Chapter 16

EXACTLY three days later, and Charles still hadn’t called.

Not once. Not even a missed call. A mistake. Anything.

Minutes had turned into hours, hours into days, and a full three days rolled by in cruel silence. No apology. No explanation. No excuse dressed up as concern. Not even a careless text message. Nothing. The absence of his voice pressed on Amelia’s nerves like a weight she couldn’t shrug off, tightening around her chest, creeping into her thoughts when she least expected it.

She tried not to think too much about it. Truly, she did. But thoughts had a way of misbehaving when given too much room. Questions she didn’t want began to surface anyway. Had he ignored her deliberately? Had he decided she wasn’t worth the effort? Or worse, had he simply moved on, unaffected, unbothered, while she sat here replaying everything over and over?

It cornered her. Tightly. So tightly.

By Friday morning, routine was the only thing keeping her sane.

The ho