Chapter 6 - A Shadow at the Driveway
By Tuesday morning, Amanda had moved her operation from the cramped corner of Natalie’s living room to a rented workshop on the river bend—a former boat repair shed with corrugated iron walls, high rafters, and deep industrial workbenches. It wasn't luxury, but it was hers.
She was bent over a drafting table, recalculating shear wall loads for the mansion’s second-story ballroom, when the gravel on the access lane crunched.
A sleek silver sedan pulled up to the chain-link gate. A car like that didn't belong in an industrial boatyard. Amanda stood up, her hand instinctively dropping to the heavy steel ruler on her desk.
The driver’s door opened, and a young man stepped out into the humid coastal air. He wore tailored linen trousers and an Italian polo shirt, but his posture was slouched, his shoulders weighed down by a nervous tension he couldn't hide.
It was Ethan.
Her younger brother had aged. The effortless, golden-boy arrogance that had defined him three years ago—when he had stood silently by the marble fountain while their mother called Amanda a thief and ordered the security guards to carry her luggage into the rain—was cracked. Dark hollows bruised the skin under his eyes.
Ethan approached the gate, hesitating at the rusted padlock. He gripped the chain link with white knuckles.
"Amanda," he called out, his voice cracked with strain.
Amanda didn't move from her doorway. She stood in her faded jeans, her steel-toed boots, and her rolled-up sleeves, watching him with the detachment of an appraiser examining a rotted timber.
"You’re trespassing, Ethan," she said. Her voice carried across the empty gravel lot, cold and steady as winter tide.
"I drove four hours to find you," Ethan pleaded, stepping closer against the wire. "Please. Just five minutes. I didn't come to start an argument."
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"You didn't say a word when Eleanor had me thrown down the front steps," she replied. "You took three years to drive four hours. You're out of time."
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