Chapter 10

Anna POV

I barely made it to my room before the phone rang again. The same unknown number that had appeared on my screen downstairs. My heart skipped as I stared at the vibrating device in my palm, water from my rain-soaked hair dripping onto the screen.

I hesitated, thumb hovering over the answer button. Something in me already knew who was calling.

"Hello?" My voice sounded smaller than I intended.

"Annie? Is that you?"

The nickname hit me like a physical blow. Only one person had ever called me that.

"Matthew." Not a question. A recognition that sent a rush of conflicting emotions through me.

"God, it's good to hear your voice." His tone was warm, familiar – so different from the cold exchanges that filled my daily life at Frost Estate. "How are you?"

"I'm... fine." The lie came automatically. "How did you get this number?"

He chuckled, the sound transporting me back to a simpler time. "I have my ways. Listen, I'm flying back from Italy the day after tomorrow. Any chance you could pick me up from the airport?"

I closed my eyes, gripping the phone tighter. "Matthew, I'm married now."

A brief pause. "Yeah, I know. To Edward Frost, CEO of Frost Industries. Quite the power move, Annie."

I didn't correct his assumption that marrying Edward had been my choice or ambition. What would be the point?

"Are you happy?" he asked, his voice softening. "That's all I've ever wanted for you."

My throat tightened. "I'm doing okay."

"I've missed you, you know. Italy has amazing galleries, but no one to share them with who gets my terrible art jokes."

Despite everything, a ghost of a smile touched my lips. Then I remembered where I was, who I was now. "Matthew, I don't think—"

"Can we meet when I'm back? Just to catch up? Old friends and all that."

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"Even if you're married, I hope I haven't lost you as a friend, Annie."

I closed my eyes, exhaustion washing over me. "I'll... think about it. It's late, and I need to get some sleep. We can talk another time."

"I'll take that as progress," he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. "Goodnight, Annie. Sweet dreams."

After hanging up, I sat motionless on the edge of my bed, phone clutched in my hand. The rain continued to beat against my window, a steady rhythm that matched the pounding in my chest.

Matthew Quinn. Back in New York.

I stared at my reflection in the darkened window, watching rain streak down the glass like tears I couldn't shed. Matthew's voice still echoed in my head, warm and familiar, pulling me back to a version of myself I barely recognized anymore.

Boston. Senior year. When life had been simpler, even if not easier.

I could see it so clearly – Matthew waiting outside the art room every Tuesday and Thursday, leaning against the brick wall with that easy smile of his, a paper bag in his hands. He'd figured out my schedule within the first week of knowing me, learned that I always skipped lunch to work on my portfolio. So he started bringing me food. Nothing fancy – usually just a sandwich from the deli near his house, an apple, sometimes those cheap chocolate chip cookies that came in plastic packaging. But it was the gesture that mattered. Someone noticing. Someone caring.

"You're gonna pass out one of these days if you keep forgetting to eat," he'd said the first time, pressing the bag into my hands with a grin that made something warm unfurl in my chest.

I remembered the autumn afternoon when the sky opened up without warning, rain coming down in sheets as we stood outside the school. Matthew had pulled off his worn denim jacket without hesitation, holding it over both our heads as we ran toward the bus stop. By the time we got there, he was soaked through, his t-shirt clinging to his shoulders, but he was laughing. Actually laughing. Like getting drenched was just another adventure.

"You're shivering," I'd said, guilty.

"I'm fine. You're the one who matters, Annie."

The memory shifted, growing hazier at the edges but no less vivid in its center. The storage room behind the auditorium, dusty and cluttered with old set pieces and forgotten props. We'd ducked in there during a fire drill, seeking shelter from the chaos of hundreds of students flooding the hallways. The door had barely closed when Matthew turned to me, his expression suddenly serious in a way I'd never seen before.

"I can't keep pretending," he'd said, his voice low and urgent. "I can't keep acting like I don't feel this."

Before I could ask what he meant, his hands were cupping my face, his lips pressing against mine with a desperate tenderness that made my knees weak. I'd kissed him back, clutching at his shirt, tasting the mint gum he always chewed and something else – something that was purely him. When we finally broke apart, both breathing hard, he'd rested his forehead against mine.

"I'm crazy about you, Annie. Have been since the day you told Mr. Chen his perspective was all wrong in that still life assignment."

I'd laughed despite myself, despite the tears pricking at my eyes, despite not knowing what to say because no one had ever looked at me the way Matthew did – like I was something precious, something worth protecting.

We'd been together after that. Sort of. In the careful, tentative way of teenagers who are figuring out what love means. He'd hold my hand in the hallways, walk me home, spend hours at the library with me even though he hated studying. He'd been patient with my silences, my sudden withdrawals when memories of George Wilson's hands crept back into my consciousness. He never pushed, never demanded more than I could give.

And then everything changed.

The Parker family Christmas gala. My first since being "found" and reclaimed. I'd worn a simple black dress that Elizabeth Parker had deemed "acceptable if uninspired," my hair pulled back in a way that made me look older, more polished, more like someone who belonged in their world even though I knew I never would.

Edward Frost had been standing near the bar, a crystal tumbler of scotch in his hand, his dark suit tailored to perfection. I'd noticed him immediately – everyone did. He had that kind of presence, the kind that made the air itself seem to bend around him. But when our eyes met across the room, something electric shot through me, something I'd never felt before and couldn't name.

He'd approached me with the confident stride of someone who'd never been told no, his expression unreadable but his gaze intense enough to make my breath catch.

"Anna Parker," he'd said, my name sounding different in his mouth – not Annie, not the girl Matthew knew, but someone else entirely. "I've heard quite a bit about you."

"All terrible things, I'm sure," I'd replied, trying for lightness but hearing the tremor in my own voice.

The corner of his mouth had lifted – not quite a smile, but close. "Depends on your definition of terrible."

We'd talked. Or rather, he'd asked questions with the precision of someone conducting an interview, and I'd answered, hyperaware of every word, every gesture, the way his eyes tracked my movements like I was a puzzle he was determined to solve. There was nothing warm about him, nothing easy or comfortable. He was all sharp edges and calculating intelligence, the kind of man who saw people as chess pieces to be moved around his board.

I should have been repelled. Should have made an excuse and walked away. Should have remembered Matthew waiting for me back in Boston, probably texting to ask how the gala was going.

Instead, I'd been drawn in like a moth to a flame, knowing I'd get burned but unable to resist the heat.

When Richard Parker had pulled me aside later that night to inform me that the family's arrangement with the Frosts required me to marry Edward – that Vera couldn't fulfill the contract because she wasn't blood – I should have felt trapped, furious, desperate to escape.

But part of me, a part I was ashamed to acknowledge, had felt something else entirely. Something that felt dangerously close to inevitability.

I'd broken things off with Matthew over the phone a week later, my voice hollow as I fed him lies about needing space, about our relationship not working long-distance now that I was living in New York full-time. He'd tried to argue, tried to fight for us, but I'd shut him down with a coldness I'd learned from watching the Parkers.

"Don't make this harder than it needs to be," I'd said, echoing words I'd heard Richard use in business calls.

"Annie, please—"

"It's Anna. Just... Anna."

The silence that followed had been worse than any argument. When he finally spoke again, his voice was thick with hurt. "If this is really what you want."

It wasn't. But what I wanted had stopped mattering the moment I'd been pulled back into the Parker world, the moment Edward Frost's dark eyes had fixed on me with that unsettling intensity.

I'd seen Matthew once more before the wedding, a chance encounter at a coffee shop in SoHo. He'd been with a group of art students, laughing at something one of them said, looking lighter than I'd seen him in months. Then he'd noticed me, and his expression had shuttered immediately.

"Anna." Not Annie. Never Annie again.

"Matthew. How are you?"

"Good. Great, actually. Leaving for Europe next month. Study abroad program."

"That's wonderful."

The conversation had been stilted, painful, full of things neither of us could say. When I'd mentioned my engagement to Edward, something had flickered in his eyes – hurt, yes, but also something that looked like pity.

"Does he make you happy?" Matthew had asked quietly.

I'd thought about Edward's cold dismissal of my art, the way he looked at me like I was a problem to be solved rather than a person to be known, the clinical nature of our interactions as we navigated the expectations of our families.

"He's... complicated."

Matthew had studied me for a long moment, then shaken his head slowly. "You deserve someone who thinks you hung the moon, Annie. Not someone who makes you feel like you have to apologize for existing."

I'd had no response to that. Still didn't.