiralling out completely.
Marina.
His first thought.
His safest person.
He pulled his phone closer, thumb hovering over her name in his contacts. He could almost hear her voice in his memory… steady, warm, patient. She would tell him to breathe. To slow down. To not jump to conclusions.
But something inside him twisted sharply. What would he even say?
Hey, Marina, turns out I might not actually be the man you helped rebuild from scratch. I might have been someone else entirely. Someone with a life. A family. A wife.
His chest burned.
He locked his phone again.
George came to mind next. George, who had become an unexpected friend. George, who gave him quiet clarity in small doses. But calling George meant explaining. And explaining meant facing this out loud.
His pulse stuttered.
He wasn’t ready.
He couldn’t say it.
He would fall apart if he tried.
He kept pacing.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
The flat felt too small. The walls too close.
His reflection in the darkened window caught his eye… his own face staring back at him, unfamiliar, foreign, wrong. His breath hitched.
He needed a lifeline.
Not someone who loved him.
Not someone who knew him as Ryan, the way he was now.
He needed someone who could hold him through the unravelling… without expecting anything from him.
His hand trembled as he unlocked his phone again.
Dr. Charlotte.
He hadn’t seen her in months… ever since Eden & Ember finally opened, ever since he had pretended that meant he was okay. She had always told him healing wasn’t linear.
He had smiled politely, thanked her, and left anyway.
He opened their old thread. The last message was from her. Checking in. Saying she was proud of his progress. Telling him her door was always open.
His throat closed.
He typed.
Deleted.
Typed again.
Something frantic and wordless pushed through him, and the message came out in a single breath:
Hi, Dr. Charlotte. I… I need a session. As soon as possible. Please. I don’t– I don’t know what to do. I just… I need to talk. Please.
He stared at the words.
His thumb hovered.
If he hit send, it became real.
His heart hammered.
He pressed send.
The moment the message whooshed away, his knees nearly buckled.
He sat back down on the couch, hands shaking, elbows on his knees, head bowed.
He felt like a dam that had cracked and could no longer hold the flood.
And in the quiet, with only the hum of the fridge and his own ragged breaths filling the room, he finally whispered… barely audible even to himself:
‘I don’t know who I am.’
The flat stayed silent. But something in the air felt different now.
The unravelling had begun. And there was no going back.
_____________________________________________________
Present Day (London)
The Danbury Publishing offices were quiet now... too quiet. The kind of silence that came after the last echo of footsteps had faded, leaving behind only the soft hum of the city outside.
Agatha moved through the hallway, her cane tapping gently against the wooden floor, each step a small declaration of defiance against time. Once, she had been the last to leave every night... the woman who could outlast exhaustion itself. But now, her body had begun to betray her. Her bones ached, her lungs tired quicker than they used to. She had learned to choose rest over pride.
But not tonight.
Tonight, something in her refused to leave. An unease she couldn’t name had rooted her to her office chair. The manuscript in her lap... one of her best writers’... demanded attention. And she never delegated the things that mattered most. Even now, her editors could never see the world the way she did. They lacked… something... instinct, reverence, care.
As she crossed through the bullpen, motion sensors stirred the dimmed lights to life in hesitant bursts. That’s when she saw it... a shadow slumped at the far end of the conference room. Her hand froze midair.
She checked her watch... half past eleven. Everyone should’ve gone home hours ago.
Pushing the door open, she was greeted by the sharp flood of overhead lights. The sudden glare illuminated the figure at the head of the long table... Michael.
He didn’t move. Didn’t even blink. His face was as pale as parchment, his shoulders rigid, eyes rimmed red like a man who had been silently drowning for days.
Agatha’s heart tightened. She had seen this look before... in grieving men, in broken ones, in mirrors.
She approached him cautiously, the click of her cane softened now.
“Michael… what are you still doing here?”
He lifted his gaze slowly, and the emptiness in his eyes chilled her. He didn’t answer. Not a word.
She exhaled quietly, the air around her thickening with a dread she couldn’t yet name.
Without another question, she laid a steady hand on his shoulder... the kind that allowed no resistance.
“You are coming with me,” she said, her voice carrying that unmistakable Danbury authority... one that brooked no argument.
________
An hour later, Michael sat in the living room of Lady Danbury’s London townhouse... a space that smelled faintly of bergamot and old paper, as though time itself had steeped too long in that room and refused to leave.
The amber light from the streetlamps bled through tall windows, slicing across the Persian rug, glinting off crystal and gilded frames. Every inch of the room whispered of memory... and consequence.
Michael sat stiffly on the edge of the tufted chair, elbows resting on trembling knees. His jacket clung to him, too warm, too constricting, like the past itself pressing on his chest. The silence between them had grown so thick it felt sentient.
Agatha observed him over the rim of her teacup. Her expression unreadable, posture flawless, the steady tapping of her thumb against porcelain the only sound.
He finally spoke, voice rough as gravel.
“You asked me once why I always seemed like a ghost. Why I kept everything at arm’s length. Why no one ever really knew me.”
She didn’t speak. Just looked at him, her silence coaxing the confession out like a blade drawn from its sheath.
“And what did you say?” she asked at last, setting her cup down with deliberate precision.
“I told you I preferred it that way.”
Her eyes didn’t waver. “And now?”
Michael looked away, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “I need someone to know the truth. And I don’t know where else to go.”
The clock ticked. A car passed outside. The air in the room seemed to shift.
“Then tell me,” she said, her tone low, certain. “All of it.”
Michael swallowed hard. His hands tightened. “It wasn’t an accident.”
The words hung in the air like smoke.
Agatha froze... not even the faintest tremor in her fingers. But her pulse... her pulse thundered like war drums inside her ribs.
“What wasn’t?”
He hesitated, voice breaking as he said,
“Colin’s crash. The one that took him from all of us. It wasn’t an accident.”
The silence fractured. Agatha’s lips parted... just slightly... but no sound came. Somewhere upstairs, the house creaked under its own weight. The world seemed to tilt.
Michael’s voice faltered but kept going.
“It was Violet. She had planned it. I don’t know why. She wouldn’t tell me… just kept repeating something about what Colin represented. It never made sense.”
Agatha’s eyes sharpened. The edges of her voice turned cold.
“And how does your hand fit into this crime?”
Michael flinched. “She used me. She knew I… lo— I cared about Benedict. She said if I helped her… just once… she’d give us her blessing. That it would be over. That no one had to get hurt.”
Her words came like ice. “But someone did.”
He nodded, unable to meet her gaze.
“I was just supposed to tamper with his car. Drain the brake fluids, and the treacherous roads of the mountain would do the rest. But I panicked. I couldn’t go through with it. The car crashed at the Blue Mountains... but Colin was still alive. I pulled him out, dragged him to the road, drove him to a hospital. He lived. But his memories...” His voice broke. “He didn’t remember anything. Not Penelope. Not his family. Not even his own name.”
Agatha’s voice came in a whisper, sharp with disbelief. “And you left him there?”
He looked up, eyes shining. “I thought it was mercy.”
She stared at him long and hard, her cane trembling faintly beneath her hand.
“And what now? Why are you confessing this now?”
Michael let out a broken laugh, part bitterness, part agony.
“Now she’s trying to marry Benedict to Penelope. And I... I helped destroy their entire lives. For what? For a promise Violet never intended to keep?”
Tears came then, unbidden. He scrubbed at them, furious with himself.
“I don’t know what to do anymore.”
For a long moment, Agatha said nothing. Then she rose, the soft scrape of her chair echoing like a verdict. She moved toward the window, the golden light outlining the tremor in her shoulders. Her cane barely touched the floor now... she seemed to float, carried by something heavier than grief.
Her heart thudded painfully. She had known Violet’s darkness... her bitterness, her jealousy... but this? This was monstrous.
She closed her eyes. I should have seen it coming. I should have stopped it years ago.
When she finally spoke, her voice was quieter. Older.
“Do you know what it feels like to carry a secret so long it becomes part of your blood?”
Michael blinked, startled. “What?”
“Colin,” she said, turning toward him. “Colin is not Violet’s son. He is Edmund’s son with another woman.”
Michael’s breath caught. “What...”
Her gaze hardened. “Yes. The child of betrayal. Edmund confessed to Violet when Colin was barely two. She welcomed him into the family, but not in her heart. She was hurting. I knew she was hurting. But I said nothing. I thought I was protecting Violet. Or maybe... I was protecting myself.”
“Why would you... ?” Michael began, confusion breaking through his grief.
Agatha’s expression contorted... pain and shame wrestling behind her eyes.
“Because I had my own sins.”
She fell silent. The confession trembled at the edge of her tongue like a razor she was afraid to touch. She gripped the head of her cane tighter, feeling the tremor in her fingers, the echo of years she had spent pretending her heart had been clean.
The firelight flickered across her face, carving out the deep lines of a woman who had lived too long with ghosts. Her throat constricted as memory flooded her… laughter that once felt innocent, eyes that had once made her feel seen, the sickening rush of guilt that followed.
She closed her eyes for a long moment, as if bargaining with herself. He deserves the truth, she thought. If I expect him to bare his sins, I must be brave enough to face mine.
Her voice, when it came, was low… stripped of all pretence, shaking not from weakness but from the unbearable relief of finally saying it aloud.
“I had an affair with Violet’s father.”
The words hung in the air like smoke — bitter, acrid, irreversible
Michael’s eyes widened. “You... what?”
A bitter smile tugged at her lips. “Years ago. He was a married man, and I was a widow. I didn’t want things to happen the way they did... but sometimes the heart doesn’t know from right and wrong.”
She sank into the chair by the window, exhaustion shadowing her every word.
“Violet’s mother found out. And she was brutal. Cruel.” Agatha’s voice trembled, though her gaze remained distant — fixed somewhere years away, in a house filled with whispers and slammed doors. “She didn’t confront her husband, of course. That would have required courage she didn’t have. Instead, she turned all that humiliation, all that betrayal, onto her daughter.”
Her hand clenched over the knob of her cane, the knuckles whitening.
“Violet became her scapegoat — her living reminder of the man who had strayed and the woman who had ruined her marriage. Every blow she struck, every cruel word she uttered, was meant for her husband and for me. But Violet took it all. A child absorbing the fury of grown women who should have protected her.”
Agatha’s voice softened, the edges of it fraying under memory. “She tolerated her mother’s wrath because she thought that’s what love was supposed to look like…loud, punishing, conditional. She learned to make herself small, quiet, agreeable, anything to survive the storm that raged in that house.”
She exhaled, a tremor escaping her lips. “And I… I did nothing. I watched from the shadows, too afraid to make things worse. The guilt never left me. When her mother died, I swore I’d never abandon Violet again. So I stayed. I became her confidante, her mentor, her friend — but truthfully, it was penance. I told myself I wanted to guide her, protect her… but deep down, I was trying to atone.”
Agatha’s eyes glistened in the firelight. “She was the daughter of the man I loved and the woman I wronged. Loving her, protecting her… it was the only way I knew to make peace with my sins. But perhaps I only chained her tighter to her pain by never forcing her to face it.”
She swallowed, her next words barely audible. “It’s a miracle she became as kind as she did. But I suppose fate had other plans for both of us.”
Her eyes glistened now. “Years later, when Violet learned Edmund had betrayed her... that little girl came roaring back. And Colin became the face of it all.”
Agatha drew a sharp breath. “The pain she’d buried for years… the fear, the shame, the anger she once felt toward her parents… it all resurfaced. She saw Edmund as her father and Colin as the living proof of it. Every time she looked at that boy, she wasn’t seeing him… she was seeing the betrayal that broke her. She didn’t mean to be cruel, but the resentment bled through in ways even she couldn’t control. The love she tried to give him was always strained, shadowed by what he represented.”
She looked down, voice trembling. “In the end, she wasn’t punishing Colin. She was punishing the ghosts of her past. And I let her because I thought that was all the love Colin needed in a lifetime.”
Michael sat in stunned silence, the air thick with everything he’d just heard. His ears rang, his mind struggling to catch up with the weight of it all. Agatha didn’t move, didn’t speak — the quiet between them felt sacred, almost punishing. A single tear slid down her cheek, tracing the lines of age and regret she no longer tried to hide.
When Michael finally found his voice, it came out small, raw, barely more than a breath.
“You never told her?”
Her gaze snapped to him, sharp as glass. “Would you? Would you look the only person who ever trusted you in the eye and say, ‘I broke your family before it ever began’?”
He had no answer. Only silence.
“Did he? Did he know? Colin... that he—”
She cut him off. “No. The only siblings who know are Benedict and Anthony. Anthony had too much pride. He could never accept Colin as part of the family. Eventually, he left. Found his own path.”
She exhaled, her chest heavy. “I thought Violet had accepted Colin as her own, but clearly, I was wrong. I don’t even know who she is now.”
Turning, she went to her desk, opening the bottom drawer. From it, she drew an envelope... yellowed, fragile, sealed.
“What is that?”
“A letter. From Edmund. He gave it to me shortly before he died.”
Her voice wavered. “It was for Colin. ‘Everyone has the right to know where they’ve come from,’ Edmund had said.”
Her gaze lingered on the letter as though it were something venomous yet sacred.
“It’s eaten me alive that I was never able to give it to him. That sweet, sweet boy has lived his whole life without knowing the truth… without ever understanding the buried secrets of his existence.”
Michael’s eyes widened. “I know where he is.”
Agatha’s head snapped up. “What did you say?”
“The past two years... I wasn’t in the Philippines. I was in Australia. Watching over him.” He continued.
She straightened, a spark igniting in her eyes... something fierce and resolute, the steel of the woman she once was returning to her voice.
“You are coming with us.”
“Us?
“Yes. You, me, and Penelope.”
“She doesn’t know anything yet.”
“She will. By tomorrow.” Her tone was final... a command, not a plan.
Michael hesitated. “And Violet?”
Lady Danbury’s lips curved into a smile that carried no warmth.
“I’ve spent a lifetime defending Violet Bridgerton. This time, I’ll defend the boy she never did.”
Michael’s voice trembled. “Do you think he’ll ever forgive me?”
Agatha glanced toward the mantel clock — the hands had crept past two a.m. The world outside was silent, the kind of stillness that pressed heavy against old bones and older regrets.
“That’s not the question you need to ask,” she said softly.
Michael swallowed, his voice little more than a whisper. “Then what is?”
Her gaze softened, though her words landed with the quiet certainty of truth.
“You need to ask whether you will ever forgive yourself.”
Silence settled again — thick, solemn, the kind of silence that held the weight of too many years and too many buried truths. Then, Agatha’s tone shifted, gentler now, touched by something almost maternal.
“Go home, Michael. Get some rest. Stay alert, but say nothing for now. I’ll tell you what to do in the morning.”
He hesitated, eyes glassy with guilt, but finally nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
The floorboards creaked as he turned for the door. The sound of his footsteps faded down the corridor, then out into the rain-slicked London streets. The door closed softly behind him — the quiet that followed felt almost alive.
Agatha stood for a long moment, staring at the space he’d left behind. Her shoulders dropped, the strength she wore like armor beginning to crumble now that she was alone. Slowly, she made her way to the armchair by the dying fire and sank into it, her cane resting across her lap. The flickering light painted her face in shifting shades of gold and shadow, a portrait of a woman carved by guilt and defiance in equal measure.
Her eyes found the sealed letter lying on the table… yellowed, fragile, trembling faintly in the draft from the half-open window.
“It’s time,” she whispered to the quiet room, her voice rough with exhaustion. “Time to end this cycle.”
Outside, the rain tapped softly against the windowpanes, steady and relentless… a rhythm that matched her racing thoughts. She looked out into the night, her reflection wavering on the glass.
Her expression hardened, resolve glinting beneath the sorrow.
“Colin and Penelope will find their way back to each other,” she murmured, each word deliberate, a promise etched into the silence. “Their love will not suffer the consequence of Violet’s vengeance. Not while I still draw breath.”
The last ember in the hearth flared weakly, casting one final glow across her face… a woman forged in regret, now reborn in purpose.
She closed her eyes and whispered to the darkness,
“Forgive me, Violet… but the truth must finally be set free.”
The flame guttered out, plunging the room into shadow. Yet even in the silence, her promise seemed to linger… like smoke, like prayer, like the stirring of something inevitable.