Chapter 259: His Destination
The moment Fitzgerald Rathbourne landed in Laurel Hollows, he went straight to work.
He had not come all this way simply because of a suspicion. He had come because his brother had lied to him. That alone made the trip worthwhile.
Within hours, he learned that James Preston had been rushed from the Preston compound to the regional hospital.
Interesting.
For a brief moment, Fitzgerald considered driving directly to Laurel Creek Ranch instead.
With the Preston family gathered at the hospital, security around the estate would inevitably be thinner than usual. Dressed as he was now, he could probably blend in with the ranch hands well enough to look around unnoticed.
He had prepared for exactly that.
Yet...
He found himself asking the taxi driver to take him to the hospital instead.
Why?
He wasn’t entirely sure.
Perhaps instinct... Perhaps curiosity...
Whatever the reason, he had long ago accepted that his instincts often noticed patterns before his conscious mind did.
The private wing of the hospital looked more like a military installation than a medical facility.
Security personnel stood at every entrance. An entire floor had been cleared, with ordinary VIP patients relocated elsewhere. Nurses moved briskly between checkpoints, while members of the Preston family came and went with an authority that suggested they owned the building rather than merely visited it.
Fitzgerald quietly observed everything.
The Prestons truly were a dynasty here. Centuries of ranching had bought them something wealth could never purchase overnight.
Absolute loyalty.
He made several attempts to wander closer to the intensive care unit, only to be politely redirected every time. Eventually, he settled into one of the waiting areas.
He spoke to no one.
In fact, he deliberately pretended to be mute.
No amount of preparation could perfectly imitate the local drawl, and silence was often the safest disguise.
Time passed. Slowly. Strangely.
An elderly woman with a walking frame eventually shuffled over to him.
"You’ve been sitting here all afternoon, sweetheart."
Before Fitzgerald could react, she pressed a neatly wrapped sandwich into his hands.
"You’ll faint if you don’t eat."
Then she simply smiled and continued on her way.
Fitzgerald stared at the sandwich.
...
Odd. These people were... Strange... Unnecessarily kind.
It reminded him of someone. He couldn’t remember who. But he was looking for someone, he knew...
Right... her...
His thoughts drifted back to her. She should have been here. James Preston, her grandfather, was ill.
Yet despite waiting for hours, he hadn’t seen her once. Curious.
Late that evening, an opportunity finally presented itself. A security officer stepped away to answer a radio call, leaving a brief opening.
Fitzgerald moved without hesitation. Just one glance. That was all he needed. He wasn;t sure what he wanted to see, who he wanted to see.
He looked through the small observation window. His footsteps stopped.
It wasn’t James Preston. It was...
Maximilian Whitmore. Alive. Machines surrounded the hospital bed, their steady rhythm filling the room.
Fitzgerald’s pupils contracted. His hand instinctively pressed against his chest. A sharp ache spread beneath his ribs.
He stepped backward.
Another step.
Then another.
By the time he reached the empty corner of the corridor, breathing had become unexpectedly difficult.
He leaned one hand against the wall. His pulse was elevated. His chest felt tight. His eyes burned.
Curious.
He closed them and mentally listed the symptoms: increased heart rate, shallow breathing, pressure across the sternum, moisture gathering in the eyes...
Anxiety?
No.
He wasn’t anxious.
Sadness?
Impossible.
Years of psychiatric evaluations had reached the same conclusion. He didn’t experience emotions the way other people did.
Then why...
He opened his eyes.
His brother had known. Timothy had known all along that Maximilian Whitmore was alive.
Catherine’s behavior, Sebastian’s sudden friendship, the investments into BioQuant... Everything suddenly fit together.
Timothy had lied. Not merely lied. He had chosen someone else over him.
For whom?
A little girl who hadn’t even existed a year ago? His own daughter.
How long had Timothy known of her existence? Months?
Fitzgerald had known Timothy since the day his younger brother was born. They had grown up together, shared tutors, shared punishments... shared every meal for decades.
Yet when forced to choose... Timothy had kept the truth from him.
Fitzgerald frowned slightly.
Interesting.
Ordinarily, betrayal only made him calculate. He would identify the motive, determine the cost, and respond accordingly.
This felt... Different.
He looked down at the hand still resting against his chest.
The pressure hadn’t eased. He couldn’t identify the sensation. He only knew one thing.
For reasons he couldn’t explain... He didn’t like it.
Fitzgerald staggered back a step, intending to leave before whatever strange sensation had seized his chest grew worse. He needed a doctor. An ECG, perhaps. There had to be a physiological explanation for the violent pounding of his heart. Arrhythmia. Elevated adrenaline. Anything was more believable than whatever this feeling was trying to become.
Then he saw her.
She stood a few feet away, still beautiful despite the tears clouding her eyes, staring at him as though she had seen a ghost.
"Sammy?" The name slipped from his lips before he had the chance to think. His feet carried him toward her of their own accord. "Samantha Preston..."
His hand rose instinctively. His thumb brushed away the lone tear clinging stubbornly to her cheek.
Samantha flinched.
She took half a step backward, more startled than frightened.
Fitzgerald froze.
His thumb remained suspended in the air for a heartbeat before he slowly lowered it, his gaze falling to the tiny droplet glistening against his skin. It was strangely cold.
His chest tightened again.
The pounding returned with frightening intensity.
Definitely arrhythmia.
It had to be.
"Coffee?" he heard himself ask.
Samantha looked up at him. Those impossibly blue eyes—eyes that had always met his without calculation or fear—still carried the same quiet warmth they had years ago. Looking into them stirred something inside him, something that calmed the noise in his mind in a way no therapy session, medication, or carefully rehearsed coping mechanism ever had.
"Sure," she answered softly.
She was trying.
He could tell.
Whether she was forcing herself past anger, awkwardness, or simple nostalgia, he couldn’t quite read. Normally, people were equations to him. Samantha never had been.
A few minutes later they sat across from each other in the hospital cafeteria.
Samantha watched him return carrying a tray.
One coffee.
A small cup of creamer.
Three sugar sachets.
Exactly the way she had always taken it.
He placed everything in front of her before sitting down. Then, almost absentmindedly, he poured her a glass of water first.
"...Thank you."
Her fingers tightened around the warm paper cup.
Five years.
Five years apart... and he still remembered.
Her heart skipped painfully.
The man sitting opposite her barely resembled the one she had dated in college. The soft cheeks were gone. The comfortable roundness that had earned him the nickname Fudgie had disappeared beneath broad shoulders and a lean frame. His tailored features made him look almost intimidating now.
Yet somehow... he was exactly the same.
He still pulled out her chair before sitting himself. Still made sure she was warm before worrying about his own comfort. Still remembered that she hated bitter coffee. Still poured her water before serving himself.
She had taken those little habits for granted back then.
Only now, after years apart, did she realize how deeply she’d missed them. She lowered her eyes into the cup, hiding the strange ache blooming in her chest.
His name...
What was it again?
It sounded ridiculously aristocratic.
Winchester?
Colt?
Roosevelt?
No...
Winchester was definitely somewhere in it.
And his first name...
Fitz...
Fitzwilliam.
Yes, that had to be it.
She used to tease him for sounding exactly like Mr. Darcy while looking like a cuddly teddy bear. That was how Fudgie had been born.
"So..." she said, finally breaking the silence, a smile tugging faintly at her lips. "What brings you here, Mr. Fitzwilliam Winchester?"
She leaned forward, studying him exaggeratedly.
"And what happened to all that adorable flabbiness around your waist?" Her brows rose dramatically. "Don’t tell me..." She lowered her voice into a theatrical whisper. "Did your family go bankrupt?"
Fitzgerald stared at her for a long moment.
Winchester.
His mother’s surname.
The name he’d deliberately used throughout university so no one would connect him to the Rathbourne family.
She had forgotten his name.
For some reason... he didn’t mind. If anything, it made things easier. The Prestons couldn’t know Fitzgerald Rathbourne had come to Laurel Hollows.
He was simply... Fudgie, in that moment.
His lips curved into the smallest smile.
Then another unfamiliar sensation stirred beneath his ribs. It wasn’t the sharp ache from earlier. It wasn’t anxiety. It wasn’t irritation.
It felt...like relief. Like arriving somewhere after wandering for far too long without realizing he’d been searching at all.
The realization unsettled him.
Did he...actually want to be here... to see her?
His fingers tightened around the paper cup.
No.
That couldn’t be it.
He didn’t miss people.
He didn’t become attached.
Years of psychiatrists, psychologists, neurological evaluations, and personality assessments had all reached the same conclusion. His brain simply wasn’t wired the way other people’s were.
This was merely familiarity.
Routine.
A conditioned physiological response.
Nothing more.
...Wasn’t it?
"Are you going to tell me why you were crying?" he asked.
Samantha looked at him and placed the cup down. "My aunt..." she looked away.
Fitzgerald fisted his hands under the table, hard.
That woman again! She made Sammy cry!