Charlotte stood behind the counter of her bakery, fingers dusted faintly with flour, though there was nothing warm or comforting about the mont. Bills, notices, and warnings, each one more suffocating than the last were spread out in front of her. She had just finished speaking to her landlord, and the conversation still echoed in her ears.
The rent had doubled.
If she wanted to stay, she would have to pay.
As if that weren’t enough, another food and safety inspection was scheduled for the next day, the kind that could shut her down for good if anything went wrong. It felt as though everything was closing in at once, each problem tightening around her like a noose she couldn’t slip out of.
Her life was spiraling.
And then... the sound of a soft chi, cut cleanly through the noise in her head.
Charlotte froze for a fraction of a second before grabbing her phone, her breath catching as her eyes scanned the screen. The mont she saw the na, her entire expression changed, the tension in her shoulders dissolving into sothing bright, almost giddy.
Dorian.
A breathless laugh escaped her as relief flooded through her, so sudden and overwhelming that she pressed a quick kiss to the screen without thinking.
Karl Crawley stepped toward her from the side, his brows lifting slightly at the sight. "You’re happy."
Charlotte looked up at him, her eyes shining in a way they hadn’t in days. She pushed herself off the counter and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into a quick, excited kiss. "I finally found a way to save my bakery," she said, her voice light, almost triumphant.
In her mind, the pieces were already falling into place.
Dorian wouldn’t have replied this late without a reason. He must have already figured out that Maximilian had approached her, and Catherine too. Which ant he understood the situation. Which ant he would see the value in her.
And if he saw value... He would invest.
A slow, calculating clarity settled behind her excitent.
Dorian was powerful, wealthy, and far too careful to let certain truths surface. He wouldn’t want Catherine knowing that he had stood still while his own son died. That alone was leverage enough to make him cooperate.
And Charlotte knew one more thing.
Dorian would never let Catherine go.
She had seen it with her own eyes, how completely he had broken after Catherine’s death in their previous life. That kind of obsession didn’t disappear. It only changed form.
Money would solve everything.
A new bakery.
A quieter town.
A comfortable life, far from this chaos.
As long as she secured Dorian’s support, nothing else mattered. Maximilian, for all his intelligence, was still just a professor. He didn’t have the reach, the power, or the ruthlessness to compete.
Not like Dorian.
"Babe..." Charlotte’s tone softened as she reached up, her fingers curling lightly into Crawley’s collar, drawing him a little closer. "Will you stay with your parents for a while?" she asked, her voice gentle, almost coaxing. "I need to handle sothing important."
Her smile didn’t falter, but her thoughts sharpened.
Maximilian had already crossed a line by threatening her through Crawley. He hadn’t acted on it yet, but that didn’t an he wouldn’t. And Charlotte wasn’t about to risk it.
Not when she was this close.
Crawley hesitated, clearly unwilling, his expression tightening as he searched her face. "Babe..."
She didn’t let him finish.
Instead, she stepped closer, closing the space between them until hesitation had no room to breathe. Her hands slid up, steady and deliberate, her gaze softening just enough to disarm him.
"I’ll be fine," she murmured, her voice low, reassuring, as though nothing in the world could possibly go wrong.
Her finger trailed over his collarbone as she smirked at him. He was easier to handle when he stopped thinking.
The mont lingered, and then, it deepened as she kissed.
Whatever resistance remained in him began to fade beneath the warmth she offered so easily, so convincingly. Charlotte knew exactly how to hold his attention, how to anchor him in the present until doubt felt distant, unnecessary.
And as he finally gave in, as he chose her over his hesitation... Charlotte allowed herself a small, satisfied breath.
Because everything... Was finally falling into place.
She lted in his embrace, not realizing Dorian was already deciding how much of her he would keep... and how much he would destroy.
-----
Catherine slept deeply, the kind of sleep that ca without resistance, until a fragnt of her past slipped through the cracks of her mind and reshaped itself into a dream.
She was small again. And in that darkness, she was restless and annoyed.
Maximilian was set to return in a couple of days, and for once, she had run out of ideas to tornt him when he returned. The thought alone had unsettled her younger self enough to drive her from her bed that night, her bare feet padding softly against the cold floor as she wandered down the long hallway toward her mother’s chambers, clutching her soft toy to her chest.
The guards and maids stationed outside had tried to stop her, their voices hushed but urgent, their hands hovering uncertainly as though they knew better than to actually restrain her. But Catherine had never been soone easily controlled, not even as a child. With sleepy stubbornness, she slipped past them anyway and pushed the doors open.
Inside, the room was dim.
Quiet, but not entirely.
Rubbing her eyes, she stepped further in, the heavy curtains drawn around the bed, shadows shifting faintly in the low light. There was movent... unfamiliar movent, and a strange rhythm to it that she could not understand at that age.
The bed creaked softly, the sound uneven, almost alive, and beneath it, her mother’s voice... different from anything she had heard before.
It was not quite pain; not quite laughter, but sothing in between.
"Mother?" Catherine called, her voice small and drowsy, still thick with sleep as she rubbed at her eyes again.
Everything stopped.
There was a sudden shuffle, hurried and disordered, as if the room itself had been caught doing sothing it shouldn’t. In the next mont, her mother’s voice ca, slightly breathless, trying too hard to sound normal.
"Father?" She got excited seeing him peeking through.
Her mother peeked, "Your father and I were just playing a ga..."
Even in the dream, the mory lingered there—unfinished, unexplained, sothing her younger self had accepted without question, but never truly understood.
Until now.
Catherine woke with a sharp gasp, her body tensing as the remnants of the dream clung to her, clearer than they had any right to be. For a mont, she lay still, her breathing uneven, her mind struggling to reconcile the innocence of that mory with the understanding she now possessed.
It was strange.
She had completely forgotten about it.
Or perhaps—
She had simply never allowed herself to rember it properly.
Joanne ntioning "gas" might have brought that mory back.
The sky beyond the curtains had begun to lighten, soft hues of dawn slipping quietly into the room. As her breathing steadied, her gaze shifted—and landed on Joanne, who had sohow tangled herself into Catherine’s sleeve during the night, clinging to the fabric as though it were an anchor.
Catherine turned onto her side, her expression softening as she gently patted Joanne’s shoulder, smoothing over the faint crease in her brows.
And then... Sothing clicked.
It was subtle. A thought not fully ford, but sharp enough to catch hold.
Catherine’s gaze lingered on Joanne’s face a mont longer than it should have, her mind connecting sothing instinctive, sothing buried beneath layers of mory and instinct.
Her heart skipped.
Could it be...
The thought ca slowly, hesitantly, as though even her mind was reluctant to give it shape.
That couldn’t be.
Right?
Right?
And yet... The idea remained.
Impossible to ignore.
Her mother couldn’t have been reborn as Joanne...could she?
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