Chapter 45: The Telephone Call
The apartment was quiet.
Ethan had left hours ago, swallowed by the grey Edinburgh morning and the endless demands of Leo Industries. Serene had watched him go from the window, a strange habit she'd developed over the past weeks—watching him disappear down the street, then waiting for his return each evening.
She didn't know why she did it.
She didn't want to examine it too closely.
The morning passed in its usual rhythm. Tea. Toast. A chapter of the book she'd found on the shelves—something about Scottish history, dense and dry but distractingly absorbing. She'd just settled into the armchair by the fire when the telephone rang.
The sound was shocking in the silence.
Serene stared at the device on the small table near the doorway. It rang again. Insistent. Demanding.
She rose slowly, crossing to it, her hand hovering over the receiver. Who would call here? No one knew she was in Edinburgh. No one knew this number.
She picked it up.
Silence.
Then: "Ethan? Is that you?"
A woman's voice. Familiar. Cold and precise in a way that made Serene's stomach clench.
Celeste Leo.
Serene couldn't speak. Couldn't respond. She held the receiver, frozen, listening to the crackle of the connection.
"Ethan? Hello?" A pause. "This connection is dreadful. Ethan, if you can hear me—"
Another pause. Longer this time.
"Serene?"
The name was sharp, certain. Celeste had guessed.
Serene closed her eyes. She should hang up. Should pretend no one was there. Should—
"It's you, isn't it? I can hear you breathing." Celeste's voice shifted—became less businesslike, more... something else. "Don't hang up. Please."
Please.
Celeste Leo never said please.
Serene's hand tightened on the receiver, but she didn't replace it.
"I know you can't answer," Celeste continued. "Just... listen. Will you listen?"
A pause, waiting for a response Serene couldn't give.
"Very well. I'll assume that means yes."
The crackle of the line filled the silence between them.
---
"How is your honeymoon going?"
The question was direct, almost brutal in its simplicity. Serene's free hand clenched at her side.
"Are you two bonding? Or is it still the same cold distance?"
Serene stared at the wall, her face unreadable. How could she answer? What could she say? That she slept in Ethan's bed while he took the couch? That they drank tea in silence and watched the snow? That sometimes, in the darkness, she still felt his arm around her waist from that one night at the inn?
"You don't have to answer," Celeste said, correctly interpreting the silence. "I can imagine well enough. My son is not... expressive. He never has been. But that doesn't mean he doesn't feel."
Another pause. When Celeste spoke again, her voice had softened—the first crack Serene had ever heard in that iron facade.
"I told Ethan, you know. Before you left. I told him he was making a mistake. Taking you north like that, isolating you from everyone. I told him it would only push you further away."
Serene's eyes widened slightly. Celeste had defended her?
"But he wouldn't listen. He never listens when it comes to you." A strange note entered her voice—exhaustion, perhaps. Or resignation. "He's been lost where you're concerned since he was a boy. And losing you—really losing you, to time and distance and his own terrible choices—it broke something in him. Something he's never been able to fix."
---
The line crackled. Snow fell softly past the window. Serene stood frozen, the receiver pressed to her ear, listening to words she'd never expected to hear.
"Serene, I need to tell you something. Something you won't want to hear." Celeste's voice hardened slightly, preparing for battle. "You need to focus on your marriage now. On your husband. Not on the past. Not on Clive Marcer."
Clive's name was a knife to the heart.
Serene's hand trembled, but she didn't hang up.
"I know you think you love him. I know he treated you well, saw you when no one else did. I know that must have felt like salvation after years of being invisible." Celeste paused, choosing her next words carefully. "But that's not love, Serene. That's gratitude. That's relief. That's the desperate clinging of someone who's been drowning finally being thrown a rope."
Tears burned Serene's eyes. She blinked them back fiercely.
"You loved Ethan for years. Almost since you were seven years old. Decades of your life, Serene—that kind of love doesn't fade easily. It doesn't transfer to another man just because he's kind to you."
The words were relentless. True in ways Serene didn't want to examine.
"He was the one in your destiny. You were made for him. For Ethan. Don't you realize that yet?"
---
Serene pressed her free hand to her mouth, stifling sobs that made no sound.
"You're hurt," Celeste continued, her voice gentler now. "Deeply, terribly hurt. He chose Ava. He didn't trust you. He believed the worst without evidence. He wrote that terrible letter—I know about it, I found it in his room years ago and I've never been able to forget the look on his face when he wrote it."
A pause. The crackle of the line.
"But that hurt you're feeling—that's proof, Serene. Proof that your love for him still exists. You can't be this wounded by someone you don't care about. You can't feel this much pain over someone who means nothing to you."
The tears fell then—silent, hot, endless. Serene leaned against the wall, the receiver clutched to her ear, her body shaking with sobs that made no sound.
"Try to find it again," Celeste whispered. "That love. It's still there, buried beneath the hurt and the anger and the years of silence. I've seen it in your eyes when you look at him—when you think no one's watching. I've seen it in the way you hold yourself when he enters a room."
Another pause. Longer this time.
"I'm not asking you to forgive him. I'm not asking you to forget what he's done. I'm just asking you to consider—to truly consider—whether the love you had for him is really gone. Or whether it's just... waiting. Buried. Hoping to be found again."
---
The line went silent.
Serene stood motionless, the receiver still pressed to her ear, her tears still falling, her heart a battlefield of conflicting emotions.
Then, softly, Celeste spoke one last time.
"Think about it, Serene. That's all I ask. Just think."
A click. The line went dead.
Serene lowered the receiver slowly, staring at it like it might somehow explain everything she was feeling. The apartment was silent again—just the soft hiss of snow against glass, the distant sounds of the city below.
She walked to the window and pressed her forehead against the cold pane.
Her reflection stared back at her—tear-streaked, confused, haunted by words she couldn't escape.
You loved Ethan for years.
You were made for him.
Try to find it again.
She closed her eyes and saw two faces: Clive's warm smile, Ethan's guarded green eyes. Two men. Two futures. Two versions of herself.
Which one was real?
Which one was love?
Which one was worth fighting for?
She didn't know.
She had never known.
And the longer she stood there, watching the snow fall on Edinburgh, the less certain she became of anything at all.
---
Hours later, Ethan returned.
He found her still at the window, still staring out at the darkening sky. The fire had burned low. The tea sat cold and untouched on the table.
"Serene?" His voice was cautious, concerned. "Are you alright?"
She turned to face him, and something in her expression made him stop.
Her eyes were red-rimmed. Her cheeks were tear-stained. But it was the look in those honey-brown depths that stopped his heart—confusion, pain, and something else. Something that looked almost like... searching.
She raised her hands, signing slowly: Your mother called.
Ethan's face went pale. "What did she say?"
Serene held his gaze for a long moment. Then she shook her head slightly and turned back to the window.
She couldn't tell him.
Couldn't repeat the words that were still echoing in her mind.
Couldn't admit that his mother's voice had planted seeds she didn't know how to tend.
Behind her, she heard him move closer—then stop, respecting the distance she'd created.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "For whatever she said. For everything."
Sorry.
He was always sorry now.
She pressed her forehead to the cold glass and watched the snow fall, wondering if love could really be buried so deep that even the one feeling it couldn't find it.
And wondering if she even wanted to try.
---