Chapter 264: He Returned
Fitzgerald’s steel-grey eyes remained fixed on the screen for several long seconds, reading the draft that had nearly altered the course of everything. Then, almost imperceptibly, the corners of his lips curved upward.
"It wasn’t sent," he said at last, locking the screen before slipping the phone back into his pocket. "Rejoice, Miss Preston. Your game is still afoot."
Only then did Catherine realize how tightly she had been gripping the pistol. Relief flooded through her body so abruptly that her fingers loosened around the handle. The barrel lowered by several inches, though she did not holster it.
Even Fitzgerald was surprised. She had escaped disaster by nothing more than chance. One accidental tap, one second’s difference, and Dorian Blackwood would already know Maximilian was alive.
Catherine’s relief lasted only a heartbeat before another problem took its place.
Fitzgerald Rathbourne.
She had spent weeks studying every report the intelligence network had gathered on him. Financial statements. Psychological evaluations. Security footage. Medical records she was never supposed to obtain. Witness accounts.
Every file painted the same picture: a wealthy eccentric with antisocial personality disorder, a frightening intellect, an obsession with patterns and people, an unhealthy fondness for apples, and very little interest in anything else. She had expected someone cold. Detached. Difficult to predict.
Nothing had prepared her for meeting him in person.
He was... different.
There was something profoundly unsettling about him—not because he frightened her, but because he didn’t fit the image she had carefully constructed in her mind.
Sitting across from her now, relaxed despite having stared down the barrel of a loaded gun only moments earlier, he seemed almost... harmless. Curious, if anything. Like a child dismantling a clock simply to understand how the gears worked.
And then there was his face.
Her gaze lingered on his features. They tugged insistently at a memory buried so deeply that she couldn’t immediately grasp it.
She knew those features. Not exactly... but enough to leave her strangely unsettled.
"You expect me to take your word that Dorian knows nothing?" she asked quietly, studying him without blinking.
"I don’t particularly care whether you believe me or not," Fitzgerald replied with an easy shrug. "The outcome remains the same."
She should have been thinking about negotiation. About leverage. About what he wanted in exchange for his silence. Instead, her attention kept drifting back to his face, searching for something she couldn’t quite name.
Then, without warning, the answer surfaced.
Her father.
Not James Preston.
Her father from her previous life.
Catherine’s breathing slowed. It wasn’t an exact resemblance. The eyes were different. The mouth carried a perpetual hint of amusement her father had never possessed. Yet the underlying bone structure—the proportions of his face, the broad forehead, the unmistakable profile—was startlingly familiar.
Looking at Fitzgerald felt eerily similar to looking at an older, younger version of the man who had once raised Princess Katerina.
Her heartbeat faltered.
No...
Could it be?
The pistol found its way onto the consultation table without her consciously deciding to put it there. She crossed the remaining distance between them almost absentmindedly, never taking her eyes off his face. Fitzgerald watched her approach with open curiosity, making no attempt to move away. If anything, he seemed intrigued by whatever conclusion she was reaching.
When she finally stopped before him, she searched his eyes once more.
It didn’t feel the same.
When she had met Maximilian again... she had known.
When she found Sebastian... Bernice... Charlotte... something inside her soul had recognized them before her mind ever caught up. There had been certainty, an instinct beyond reason.
Looking at Fitzgerald, she felt none of that.
Only resemblance.
Only questions.
Before she realized what she was doing, both her hands had risen to his face. Her palms gently cupped his cheeks as she tilted his head from one side to the other, studying every contour with an intensity that left even Fitzgerald momentarily speechless.
His skin was warm beneath her fingers. His expression remained remarkably calm, those unusual grey eyes simply watching her as though this, too, were another fascinating experiment.
Catherine searched his face one last time, hoping her heart would tell her what her eyes could not.
It remained silent.
"...Who are you?" Catherine whispered.
Fitzgerald regarded her with growing curiosity. The woman standing before him was nothing like the one who had marched him into this consultation room with a loaded gun pressed against his heart.
Her pistol now lay forgotten on the table behind her and she was studying him with an intensity that made him feel less like a hostage and more like a puzzle she was desperately trying to solve.
There was confusion in those emerald eyes now. Vulnerability. Even grief. It fascinated him.
He could have shoved her away. He could have reached for the gun before she remembered it existed. If he truly wanted to, he could probably kill her and leave this room before anyone realized what had happened.
Yet the thought barely lingered.
Fitzgerald disliked people invading his personal space. Physical contact unsettled him. Only a handful of people had ever been allowed close enough to touch him without earning his irritation, and Catherine Preston certainly wasn’t one of them. Yet for reasons he couldn’t explain, he found himself standing perfectly still, almost... allowing it.
Perhaps it was because she was Samantha’s family. Perhaps his mind had decided she belonged to the same safe category. It was the only explanation he could arrive at.
Catherine searched his face once more. Every feature reminded her of her father... from another lifetime.
Yet... something about that explanation refused to settle. She looked deeper, past the face and into the steel-grey eyes watching her with open curiosity.
Then, like a lock finally turning after countless failed attempts, something inside her soul shifted.
Her breath caught.
Not him...
Not Father...
Her fingers trembled violently against his cheeks.
"Is..." Her voice broke before she could steady it. "...Is your middle name Cassian... by any chance?"
Fitzgerald frowned.
"How do you know that?"
The words struck her like lightning.
She had found him.
The certainty crashed into her so suddenly that tears spilled down her cheeks before she could stop them.
This wasn’t wishful thinking.
He was here.
He had grown up...and was alive...
Fitzgerald stared as tears streamed relentlessly down her face. Nothing in the reports he had read about Catherine Preston had prepared him for this. Why was she crying? More importantly... why did every tear she shed make something inside his chest tighten?
"Are you alright, Miss—"
Before he could finish, Catherine threw her arms around his neck.
She held him with desperate strength, burying her face against him as though terrified he might disappear if she loosened her grip. Her trembling breaths warmed his neck. Then she drew back only enough to cup his face again before pressing kiss after kiss against his cheek, each one overflowing with years of longing, guilt, and immeasurable relief.
Fitzgerald froze.
He should have pushed her away.
He wanted to.
Yet his arms refused to move.
Somewhere deep within his mind, a melody surfaced without warning. A woman’s voice sang softly in a language he had never learned yet somehow understood...
Warm sunlight filtered through endless rows of apple trees... Laughter echoed between the branches. For a fleeting instant... he saw himself—much younger—running unsteadily through an orchard before strong arms caught him from behind.
The vision disappeared as quickly as it came, leaving behind nothing but warmth... and a voice calling to him with impossible tenderness.
He staggered backward, pressing a hand against his temple.
What...
What was that?
Hallucinations?
Had he finally developed schizophrenia after all these years? Every psychiatrist he had ever seen insisted he didn’t suffer from psychosis. His brain scans had always been perfectly normal.
Then what had he just experienced?
Catherine finally realized what she had done. Colour rose to her cheeks as she stepped back, hastily wiping away tears that refused to stop falling.
Fitzgerald silently withdrew a neatly folded handkerchief from his pocket and held it out to her. She accepted it with trembling fingers, looking at him through tear-filled eyes before a fragile smile curved her lips.
"Thank you."
The smile struck him harder than the vision had.
For an instant, the woman standing before him seemed older. Wiser. Those same emerald eyes looked at him with boundless affection, pride, and an aching tenderness that reached somewhere deep inside him... before the image vanished.
He stumbled back another step.
"What are you?" he asked, his normally steady voice wavering despite himself. "Are you... a witch? Did you put some sort of hex on me?"
The question sounded absurd even to his own ears. He had never believed in curses or spirits. University friends had dabbled in séances and occult rituals for entertainment, and he had dismissed every one of them as pseudoscientific nonsense.
Yet nothing about what he had just experienced could be explained by science. His entire body tingled. Every instinct urged him to pick up the forgotten gun and leave this room immediately.
Yet he couldn’t.
He simply stood there, unable to tear his eyes away from the woman before him.
Catherine pressed her trembling lips together. She looked up at him through a veil of tears, the same way a mother looked upon a child she had believed lost forever.
"Nate mi..." she whispered, her voice breaking beneath the weight of centuries of longing.
"...Fili mi dilectissime."