Chapter 221: Grace

Liam did not go straight to Sophie and Sarah.

The road that would take him there was still open, but another name sat closer in the city a name that had been kind to him in a different way, and one he would not leave behind without a word.

Grace.

Her place was smaller than the villa, quieter, tucked into a residential street where the buildings still looked like people lived in them instead of managed them. Ordinary brick.

A narrow front path. A single potted plant by the step that had been watered recently.

He paid the driver and stood on the pavement for a moment with the bag over one shoulder, then walked up and knocked.

She opened the door in a soft cardigan and dark jeans, hair loose around her face.

For a second she only stared, as if her mind needed an extra beat to place him there on her doorstep in the middle of an ordinary morning.

Then the surprise broke into something warmer.

"Liam."

"Grace."

She stepped aside without hesitation. "Come in. I wasn’t expecting anyone."

The apartment smelled faintly of coffee and clean laundry. A single mug sat on the counter beside a folded napkin. A throw hung over the arm of the sofa.

A small stack of mail rested by the key dish near the door. It was neat in the way of someone who lived alone and took care of the space because no one else would.

Nothing expensive. Nothing neglected. Liam set his bag down by the door.

"I can’t stay long in the city," he said. "I’m leaving for a while. I wanted to see you before I did."

Grace’s expression shifted. Not dramatically. Just a quiet recalibration, as if she were filing the information somewhere careful.

"How long?"

"I don’t know yet."

She nodded once, then gestured toward the kitchen. "At least have coffee. Sit. You didn’t come all the way here to stand in the doorway."

He sat at the small table by the window. She moved around the kitchen with familiar efficiency, filling the kettle, taking down a second mug, checking the jar of coffee as if she needed something ordinary to do with her hands.

The cardigan slipped slightly off one shoulder as she reached for the shelf. She pushed it back up without thinking.

The softness that had always defined her was still there the same softness that had existed when she was still under Harrison’s pressure, before the lawsuit, before the board restored her position, before her life had started to stabilize again in pieces.

"You look better," Liam said.

Grace glanced back at him, a small smile touching her mouth.

"I sleep. That’s new. The position helps. Having work that doesn’t feel like walking on glass helps more."

She poured the water over the grounds. "My son still hasn’t called. But that’s... separate. I stopped checking the phone every hour. That has to count for something."

She brought the mugs over and sat across from him. For a while they only drank. The silence was comfortable.

It had always been, with her. Grace had never filled quiet with nervous talk. She let it sit until there was something worth saying.

"Where are you going?" she asked eventually.

"To see people I should have checked on a long time ago."

Grace studied his face over the rim of her mug. "Important people."

"Yes."

"Then you should go." She set the mug down carefully. "But you didn’t have to come here just to say that. You could have called."

"I know."

"So why did you?"

Liam looked at her properly the loose hair, the soft cardigan, the quiet dignity she carried even in an ordinary morning kitchen with two mismatched mugs and sunlight on the clean counter.

Grace had never demanded anything from him. Not after he helped her with Harrison. Not after the money.

Not after the car he had put in her hands without letting her see the price. She had only ever been grateful, and warm, and present in a way that didn’t ask to be repaid in full.

"Because I didn’t want to disappear on you without a face to it," he said. "And because I have the day before I leave."

Something in her expression eased. The careful posture in her shoulders loosened a fraction.

"The whole day?"

"If you want it."

Grace’s smile was small, real, and slightly disbelieving. "I was going to organize the hall closet.

Sort the coats I don’t wear and the bags I keep for no reason. You might be an improvement on that."

"I can do better than a hall closet."

"Oh?"

"Get dressed. I’m taking you out."She blinked. "Liam, you don’t have to""I know I don’t have to. I want to."

Grace held his gaze for a second longer, thumb resting against the side of her mug. Then she stood, the cardigan falling properly around her again. "Give me twenty minutes."

She disappeared down the short hallway. A door closed softly. Water ran briefly in the bathroom.

Liam sat with the cooling coffee and the quiet apartment, the bag by the door, and the knowledge that Sophie and Sarah still waited further out along a different road.

But the day was still his to use. The System’s cashback protocols were still active. Spending on a qualified MILF still returned five times over.

And Grace soft, grateful, beautiful Grace had never been a transaction to him.

She had simply been good when very little else was.

When she came back, she had changed into a fitted dress in a deep green that followed the line of her waist and hips without trying too hard.

The fabric sat cleanly across her chest and fell soft over her thighs. Her hair was brushed and left down. A simple pair of earrings caught the light when she turned her head.

She looked like a woman who had been given a reason to try, and wasn’t entirely used to it.

"Is this all right?" she asked.

"It’s better than all right."

A faint flush touched her cheeks. She picked up a small bag from the side table, then paused near the door, looking at him with a quieter expression.

"You really don’t have to spend anything on me. The car was already too much. The help before that was already more than I knew how to repay. I don’t want you to think I expect"

"Grace."She stopped."Let me," he said.

For a moment she only looked at him, something complicated and warm moving behind her eyes. Then she nodded, once, and opened the door.

They stepped out into the late morning together. The residential street was quiet.

Liam walked beside her without touching her, matching her pace, the bag left behind in her apartment for the day.

Behind him, the road to Sophie and Sarah still existed.

In front of him, for today at least, there was Grace and a System that would return every dollar he chose to put in her hands five times over.

He had no intention of being cheap about it.