Chap­ter Forty-Eight, titled “Step Sev­en: Try to Escape,” details the nar­ra­tor’s cau­tious steps towards flee­ing an abu­sive mar­riage with the help of Enzo, a man who emerges as both an ally and a pro­tec­tor. A week after align­ing plans with Enzo, the nar­ra­tor maneu­vers to avoid her hus­band Andy’s sur­veil­lance, hint­ing at the depth of con­trol and fear per­vad­ing her life. She meets Enzo at his mod­est abode, a con­trast to her more afflu­ent but oppres­sive cir­cum­stances, sig­nal­ing a dis­par­i­ty that extends beyond mate­r­i­al wealth into realms of free­dom and dig­ni­ty.

Their meet­ing unfurls lay­ers of mutu­al under­stand­ing and shared resolve. Enzo’s hos­pi­tal­i­ty, offer­ing a beer, facil­i­tates a con­ver­sa­tion reveal­ing the heavy bur­dens each car­ries. Enzo’s back­sto­ry illus­trates a trag­ic par­al­lel; his sister’s fate at the hands of an abu­sive spouse mir­rors the nar­ra­tor’s plight, under­scor­ing a theme of resilience against malev­o­lent pow­er. Their dia­logue, sea­soned with rev­e­la­tions of past hard­ships and present fears, strength­ens their bond and com­mit­ment to escape the narrator’s abu­sive mar­riage.

The prac­ti­cal­i­ties of escape are dis­cussed with Enzo out­lin­ing the neces­si­ty for mon­ey, doc­u­ments, and care­ful plan­ning, dis­play­ing a prag­mat­ic approach to a daunt­ing chal­lenge. The nar­ra­tor’s deter­mi­na­tion is punc­tu­at­ed by her inter­ac­tions with her daugh­ter Cecelia, reveal­ing the extent of her predica­ment and her des­per­a­tion to offer Cecelia a bet­ter, safer life, away from Andy.

The nar­ra­tive crescen­dos when the nar­ra­tor’s planned escape col­lides with Andy’s dis­cov­ery of her inten­tions, embod­ied in the tan­gi­ble evi­dence of pass­ports, cash, and a new iden­ti­ty revealed on a din­ing table. The shock and betray­al con­veyed through this dis­cov­ery cul­mi­nate in the narrator’s impul­sive flight from the imme­di­ate threat, her actions dri­ven by a vis­cer­al rejec­tion of her cir­cum­scribed exis­tence.

Upon reach­ing Enzo after her escape attempt is foiled by Andy’s inter­ven­tion, the nar­ra­tor’s despair is pal­pa­ble. Yet, in the depths of her despair, Enzo pro­pos­es a dras­tic solu­tion, hint­ing at a shift from a strat­e­gy of escape to one of con­fronta­tion. This chap­ter, rich in emo­tion­al depth and ten­sion, sets a stage for trans­for­ma­tive action, weav­ing threads of hope, despair, sol­i­dar­i­ty, and a loom­ing con­fronta­tion.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

CHAPTER
48
Appar­ent­ly, the near­by “inn” was lit­tle more than a rau­cous tav­ern with a
few rooms for rent—usually by the hour. And, as it was, there were no
vacan­cies. Save for a tiny, tiny room in what had once been part of the attic.
Rhys didn’t want any­one know­ing who, exact­ly, was amongst the High
Fae, faeries, Illyr­i­ans, and who­ev­er else was packed in the inn below. Even
I bare­ly rec­og­nized him as he—without mag­ic, with­out any­thing but
adjust­ing his posture—muted that sense of oth­er­world­ly pow­er until he was
noth­ing but a com­mon, very good-look­ing Illyr­i­an war­rior, pis­sy about
hav­ing to take the last avail­able room, so high up that there was only a
nar­row stair­case lead­ing to it: no hall, no oth­er rooms. If I need­ed to use the
bathing room, I’d have to ven­ture to the lev­el below, which … giv­en the
smells and sounds of the half dozen rooms on that lev­el, I made a point to
use quick­ly on our way up and then vow not to vis­it again until morn­ing.
A day of play­ing with water and fire and ice and dark­ness in the freez­ing
rain had wrecked me so thor­ough­ly that no one looked my way, not even
the drunk­est and loneli­est of patrons in the town’s tav­ern. The small town
was bare­ly that: a col­lec­tion of an inn, an outfitter’s store, sup­ply store, and
a broth­el. All geared toward the hunters, war­riors, and trav­el­ers pass­ing
through this part of the for­est either on their way to the Illyr­i­an lands or out
of them. Or just for the faeries who dwelled here, soli­tary and glad to be
that way. Too small and too remote for Ama­ran­tha or her cronies to have
ever both­ered with.
Hon­est­ly, I didn’t care where we were, so long as it was dry and warm.
Rhys opened the door to our attic room and stood aside to let me pass.
Well, at least it was one of those things.
The ceil­ing was so slant­ed that to get to the oth­er side of the bed, I’d have
to crawl across the mat­tress; the room so cramped it was near­ly impos­si­ble
to walk around the bed to the tiny armoire shoved against the oth­er wall. I
could sit on the bed and open the armoire eas­i­ly.
The bed.
“I asked for two,” Rhys said, hands already up.
His breath cloud­ed in front of him. Not even a fire­place. And not enough
space to even demand he sleep on the floor. I didn’t trust my mas­tery over
flame to attempt warm­ing the room. I’d like­ly burn this whole filthy place
to the ground.
“If you can’t risk using mag­ic, then we’ll have to warm each oth­er,” I
said, and instant­ly regret­ted it. “Body heat,” I clar­i­fied. And, just to wipe
that look off his face I added, “My sis­ters and I had to share a bed—I’m
used to it.”
“I’ll try to keep my hands to myself.”
My mouth went a bit dry. “I’m hun­gry.”
He stopped smil­ing at that. “I’ll go down and get us food while you
change.” I lift­ed a brow. He said, “Remark­able as my own abil­i­ties are to
blend in, my face is rec­og­niz­able. I’d rather not be down there long enough
to be noticed.” Indeed, he fished a cloak from his pack and slid it on, the
pan­els fit­ting over his wings—which he wouldn’t risk van­ish­ing again.
He’d used pow­er ear­li­er in the day—small enough, he said, that it might not
be noticed, but we wouldn’t be return­ing to that part of the for­est any­time
soon.
He tugged on the hood, and I savored the shad­ows and men­ace and
wings.
Death on swift wings. That’s what I’d call the paint­ing.
He said soft­ly, “I love it when you look at me like that.”
The purr in his voice heat­ed my blood. “Like what?”
“Like my pow­er isn’t some­thing to run from. Like you see me.”
And to a male who had grown up know­ing he was the most pow­er­ful
High Lord in Prythian’s his­to­ry, that he could shred minds if he wasn’t
care­ful, that he was alone—alone in his pow­er, in his bur­den, but that fear
was his might­i­est weapon against the threats to his peo­ple … I’d hit home
when we’d fought after the Court of Night­mares.
“I was afraid of you at first.”
His white teeth flashed in the shad­ows of his hood. “No, you weren’t.
Ner­vous, maybe, but nev­er afraid. I’ve felt the gen­uine ter­ror of enough
peo­ple to know the dif­fer­ence. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t keep away.”
When? Before I could ask, he walked down­stairs, shut­ting the door
behind him.
My half-frozen clothes were a mis­ery to peel off as they clung to my
rain-swollen skin, and I knocked into the slant­ed ceil­ing, near­by walls, and
slammed my knee into the brass bed­post as I changed. The room was so
cold I had to get undressed in seg­ments: replac­ing a freez­ing shirt for a dry
one, pants for fleece-lined leg­gings, sod­den socks for thick, hand-knit
lovelies that went up to my calves. When I’d tucked myself into an
over­sized sweater that smelled faint­ly of Rhys, I sat cross-legged on the bed
and wait­ed.
The bed wasn’t small, but cer­tain­ly not large enough for me to pre­tend I
wouldn’t be sleep­ing next to him. Espe­cial­ly with the wings.
The rain tin­kled on the roof mere inch­es away, a steady beat to the
thoughts that now pulsed in my head.
The Caul­dron knew what Lucien was report­ing to Tam­lin, like­ly at this
very moment, if not hours ago.
I’d sent that note to Tam­lin … and he’d cho­sen to ignore it. Just as he’d
ignored or reject­ed near­ly all of my requests, act­ed out of his delud­ed sense
of what he believed was right for my well-being and safe­ty. And Lucien had
been pre­pared to take me against my will.
Fae males were ter­ri­to­r­i­al, dom­i­nant, arrogant—but the ones in the
Spring Court … some­thing had fes­tered in their train­ing. Because I knew—
deep in my bones—that Cass­ian might push and test my lim­its, but the
moment I said no, he’d back off. And I knew that if … that if I had been
wast­ing away and Rhys had done noth­ing to stop it, Cass­ian or Azriel
would have pulled me out. They would have tak­en me some­where—
wher­ev­er I need­ed to be—and dealt with Rhys lat­er.
But Rhys … Rhys would nev­er have not seen what was hap­pen­ing to me;
would nev­er have been so mis­guid­ed and arro­gant and self-absorbed. He’d
known what Ianthe was from the moment he met her. And he’d under­stood
what it was like to be a pris­on­er, and help­less, and to struggle—every day—
with the hor­rors of both.
I had loved the High Lord who had shown me the com­forts and won­ders
of Pry­thi­an; I had loved the High Lord who let me have the time and food
and safe­ty to paint. Maybe a small part of me might always care for him,
but … Ama­ran­tha had bro­ken us both. Or bro­ken me so that who he was
and what I now was no longer fit.
And I could let that go. I could accept that. Maybe it would be hard for a
while, but … maybe it’d get bet­ter.
Rhys’s feet were near-silent, giv­en away only by the slight groan of the
stairs. I rose to open the door before he could knock, and found him
stand­ing there, tray in his hands. Two stacks of cov­ered dish­es sat on it,
along with two glass­es and a bot­tle of wine, and—
“Tell me that’s stew I smell.” I breathed in, step­ping aside and shut­ting
the door while he set the tray on the bed. Right—not even room for a table
up here.
“Rab­bit stew, if the cook’s to be believed.”
“I could have lived with­out hear­ing that,” I said, and Rhys grinned. That
smile tugged on some­thing low in my gut, and I looked away, sit­ting down
beside the food, care­ful not to jos­tle the tray. I opened the lid of the top
dish­es: two bowls of stew. “What’s the oth­er one beneath?”
“Meat pie. I didn’t dare ask what kind of meat.” I shot him a glare, but he
was already edg­ing around the bed to the armoire, his pack in hand. “Go
ahead and eat,” he said, “I’m chang­ing first.”
Indeed, he was soaked—and had to be freez­ing and sore.
“You should have changed before going down­stairs.” I picked up the
spoon and swirled the stew, sigh­ing at the warm ten­drils of steam that rose
to kiss my chilled face.
The rasp and slurp of wet clothes being shucked off filled the room. I
tried not to think about that bare, gold­en chest, the tat­toos. The hard
mus­cles. “You were the one train­ing all day. Get­ting you a hot meal was the
least I could do.”
I took a sip. Bland, but edi­ble and, most impor­tant­ly, hot. I ate in silence,
lis­ten­ing to the rus­tle of his clothes being donned, try­ing to think of ice
baths, of infect­ed wounds, of toe fungus—anything but his naked body, so
close … and the bed I was sit­ting on. I poured myself a glass of wine—then
filled his.
At last, Rhys squeezed between the bed and jut­ting cor­ner of the wall, his
wings tucked in close. He wore loose, thin pants, and a tight-fit­ting shirt of
what looked to be soft­est cot­ton. “How do you get it over the wings?” I
asked while he dug into his own stew.
“The back is made of slats that close with hid­den but­tons … But in
nor­mal cir­cum­stances, I just use mag­ic to seal it shut.”
“It seems like you have a great deal of mag­ic con­stant­ly in use at once.”
A shrug. “It helps me work off the strain of my pow­er. The mag­ic needs
release—draining—or else it’ll build up and dri­ve me insane. That’s why
we call the Illyr­i­an stones Siphons—they help them chan­nel the pow­er,
emp­ty it when nec­es­sary.”
“Actu­al­ly insane?” I set aside the emp­ty stew bowl and removed the lid
from the meat pie.
“Actu­al­ly insane. Or so I was warned. I can feel it, though—the pull of it,
if I go too long with­out releas­ing it.”
“That’s hor­ri­ble.”
Anoth­er shrug. “Every­thing has its cost, Feyre. If the price of being
strong enough to shield my peo­ple is that I have to strug­gle with that same
pow­er, then I don’t mind. Amren taught me enough about con­trol­ling it.
Enough that I owe a great deal to her. Includ­ing the cur­rent shield around
my city while we’re here.”
Every­one around him had some use, some mighty skill. And yet there I
was … noth­ing more than a strange hybrid. More trou­ble than I was worth.
“You’re not,” he said.
“Don’t read my thoughts.”
“I can’t help what you some­times shout down the bond. And besides,
every­thing is usu­al­ly writ­ten on your face, if you know where to look.
Which made your per­for­mance today so much more impres­sive.”
He set aside his stew just as I fin­ished devour­ing my meat pie, and I slid
back on the bed to the pil­lows, cup­ping my glass of wine between my
chilled hands. I watched him eat while I drank. “Did you think I would go
with him?”
He paused mid-bite, then low­ered his fork. “I heard every word between
you. I knew you could take care of your­self, and yet … ” He went back to
his pie, swal­low­ing a bite before con­tin­u­ing. “And yet I found myself
decid­ing that if you took his hand, I would find a way to live with it. It
would be your choice.”
I sipped from my wine. “And if he had grabbed me?”
There was noth­ing but uncom­pro­mis­ing will in his eyes. “Then I would
have torn apart the world to get you back.”
A shiv­er went down my spine, and I couldn’t look away from him. “I
would have fired at him,” I breathed, “if he had tried to hurt you.”
I hadn’t even admit­ted that to myself.
His eyes flick­ered. “I know.”
He fin­ished eat­ing, placed the emp­ty tray in the cor­ner, and faced me on
the bed, refill­ing my glass before tend­ing to his. He was so tall he had to
stoop to keep from hit­ting his head on the slant­ed ceil­ing.
“One thought in exchange for anoth­er,” I said. “No train­ing involved,
please.”
A chuck­le rasped out of him, and he drained his glass, set­ting it on the
tray.
He watched me take a long drink from mine. “I’m think­ing,” he said,
fol­low­ing the flick of my tongue over my bot­tom lip, “that I look at you and
feel like I’m dying. Like I can’t breathe. I’m think­ing that I want you so
bad­ly I can’t con­cen­trate half the time I’m around you, and this room is too
small for me to prop­er­ly bed you. Espe­cial­ly with the wings.”
My heart stum­bled a beat. I didn’t know what to do with my arms, my
legs, my face. I gulped down the rest of my wine and dis­card­ed the glass
beside the bed, steel­ing my spine as I said, “I’m think­ing that I can’t stop
think­ing about you. And that it’s been that way for a long while. Even
before I left the Spring Court. And maybe that makes me a trai­tor­ous, lying
piece of trash, but—”
“It doesn’t,” he said, his face solemn.
But it did. I’d want­ed to see Rhysand dur­ing those weeks between vis­its.
And hadn’t cared when Tam­lin stopped vis­it­ing my bed­room. Tam­lin had
giv­en up on me, but I’d also giv­en up on him. And I was a lying piece of
trash for it.
I mur­mured, “We should go to sleep.”
The pat­ter of the rain was the only sound for a long moment before he
said, “All right.”
I crawled over the bed to the side tucked almost against the slant­ed
ceil­ing and shim­mied beneath the quilt. Cool, crisp sheets wrapped around
me like an icy hand. But my shiv­er was from some­thing else entire­ly as the
mat­tress shift­ed, the blan­ket moved, and then the two can­dles beside the
bed went out.
Dark­ness hit me at the same moment the warmth from his body did. It
was an effort not to nudge toward it. Nei­ther one of us moved, though.
I stared into the dark, lis­ten­ing to that icy rain, try­ing to steal the warmth
from him.
“You’re shiv­er­ing so hard the bed is shak­ing,” he said.
“My hair is wet,” I said. It wasn’t a lie.
Rhys was silent, then the mat­tress groaned, sink­ing direct­ly behind me as
his warmth poured over me. “No expec­ta­tions,” he said. “Just body heat.” I
scowled at the laugh­ter in his voice.
But his broad hands slid under and over me: one flat­ten­ing against my
stom­ach and tug­ging me against the hard warmth of him, the oth­er slid­ing
under my ribs and arms to band around my chest, press­ing his front into me.
He tan­gled his legs with mine, and then a heav­ier, warmer dark­ness set­tled
over us, smelling of cit­rus and the sea.
I lift­ed a hand toward that dark­ness, and met with a soft, silky mate­r­i­al—
his wing, cocoon­ing and warm­ing me. I traced my fin­ger along it, and he
shud­dered, his arms tight­en­ing around me.
“Your fin­ger … is very cold,” he grit­ted out, the words hot on my neck.
I tried not to smile, even as I tilt­ed my neck a bit more, hop­ing the heat of
his breath might caress it again. I dragged my fin­ger along his wing, the nail
scrap­ing gen­tly against the smooth sur­face. Rhys tensed, his hand splay­ing
across my stom­ach.
“You cru­el, wicked thing,” he purred, his nose graz­ing the exposed bit of
neck I’d arched beneath him. “Didn’t any­one ever teach you man­ners?”
“I nev­er knew Illyr­i­ans were such sen­si­tive babies,” I said, slid­ing
anoth­er fin­ger down the inside of his wing.
Some­thing hard pushed against my behind. Heat flood­ed me, and I went
taut and loose all at once. I stroked his wing again, two fin­gers now, and he
twitched against my back­side in time with the caress.
The fin­gers he’d spread over my stom­ach began to make idle, lazy
strokes. He swirled one around my navel, and I inched imper­cep­ti­bly clos­er,
grind­ing up against him, arch­ing a bit more to give that oth­er hand access to
my breasts.
“Greedy,” he mur­mured, his lips hov­er­ing over my neck. “First you
ter­ror­ize me with your cold hands, now you want … what is it you want,
Feyre?”
More, more, more, I almost begged him as his fin­gers trav­eled down the
slope of my breasts, while his oth­er hand con­tin­ued its idle stroking along
my stom­ach, my abdomen, slowly—so slowly—heading toward the low
band of my pants and the build­ing ache beneath it.
Rhysand’s teeth scraped against my neck in a lazy caress. “What is it you
want, Feyre?” He nipped at my ear­lobe.
I cried out just a lit­tle, arch­ing ful­ly against him, as if I could get that
hand to slip exact­ly to where I want­ed it. I knew what he want­ed me to say.
I wouldn’t give him the sat­is­fac­tion of it. Not yet.
So I said, “I want a dis­trac­tion.” It was breath­less. “I want—fun.”
His body again tensed behind mine.
And I won­dered if he some­how didn’t see it for the lie it was; if he
thought … if he thought that was all I indeed want­ed.
But his hands resumed their roam­ing. “Then allow me the plea­sure of
dis­tract­ing you.”
He slipped a hand beneath the top of my sweater, div­ing clean under my
shirt. Skin to skin, the cal­lus­es of his hands made me groan as they scraped
the top of my breast and cir­cled around my peaked nip­ple. “I love these,” he
breathed onto my neck, his hand slid­ing to my oth­er breast. “You have no
idea how much I love these.”
I groaned as he caressed a knuck­le against my nip­ple, and I bowed into
the touch, silent­ly beg­ging him. He was hard as gran­ite behind me, and I
ground against him, elic­it­ing a soft, wicked hiss from him. “Stop that,” he
snarled onto my skin. “You’ll ruin my fun.”
I would do no such thing. I began twist­ing, reach­ing for him, need­ing to
just feel him, but he clicked his tongue and pushed him­self hard­er against
me, until there was no room for my hand to even slide in.
“I want to touch you first,” he said, his voice so gut­tur­al I bare­ly
rec­og­nized it. “Just—let me touch you.” He palmed my breast for empha­sis.
It was enough of a bro­ken plea that I paused, yield­ing as his oth­er hand
again trailed lazy lines on my stom­ach.
I can’t breathe when I look at you.
Let me touch you.
Because I was jeal­ous, and pissed off …
She’s mine.
I shut out the thoughts, the bits and pieces he’d giv­en me.
Rhys slid his fin­ger along the band of my pants again, a cat play­ing with
its din­ner.
Again.
Again.
“Please,” I man­aged to say.
He smiled against my neck. “There are those miss­ing man­ners.” His hand
at last trailed beneath my pants. The first brush of him against me dragged a
groan from deep in my throat.
He snarled in sat­is­fac­tion at the wet­ness he found wait­ing for him, and
his thumb cir­cled that spot at the apex of my thighs, teas­ing, brush­ing up
against it, but nev­er quite—
His oth­er hand gen­tly squeezed my breast at the same moment his thumb
pushed down exact­ly where I want­ed. I bucked my hips, my head ful­ly back
against his shoul­der now, pant­i­ng as his thumb flicked—
I cried out, and he laughed, low and soft. “Like that?”
A moan was my only reply. More more more.
His fin­gers slid down, slow and brazen, straight through the core of me,
and every point in my body, my mind, my soul, nar­rowed to the feel­ing of
his fin­gers poised there like he had all the time in the world.
Bas­tard. “Please,” I said again, and ground my ass against him for
empha­sis.
He hissed at the con­tact and slid a fin­ger inside me. He swore. “Feyre—”
But I’d already start­ed to move on him, and he swore again in a long
exhale. His lips pressed into my neck, kiss­ing up, up toward my ear.
I let out a moan so loud it drowned out the rain as he slid in a sec­ond
fin­ger, fill­ing me so much I couldn’t think around it, couldn’t breathe.
“That’s it,” he mur­mured, his lips trac­ing my ear.
I was sick of my neck and ear get­ting such atten­tion. I twist­ed as much as
I could, and found him star­ing at me, at the hand down the front of my
pants, watch­ing me move on him.
He was still star­ing at me when I cap­tured his mouth with my own, bit­ing
on his low­er lip.
Rhys groaned, plung­ing his fin­gers in deep­er. Hard­er.
I didn’t care—I didn’t care one bit about what I was and who I was and
where I’d been as I yield­ed ful­ly to him, open­ing my mouth. His tongue
swept in, mov­ing in a way that I knew exact­ly what he’d do if he got
between my legs.
His fin­gers plunged in and out, slow and hard, and my very exis­tence
nar­rowed to the feel of them, to the tight­ness in me ratch­et­ing up with every
deep stroke, every echo­ing thrust of his tongue in my mouth.
“You have no idea how much I—” He cut him­self off, and groaned again.
“Feyre.”
The sound of my name on his lips was my undo­ing. Release bar­reled
down my spine, and I cried out, only to have his lips cov­er mine, as if he
could devour the sound. His tongue flicked the roof of my mouth while I
shud­dered around him, clench­ing tight. He swore again, breath­ing hard,
fin­gers stroking me through the last throes of it, until I was limp and
trem­bling in his arms.
I couldn’t breathe hard enough, fast enough, as Rhys with­drew his
fin­gers, pulling back so I could meet his stare. He said, “I want­ed to do that
when I felt how drenched you were at the Court of Night­mares. I want­ed to
have you right there in the mid­dle of every­one. But most­ly I just want­ed to
do this.” His eyes held mine as he brought those fin­gers to his mouth and
sucked on them.
On the taste of me.
I was going to eat him alive. I slid a hand up to his chest to pin him
down, but he gripped my wrist. “When you lick me,” he said rough­ly, “I
want to be alone—far away from every­one. Because when you lick me,
Feyre,” he said, press­ing nip­ping kiss­es to my jaw, my neck, “I’m going to
let myself roar loud enough to bring down a moun­tain.”
I was instant­ly liq­uid again, and he laughed under his breath. “And when
I lick you,” he said, slid­ing his arms around me and tuck­ing me in tight to
him, “I want you splayed out on a table like my own per­son­al feast.”
I whim­pered.
“I’ve had a long, long time to think about how and where I want you,”
Rhys said onto the skin of my neck, his fin­gers slid­ing under the band of

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

I KNEW THE ONLY WAY to get Har­ry to start liv­ing his life again was
to sur­round him with Con­nor and work. The Con­nor part was easy.
She loved her father. She want­ed his atten­tion every sec­ond of the day.
She was grow­ing up to look even more like him, with his ice-blue eyes
and his broad, tall frame. And when he was with her, he would stop
drink­ing. He cared about being a good father, and he knew he had a
respon­si­bil­i­ty to be sober for her.
But when he went back to his own home every night, a fact still
secret from the out­side world, I knew he was drink­ing him­self to sleep.
On the days he was not with us, I knew he wasn’t get­ting out of bed.
So work was my only option. I had to find some­thing he would love.
It had to be a script he would feel pas­sion­ate about and one with a
great role for me. Not just because I want­ed a great role but also
because Har­ry wouldn’t do any­thing for him­self. But he would do
any­thing if he believed I need­ed him to.
So I read scripts. Hun­dreds of scripts over the months. And then
Max Girard sent me one that he was hav­ing trou­ble get­ting made. It
was called All for Us.
It was about a sin­gle moth­er of three who moves to New York City
to try to sup­port her chil­dren and pur­sue her dreams. It was about
try­ing to make ends meet in the cold, hard city, but it was also about
hope and dar­ing to believe you deserve more. Both of which I knew
would appeal to Har­ry. And the role of Renee, the moth­er, was hon­est,
right­eous, and pow­er­ful.
I ran it over to Har­ry and begged him to read it. When he tried to
avoid it, I said, “I think it will final­ly get me my Oscar.” That’s what
made him pick it up.
I loved shoot­ing All for Us. And it wasn’t because I final­ly got that
god­damn stat­ue for it or because I became even clos­er with Max
Girard on the set. I loved shoot­ing All for Us because while it didn’t get
Har­ry to put down the bot­tle, it did get him out of bed.
  *  *  *  
FOUR MONTHS AFTER the movie came out, Har­ry and I went to the
Oscars togeth­er. Max Girard had attend­ed with a mod­el named
Brid­get Man­ners, but he had joked, for weeks before the event, that all
he want­ed was to attend with me, to have me on his arm. He had even
tak­en to jok­ing that giv­en all the men I’d mar­ried, he was crushed that
I’d nev­er mar­ried him. I had to admit that Max was quick­ly becom­ing
some­one I tru­ly felt close to. So while he did tech­ni­cal­ly have a date, it
felt, as we all sat in the first row togeth­er, that I was there with the two
men who meant the most to me.
Con­nor was back at the hotel, watch­ing on TV with Luisa. Ear­li­er
that day, she had giv­en Har­ry and me each a pic­ture she had drawn.
Mine was a gold star. Harry’s was a light­ning bolt. She said they were
for luck. I tucked mine into my clutch. Har­ry put his in his tuxe­do
pock­et.
When they called out the nom­i­nees for Best Actress, I real­ized that
I hadn’t real­ly ever believed I could win. With the Oscar would come
cer­tain things I’d always want­ed: cred­i­bil­i­ty, grav­i­tas. And if I tru­ly
looked inward, I real­ized I didn’t think I had cred­i­bil­i­ty or grav­i­tas.
Har­ry squeezed my hand as Brick Thomas opened the enve­lope.
And then, despite every­thing I had told myself, he said my name.
I stared straight ahead, my chest heav­ing, unable to process what
I’d heard. And then Har­ry looked at me and said, “You did it.”
I stood up and hugged him. I walked to the podi­um, I took the
Oscar that Brick was hand­ing me, and I put my hand to my chest to try
to slow down my heart­beat.
When the clap­ping sub­sided, I leaned in to the micro­phone and
gave a speech that was both pre­med­i­tat­ed and extem­po­ra­ne­ous. I tried
to remem­ber what I’d pre­pared to say all the oth­er times I thought I
might win.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

48
I had been lied to for the past thir­teen years. The whole world knew I need­ed a
new lawyer, and �nal­ly I real­ized the same thing. It was time to take back con­trol
of my own life.
I reached out to my social media team and to my friend Cade for help �nding
one. This is when I got Math­ew Rosen­gart on board, and he was amaz­ing. A
promi­nent for­mer fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor now with a major law �rm, he had a
num­ber of famous clients like Steven Spiel­berg and Keanu Reeves, and a lot of
expe­ri­ence with high-pro�le, chal­leng­ing cas­es. We spoke sev­er­al times on the
phone and then met in ear­ly July in my pool house. Once Math­ew was in my
cor­ner, I felt that I was get­ting clos­er to the end. Some­thing had to hap­pen. It
couldn’t stay at a stand­still. But of course, because it was the legal sys­tem, we had
to do a lot of wait­ing and strate­giz­ing.
He was appalled that I’d been denied my own lawyer for so long. He said even
vicious crim­i­nals get to pick their own lawyers, and he said he hat­ed bul­ly­ing. I
was glad, because I saw my father and Lou and Robin as bul­lies and I want­ed
them out of my life.
Math­ew said he would go to court and �le a motion to remove my dad as
con­ser­va­tor �rst, and then, after that, it would be eas­i­er to try to ter­mi­nate the
entire con­ser­va­tor­ship. Just a few weeks lat­er, on July 26, he �led to elim­i­nate my
father from that role. After a big court hear­ing on Sep­tem­ber 29, my father was
sus­pend­ed as my con­ser­va­tor. It was all over the news before Math­ew could even
call me after court.
I felt relief sweep over me. The man who had scared me as a child and ruled
over me as an adult, who had done more than any­one to under­mine my self-
con�dence, was no longer in con­trol of my life.
At that point, with my father elim­i­nat­ed, Math­ew told me we had
momen­tum, and he peti­tioned for the end of the con­ser­va­tor­ship alto­geth­er.
I was at a resort in Tahi­ti in Novem­ber when Math­ew called me with the
news that I was no longer under a con­ser­va­tor­ship. He’d told me when I left for
the trip that one day soon I’d be able to wake up for the �rst time in thir­teen
years a free woman. Still, I couldn’t believe it when he called me as soon as he
came out of the court hear­ing and told me it was done. I was free.
Even though it was his strat­e­gy that had got­ten us the vic­to­ry, he told me that
I deserved the cred­it for what had hap­pened. He said that by giv­ing my
tes­ti­mo­ny, I’d freed myself and prob­a­bly also helped oth­er peo­ple in unfair
con­ser­va­tor­ships. After hav­ing my father take cred­it for every­thing I did for so
long, it meant every­thing to have this man tell me that I’d made the di�erence in
my own life.
And now, �nal­ly, it was my own life.
Being con­trolled made me so angry on behalf of any­one who doesn’t have the
right to deter­mine their own fate.
“I’m just grate­ful, hon­est­ly, for each day… I’m not here to be a vic­tim,” I said
on Insta­gram after the con­ser­va­tor­ship was ter­mi­nat­ed. “I lived with vic­tims my
whole life as a child. That’s why I got out of my house. And worked for twen­ty
years and worked my ass o�… Hope­ful­ly, my sto­ry will make an impact and
make some changes in the cor­rupt sys­tem.”
In the months since that phone call, I’ve been try­ing to rebuild my life day by
day. I’m try­ing to learn how to take care of myself, and to have some fun, too.
On vaca­tion in Can­cún, I got to do some­thing I’d loved years earlier—Jet
Ski­ing. The last time I’d Jet Skied before that had been in Mia­mi with the boys,
when I went too fast because I was try­ing to keep up with them. Those kids are
bor­der­line dan­ger­ous on a Jet Ski! They go extreme­ly fast and do jumps. Rid­ing
over the waves after them, I was hit­ting hard—boom, boom, boom—and falling
down, wip­ing out and hurt­ing my arm.
Not want­i­ng to repeat that expe­ri­ence, in May 2022 I got my assis­tant to
dri­ve me instead. It’s way bet­ter when some­one dri­ves you, I’ve found. This time
I could feel the pow­er of the engine, I could enjoy being out on the clear blue
water, and I could go exact­ly the speed I want­ed to.
That’s the kind of thing I’m doing now—trying to have fun and try­ing to be
kind to myself, to take things at my own pace. And, for the �rst time in a long
time, allow­ing myself to trust again.
Every day, I put music on. When I walk around my house singing, I feel
com­plete­ly free, com­plete­ly at ease, com­plete­ly hap­py. Whether I sound per­fect
or not, I don’t even care. Singing makes me feel con�dent and strong the same
way exer­cise does, or prayer. (Remem­ber: your tongue is your sword.) Any­thing
that gets your heart rate up is good. Music is that, plus a con­nec­tion to God.
That’s where my heart is.
When I had full-time access to a stu­dio in Mal­ibu, I loved going there
reg­u­lar­ly. One day I cre­at­ed six songs. Music is at its purest for me when I’m
doing it for myself. I thought I might get a stu­dio again some­day and just play
around, but for some time I hadn’t been think­ing about record­ing.
I changed my mind about that when I got invit­ed to record a song with an
artist I’ve admired my entire life: Sir Elton John. He’s one of my all-time favorite
per­form­ers. I’d met him at an Oscars par­ty about a decade ago and we got along
so well. And now here he was reach­ing out with the sweet­est video mes­sage,
ask­ing if I would be inter­est­ed in col­lab­o­rat­ing on one of his most icon­ic songs.
“Hold Me Clos­er” would be a mod­ern­ized duet ver­sion of his hit “Tiny
Dancer,” with bits of a cou­ple of his oth­er songs, too.
I was so hon­ored. Like me, Elton John has been through so much, so
pub­licly. It’s giv­en him incred­i­ble com­pas­sion. What a beau­ti­ful man on all
lev­els.
To make the col­lab­o­ra­tion even more mean­ing­ful: as a child, I lis­tened to
“Tiny Dancer” in the car in Louisiana as I rode to and from my dance and
gym­nas­tics class­es.
Sir Elton was kind and made me feel so com­fort­able. Once we’d worked out a
date to record the song, I head­ed over to the producer’s home stu­dio in Bev­er­ly
Hills.
The stu­dio was in the base­ment of the house. I had nev­er seen a set­up like it:
it was a com­plete­ly open stu­dio with gui­tars, pianos, sound­boards, and music
equip­ment all set out. I was ner­vous because it would be the �rst time the world
had heard my singing voice on some­thing new in six years, but I believed in the
song and in myself, so I went for it.
I stood in front of the micro­phone, sped up the tem­po, and began to sing.
After a few hours, we were done. I had record­ed a duet with one of my favorite
artists on one of my favorite songs. I was excit­ed, anx­ious, and emo­tion­al in the
weeks lead­ing up to the release.
Before the con­ser­va­tor­ship, I would go onstage and every­one would look to
me for the sig­nal that it was time to start the show. I’d hold up my index �nger to
say, “Let’s go.” Under the con­ser­va­tor­ship, I always had to wait for every­one else.
I was told, “We’ll let you know when we’re ready.” I didn’t feel like they treat­ed
me as if I had any val­ue. I hat­ed it.
I’d been taught through the con­ser­va­tor­ship to feel almost too frag­ile, too
scared. That’s the price I paid under the con­ser­va­tor­ship. They took a lot of my
wom­an­hood, my sword, my core, my voice, the abil­i­ty to say “Fuck you.” And I
know that sounds bad, but there is some­thing cru­cial about this. Don’t
under­es­ti­mate your pow­er.
“Hold Me Clos­er” debuted on August 26, 2022. By August 27, we were num­ber
one in forty coun­tries. My �rst num­ber one and my longest-chart­ing sin­gle in
almost ten years. And on my own terms. Ful­ly in con­trol. Fans said that on the
track I sound­ed amaz­ing. Shar­ing your work with the world is ter­ri­fy­ing. But in
my expe­ri­ence, it is always worth­while. Record­ing “Hold Me Clos­er” and
putting it out into the world was a fan­tas­tic expe­ri­ence. It didn’t feel good—it
felt great.
Push­ing for­ward in my music career is not my focus at the moment. Right
now it’s time for me to try to get my spir­i­tu­al life in order, to pay atten­tion to the
lit­tle things, to slow down. It’s time for me not to be some­one who oth­er peo­ple
want; it’s time to actu­al­ly �nd myself.
As I’ve got­ten old­er, I like my alone time. Being an enter­tain­er was great, but
over the last �ve years my pas­sion to enter­tain in front of a live audi­ence has
less­ened. I do it for myself now. I feel God more when I’m alone.
I’m no saint, but I do know God.
I have a lot of soul-search­ing to do. It’s going to be a process. I’m already
enjoy­ing it. Change is good. Hesam and I always pray togeth­er. I look up to him
—his con­sis­ten­cy with work­ing out and being a good man and being healthy
and tak­ing care of me and help­ing me learn how we can take care of each oth­er.
He’s such an inspi­ra­tion and I’m grate­ful. The tim­ing of the end of the
con­ser­va­tor­ship was per­fect for our rela­tion­ship; we were able to estab­lish a new
life togeth­er, with­out lim­i­ta­tions, and get mar­ried. Our wed­ding was a beau­ti­ful
cel­e­bra­tion of how much we’d been through togeth­er and how deeply we wished
for each other’s hap­pi­ness.
The day the con­ser­va­tor­ship end­ed, I was left with so many emo­tions: shock,
relief, ela­tion, sad­ness, joy.
I felt betrayed by my father and, sad­ly, by the rest of my fam­i­ly, too. My sis­ter
and I should have found com­fort in each oth­er, but unfor­tu­nate­ly that hasn’t
been the case. As I was �ght­ing the con­ser­va­tor­ship and receiv­ing a lot of press
atten­tion, she was writ­ing a book cap­i­tal­iz­ing on it. She rushed out sala­cious
sto­ries about me, many of them hurt­ful and out­ra­geous. I was real­ly let down.
Shouldn’t sis­ters be able to con­fess their fear or vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to each oth­er
with­out that lat­er being used as evi­dence of insta­bil­i­ty?
I couldn’t help but feel that she wasn’t aware of what I’d been through. It
appeared that she thought it had been easy for me because so much fame had
come to me so young, and that she blamed me for my suc­cess and every­thing
that came with it.
Jamie Lynn clear­ly su�ered in our fam­i­ly home, too. She grew up a child of
divorce, which I did not. It seems that she didn’t get a lot of par­ent­ing, and I
know it was hard to try to sing and act and make her own way in the world in
the shad­ow of a sib­ling who got not only most of the family’s atten­tion but a lot
of the world’s. My heart goes out to her for all those rea­sons.
But I don’t think she ful­ly under­stands just how des­per­ate­ly poor we were
before she was born. Because of the mon­ey I brought to the fam­i­ly, she wasn’t
help­less in the face of our father, like my moth­er and I were back in the 1980s.
When you have noth­ing, that pain gets intensi�ed by your inabil­i­ty to escape.
My mom and I had to wit­ness the ugli­ness and the vio­lence with­out believ­ing
that there was any­where else to go.
She will always be my sis­ter, and I love her and her beau­ti­ful fam­i­ly. I wish the
absolute best for them. She’s been through a lot, includ­ing teen preg­nan­cy,
divorce, and her daughter’s near-fatal acci­dent. She’s spo­ken about the pain of
grow­ing up in my shad­ow. I’m work­ing to feel more com­pas­sion than anger
toward her and toward every­one who I feel has wronged me. It’s not easy.
I’ve had dreams in which June tells me he knows he hurt my father, who then
hurt me. I felt his love and that he’d changed on the oth­er side. I hope that one
day I will be able to feel bet­ter about the rest of my fam­i­ly, too.
My anger has been man­i­fest­ing itself phys­i­cal­ly, espe­cial­ly with migraine
headaches.
When I get them, I don’t want to go to the doc­tor because being sent to one
doc­tor after anoth­er all those years gave me a pho­bia about them. And so I take
care of things myself. When it comes to the migraines, I don’t like to talk about
them because I’m super­sti­tious that if I do, they’ll both­er me more.
When I have one, I can’t go into the light and I can’t move. I stay very still in
the dark. Any light makes my head throb and makes me feel like I’m going to
pass out—it’s that painful. I have to sleep for a day and a half. Until recent­ly, I’d
nev­er had a headache in my whole life. My broth­er used to com­plain about his
headaches and I thought he was exag­ger­at­ing how bad they were. Now I’m sor­ry
I ever said any­thing to doubt him.
For me, a migraine is worse than a stom­ach virus. At least with a bug you can
still think straight. Your head can help you �gure out what you want to do, what
movies you want to watch. But when you have a migraine you can’t do any­thing
because your brain is gone. Migraines are just one part of the phys­i­cal and
emo­tion­al dam­age I have now that I’m out of the con­ser­va­tor­ship. I don’t think
my fam­i­ly under­stands the real dam­age that they did.
For thir­teen years, I wasn’t allowed to eat what I want­ed, to dri­ve, to spend
my mon­ey how I want­ed, to drink alco­hol or even co�ee.

Chap­ter 48 of “The Ten­ant of Wild­fell Hall” by Anne Bron­të, titled “Fur­ther Intel­li­gence,” brings a mix of hope and con­cern for the char­ac­ters involved. Mr. Lawrence pays a vis­it to share anoth­er let­ter from his sis­ter, which allows Mr. Markham to dis­close details he deems nec­es­sary about Helen, who wish­es lit­tle to be said about her. She express­es hope for Markham’s well-being but insists that he must not think of her, under­lin­ing a poignant res­ig­na­tion to their sep­a­ra­tion.

The let­ter reveals Helen’s ardu­ous care for her hus­band, who is recov­er­ing from a severe ill­ness but is plagued by his past indul­gences and stub­born­ness. Despite his improved health, Helen nav­i­gates the chal­lenges of man­ag­ing his dietary restric­tions, fend­ing off his unrea­son­able demands, and the emo­tion­al tur­moil of his occa­sion­al­ly feigned affec­tion, which she can nei­ther believe nor rec­i­p­ro­cate. Through dili­gent care and firm bound­aries, Helen strives to bal­ance her roles as a care­tak­er, moth­er, and over­seer of house­hold affairs, high­light­ing her grit­ty resolve and moral stead­fast­ness.

Mean­while, Helen’s nar­ra­tive also touch­es on Esther Hargrave’s strug­gles with her own family’s pres­sure to mar­ry a suit­or she despis­es, show­cas­ing the per­va­sive chal­lenge women face in assert­ing their auton­o­my against soci­etal and famil­ial expec­ta­tions.

Markham, on his part, finds solace in being able to vin­di­cate Helen in the eyes of their com­mu­ni­ty. He plans dis­creet­ly to spread the truth, with the dual aim of clear­ing her name and sat­is­fy­ing his own need for pub­lic vin­di­ca­tion. The chap­ter clos­es on a note of qui­et tri­umph as Markham antic­i­pates the rever­sal of Helen’s and his own social stand­ing through the rev­e­la­tion of her sac­ri­fices and integri­ty.

The chap­ter sub­tly inter­weaves themes of duty, love, and social redemp­tion, pre­sent­ing char­ac­ters who grap­ple with per­son­al and soci­etal expec­ta­tions. Bron­të uses their tri­als and inter­nal con­flicts to cri­tique the rigid social norms of her time, espe­cial­ly regard­ing wom­en’s roles and the sanc­ti­ty of mar­riage. Amidst the per­son­al dra­mas of her char­ac­ters, Bron­të offers a glimpse into the pos­si­bil­i­ties of moral courage and the high cost of per­son­al integri­ty.