I look up at my childhood home, and the feeling of misery and loneliness doesn’t hit me at all. Noah wraps his arm around me, pulling me close.

“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” he tells me, something he’s been saying for the past few days. I told him I wanted to see my mother, and I know he’s had his concerns.

I’m an adult. I don’t have to speak to her if I don’t want to. I could drop off and never see her again. She’d never know what happened to me, but I wanted this closure. I have to have it. My hand goes to my very round belly, where I’m carrying our baby girl. A little girl who will never know a mother like I did. She won’t even know her grandmother.

“I don’t want her to come looking for me. And I think she would at some point. She thinks I belong to her,” I remind him, then feel him tense at my words. He doesn’t like that someone else thinks I’m theirs.

I want to go back to my island, but if I wait for her to come looking for me, I’d have a newborn baby by the time the year would be up. I don’t want any part of her touching the new life we’ve made. This can all be taken care of before our beautiful, perfect little girl enters this world. I will make sure my mother will never even breathe the same air as her. Unlike my mother, I’ll walk through fire to give my little one the happiest life possible.

I smile up at my husband, adoring how possessive and jealous he can be. I love it. No one has ever treated me as if I were their everything. That they couldn’t breathe without me. “We all know I’m only yours.” I give him a little elbow to his side, and he grunts like I actually hurt him, making me roll my eyes.

His other hand comes to cup my round belly as if he’s soothing himself with the reminder that I’m real. “Let’s get this done with. I want you home and back in our bed.”

I take a deep breath and raise my hand to the bell and push it. The chimes sound though the house, and one of my mother’s housekeepers answers the door. Her eyes widen at the sight of me and almost pop out her head when she sees my belly. She steps back and lets us in. Noah never releases me from his hold.

“I’ll get her,” she says, half-running from the room.

“Is there anything you want from here?” His eyes move towards the stairs. I shake my head. I don’t want anything from here. They would only be tainted. There’s nothing I need in the world that Noah won’t give me.

I stiffen as my mother walks into the room. She looks like she’s about to go out to an event. She’s done up and doesn’t look her age at all. She was always so pretty. I never understood what made her so ugly on the inside.

“Aurora?” She says my name as if she’s not sure it’s even me.

“Mother.”

Her eyes look a little wild as they run over me and she takes a step closer.

“That’s far enough,” Noah says in a short, firm voice. I know he’s keeping himself in check. Over the months he’s learned more and more about my life with her and how she treated me. He even helped show me how terrible my mother was, because sometimes I slip back into wondering why I was never good enough for her. Noah taught me that it wasn’t my fault. To a person like my mother, I never would have been good enough. Nothing I could have done would have changed that, no matter how hard I tried.

My mother’s eyes snap to Noah, and she glares at him. She looks like she’s working to catch up before she turns back to me, looking me up and down. She sees my stomach, then the giant ring on my finger that Noah put on not long after he told me about all he did to have me.

“I know you. You’re the man who was obsessed with her! I know all about you. I looked into you. You came sniffing around, and I—”

“Sent her off thinking my obsession with her would change? You weren’t wrong, though. It did change. My obsession turned into complete devotion.”

“Aurora, come here,” my mother snaps in a tone that no long holds the power over me it once did.

“I came to say goodbye. I don’t want you looking for me,” I tell her softly. I need this to be done. I don’t care to really hear what she has to say. I wanted to do this face to face so she knew how serious I was.

She points her finger at Noah. “I’ll sue you. I paid for her to go to a school. I paid for—”

Noah cuts her off again. “And you haven’t given her one penny of the money she has made from her performances. If I were you, I wouldn’t try to throw out accusations. You wouldn’t want the world to really find out how you’ve treated your daughter, would you?”

My mother’s mouth falls open.

“I didn’t think so. I’m more powerful than you. I’ll make your life hell if you try anything more to hurt Aurora.” Noah’s words leave no room for argument. I can see my mother is so mad she’s starting to shake. “Don’t test me. I already want to do these things, but I’m not going to because Aurora asked me to leave it alone. I will give her anything she asks for. Unless…” He lets the threat hang in the air.

“Okay.” I can hear the defeat in my mother’s voice.

“Goodbye, Mother,” I tell her, turning to leave.

I hear her call my name quietly, and I stop. I don’t turn around, but I wait to see if she has anything she needs to say before I walk away for good.

“Don’t expect another dime from me. You walk away now and you’re dead to me.”

I let the last little bit of hope I was holding on to fall away and nod without looking back. I feel Noah’s strong arms around me, and as I walk to the car, I feel not only the hope for a relationship with my mother wither, but the weight of it, too. I never realized what a burden it was to carry around the possibility for more. Now that it’s gone, it somehow makes me feel like I can move forward with no regrets.

When we get to the car, Noah opens the door for me, guiding me into the limo.

I slip in, and Elina rolls down the divider. “Home?” she asks with a smile on her face.

God, I love her. She’s been more of a mother to me than my own ever was, and I know she’ll be an amazing grandmother to our children.

“Home,” I say, leaning back into Noah’s arms as his lips whisper in my ear.

“Ready to be kidnapped all over again?”

“I think this time I’d like to be awake for the ride back.” I smile as his hand slides up my thigh.