Chapter 9 - The Last Visitor
One month before our wedding.
The visitor’s room at the Federal Correctional Institution in Lompoc, California, was cold, sterile, and smelled faintly of floor wax and industrial bleach.
I sat on one side of a thick glass partition, wearing a simple beige trench coat.
A heavy metal door opened on the far side of the room, and Evan Marshall was led in by two armed guards.
He was unrecognizable. His hair was shaved close to his scalp, his skin was sallow, and his eyes were sunken and shadowed. He wore a dark orange jumpsuit with his federal inmate number stenciled across the chest.
He sat down heavily on the stool, picking up the silver inter-com phone with trembling fingers.
I picked up my phone, holding it to my ear, watching him with calm, detached eyes.
"Hannah..." Evan’s voice came through the speaker—thin, raspy, and broken. "I... I didn't think you’d come."
"I didn't come for you, Evan," I said quietly. "I came to return the last piece of your family’s property."
I reached into my pocket and placed a small, yellowed envelope against the glass partition. Inside was the original deed to a small piece of commercial land in San Francisco that had belonged to his late grandfather—a document that had been swept up in the corporate liquidation of Marshall-Sterling.
Evan looked at the envelope, then raised his eyes to look at me. He saw the sparkling blue sapphire ring resting prominently on my left hand.
His breath caught. "You’re... you’re getting married."
"I am," I replied calmly.
"To Julian Ross," Evan said, a bitter, hollow tone in his voice. "The security guy."
"To the man who saved my life while you were trying to sell it," I corrected sharply.
Evan bowed his head, resting his forehead against the cold glass of the partition. "I’m sorry, Hannah... God, I am so sorry. Every night in this cell, I think about that night at the Fairmont. I think about what I had... what we had... and how I threw it all away for money that wasn't even real."
I looked at him for a long moment. There was no anger left in my heart—only a deep, quiet pity for a man who had traded his humanity for empty corporate ambition.
"I forgive you, Evan," I said softly.
Evan jerked his head up, staring at me in utter disbelief. "You... you forgive me?"
"Yes," I said smoothly. "Because holding onto hatred for you would mean leaving a piece of my heart tied to this room. And I have no room for you in my life anymore."
May you like
I set the phone down on the metal ledge, stood up, and buttoned my coat.
I did not look back as I walked out through the heavy security doors into the warm, bright California sunshine, where Julian was waiting for me beside our car, holding a cup of black coffee.
