CHAPTER 18

Bridge Gallery was quiet—too quiet for a Friday afternoon. Pearl stood at the center of the open space, her fingers gently adjusting the edge of a canvas on display, though her mind wasn’t on art. The recent days had been a storm of emotion: Gary’s assault, Ethan’s sudden and heroic rescue, their late-night conversation, and the kiss—God, the kiss. Things were changing quickly, and she wasn’t sure if it was a blessing or the beginning of another collapse. The door creaked open. Pearl hadn’t expected to see Fiona again, not so soon, not here. The Bridge Gallery glowed in soft amber light, each exhibit haloed by its own warm luminance. Where she stood– before a piece titled Inheritance, the canvas pulsed with strokes of burnt sienna, blues, and stark white like cracks in glass. It was her most personal piece, buried in layers of meaning that only someone who’d lived through public disgrace and private war would understand– Fiona had the audacity to walk right through the center of t