Chapter 126: Long Hair

Days quickly turned into weeks at the estate near Lake Como.

The house was large, quiet, and warm, filled with the soft rustle of wind through the olive trees outside.

For the two weeks, Aaron was barely around. The time he had spent away dealing with Isabella’s life had caught up to him with a vengeance.

His days were consumed by endless phone calls, video meetings with his directors in Moscow and London, and heavy folders of financial reports that needed his signature.

He was pulled in several different directions from the moment the sun rose until late into the night.

Yet, despite the madness of his schedule, he never fully disappeared.

Every morning, before his first meeting, a fresh plate of fruit and warm bread was placed on the table where Isabella sat.

Every afternoon, Aaron would step out onto the terrace for ten minutes just to sit beside her in silence, checking to see if she was warm enough or if she needed anything from the town.

Isabella spent most of those early days alone in her rooms or sitting on the terrace, surrounded by the quiet hum of the Italian countryside.

At first, she remained timid.

Without her sight, in a house she didn’t know, as usual she found herself moving slowly, keeping her hands out, feeling her way along the walls.

It made her angry with herself.

Over the last three years with Kian, she had slowly become smaller, quieter, relying on him for every little thing until she was terrified of taking a step without someone holding her arm.

Now she realized, he had liked her that way. He had preferred her quiet, dependent, and afraid, because a woman who couldn’t stand on her own feet could never run away.

Sitting on the stone bench on the third week morning, listening to the water of the lake below, Isabella realized how much of her real self she had given up just to keep the peace in a broken marriage.

She had been sharp once. She had been stubborn, opinionated, loud, and entirely unbothered by what anyone thought of her.

She wanted that back.

She stood up from the bench, walking inside without waiting for the maid to guide her. She counted her steps, using the sound of her shoes on the tiles to map out the hallway, until she reached the large bedroom she had been given.

She walked straight to the vanity table.

Her hands moved across the polished wood until her fingers brushed against a pair of small, sharp dressmaking scissors she had felt in the drawer two days ago. She pulled them out.

She reached behind her neck, gathering the thick weight of her dark hair into her hand.

It fell all the way down past her waist. It was heavy, soft, and long. Kian had loved it. He had spent hours brushing it, telling her never to cut it, telling her that long hair suited her.

Isabella lifted the scissors.

She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t pause to think about how it would look or whether she was doing it right.

’Snip.’

The heavy metal blades crunched through the thick strands. A massive lock of black hair dropped into her lap.

She took another handful.

’Snip. Snip.’

Hair fell over her shoulders, covering her knees, dropping onto the rug around her feet. She cut blindly, feeling with her left hand to gauge the length, slicing through the length until it barely reached her collarbones. It was uneven, choppy, and messy, but as the weight lifted from her neck, a strange, electric feeling rushed through her chest.

She set the scissors down with a loud ’clack’.

She lifted her hands, running her fingers through the short, jagged ends framing her face.

For the first time in years, she felt like she was touching herself, not a version of herself built for someone else’s approval.

She gathered the fallen hair from her lap, wrapping it loosely in a cotton napkin from the breakfast tray. She walked out of the bedroom, down the hall, and out onto the grassy terrace.

Near the edge of the stone wall stood an ancient olive tree, its roots thick and twisted into the soil.

Isabella knelt in the grass. She felt the ground for a flat stone to dig a shallow hole in the soft earth beneath the roots. She dropped the bundle of black hair inside, smoothing the dirt back over it with her bare hands.

She wasn’t burying the baby. She wasn’t burying her grief.

She was burying the quiet, helpless girl who had let Kian Carter ruin her life.

"Goodbye," she whispered to the fresh dirt.

She stood up, wiping her hands on her skirt, feeling the cool breeze hit the back of her neck where her hair used to be.

"What in the world did you do?"

Isabella turned toward the sound of the voice.

Aaron was standing at the edge of the terrace, a stack of papers in one hand, his jacket off, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

He was staring at her with wide blue eyes, looking from her choppy, uneven hair down to the dirt on her hands, and then back up to her face.

Isabella lifted her chin, throwing her shoulders back, her green eyes flashing with an old, familiar fire. "I cut my hair."

Aaron walked over, stopping a foot away from her. He looked down at the jagged ends sticking out near her jaw. "With what? A butter knife?"

"Scissors," she said defensively, crossing her arms over her chest. "Is it that bad?"

Aaron looked at her face, the bright, stubborn set of her jaw, the color back in her cheeks, the fierce, defiant look in her blind eyes—and suddenly, he threw his head back and laughed.

It was a rich, warm sound that echoed off the stone walls of the villa.

Isabella’s face flushed red. "Stop laughing, Aaron! I’m serious!"

"I’m looking at you," Aaron said, his laughter dying down into a wide, crooked grin as he walked over to her, reaching out and gently tucking a stray, uneven piece of hair behind her ear.

His fingers were warm against her skin. "It’s completely crooked. You look like you got into a fight with an lawnmower."

"It’s a bob," she snapped, though she couldn’t hide the small, reluctant curve of her own lips. "And it’s not that funny!"

"But it is."

"Well I’m blind so" she yelled, her old, fiery tone bouncing off the stone walls of the villa. "I did the best I could!"

"You did terribly," Aaron said smoothly, his thumb brushing her lower lip. "Absolute disaster."

"Then fix it," she demanded, poking him hard in the chest with one dirty finger.

"You’re so rich, hire someone who knows how to use scissors."

Aaron looked down at her finger against his shirt, then up at her smudged face. The timid, quiet woman who had arrived on his jet was gone.

The stubborn, loud, mean-tempered woman he remembered was standing right here in the Italian sun, covered in dirt and demanding things from him.

His smile turned warm, genuine, and deep.

"Alright," Aaron said softly, taking her dirty hand in his and turning her back toward the house. "Let’s go find a hairdresser before you decide to cut your own clothes next."