TOP UP

Reading History

Sign out

Get the APP

THE HEIRESS WHO WALKED AWAY: Six Months to Live, Three Years to Rise

Chapter 4 Headlights

Word Count: 1052 | Released on: 03/10/2026

tching the darkness until the grandfather clock chimed

marriage, everything important fit in one bag. My who

plained. I'd learned to disappear because I had to. Some women became experts at hiding bruises; I be

n the upsta

it would be Naomi's. Down the hall, Lily's door stood slightly open, her

dn't look insi

the blanket. Asleep, she looked just as she had as a baby, without the tense, guarded se

want you

kiss her forehead, and breathe in her warm hair. I wanted to say

r bed as Mary's sharp words and Nicholas's silence closed around me until there

, baby," I

yed o

e narrow door at the end of the ha

ase. The straps had stiffened in the cold. For a moment, I wondered if taking it m

k it

dn't thrown away-probably because

t grass, the cello case bumping my hip, and stopped beneath

I planted it twice more. After the second

ud. It felt wrong, like reaching for s

anyone, I told mys

true, and lately I had litt

kept looking at his phone. Nobody notices

nd slick under the streetlights. Rain misted d

hip people still remembered me, perhaps Grasse. Or a city I'd never seen, with a room, one window, and a

ist of wha

reathe lavender before an

without apologizi

bed without a

grance with my na

man who wasn't someone's

much. My e

had worn so thin that a little light got through. And once it did, I couldn't ignor

n choose

ibrated in

from the f

ere are you? We ne

2:41. It

was the first time he'd used it with me all

g, dying, loving him until I'd lost myself. I imagined his quick reply,

d off t

ack in m

ckened, tapp

at the crosswalk with my suitcase and

le. The whole city slept, and s

urned green, and I st

g behind me, somewhere to the left. I loo

rain, coming straight at me so fast they seemed frozen, l

s scr

horror sharpe

green, I thoug

he car

spin into the dark as my suitcase burst open and clothes scattered across

as dark a

sleeping, h

ght. I didn't even

ed up, and everything

Chapter End

Claim Your Bonus at the APP

Open

THE HEIRESS WHO WALKED AWAY: Six Months to Live, Three Years to Rise

Eddy writez Romance

“Abigail Brown has spent eight years shrinking herself to fit the Winchester family. Her husband, billionaire heir Nicholas Winchester, loves her in ways he never shows. His mother, Mary, calls her a barren hen, and their seven-year-old daughter, Lily, has learned to despise her. On the day Abigail is told she has six months to live, Nicholas announces that his first love, concert pianist Naomi Carter, will carry the son his family demands. When Abigail tries to tell him the truth, he snaps that he doesn't care if she dies, and Lily says she doesn't want her either. Abigail walks out into the rain and is struck by a car driven by her long-lost eldest brother. She was never an orphan. She was stolen as a child, and her real family, the Ashfords, are the richest on earth. Her brothers Julian, Damian and Rhys have searched for twenty-six years. Damian cures her illness, and Abigail asks them to let Nicholas believe she is gone. Three years later, Abigail returns as the founder of the luxury perfume house Solenne, stepping off a private jet with her brothers at her side. Nicholas, who has searched for her ever since finding her abandoned diagnosis, falls to his knees. Lily begs forgiveness. Abigail refuses them both. But Naomi's schemes escalate, Mary fights back, and Abigail's hunt for the truth behind her kidnapping leads to Naomi's own grandfather. As Nicholas slowly proves he can change, and Abigail learns that forgiveness is hers to give, she must choose between a cold, safe independence and the risk of loving again, on her own terms. It is the story of a woman who lost everything, found herself, and discovered she never needed to be chosen. She needed only to choose.”