The Billionaire Heir Called It a Romantic Mountain Trip Until My Psychic Grandmother Told Me to Ask Why His Cabin Was Booked for Three

The next morning, I woke up before sunrise. Julian was still dead to the world, buried under the gray duvet, looking innocent and boyish in the dim morning light.

I didn't wake him. I left a hurried note on the kitchen counter saying I had to stop by the grocery store early for our weekend supplies, grabbed my car keys, and slipped out the door.

The drive from Ardmore to Briar Glen took an hour and twenty minutes.

By the time I turned my Honda Civic down the familiar gravel road flanked by Grandma Eleanor’s dead apple orchard, the sun was just beginning to burn through a thick, bruised morning fog. The skeletal branches of the apple trees clawed at the gray sky like jagged fingers.

Grandma’s old white farmhouse looked smaller than I remembered, paint peeling slightly around the window frames, smoke lazily curling from the stone chimney.

I parked behind her ancient Buick, killed the engine, and sat for a moment with my hands gripping the steering wheel. My heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

Three adults.

The words echoed in my mind over and over again. Who was the third person? Was it a business partner? A mistress? Or was it something much darker—someone hired to help him disappear me into the Pennsylvania wilderness?

I pushed the car door open and hurried up the wooden porch steps. Before I could even knock, the heavy oak door swung inward.

Grandma Eleanor stood there in her knitted cardigan and plaid skirt, her white hair pinned neatly. She held a steaming mug of chamomile tea in both hands. She didn't look surprised to see me. In fact, she looked as though she had been standing by that door waiting for my headlights to crest the hill.

“You didn’t listen,” she said softly, her pale blue eyes piercing straight through me. “You came anyway.”

“Grandma,” I breathed, the dam breaking. Tears hot and sudden spilled over my lashes. I stumbled past her into the warm, familiar kitchen, the comforting scent of wood smoke and dried herbs wrapping around me like a shield. “How did you know? How could you possibly have known?”

Eleanor set her tea down on the round wooden table with a gentle clack. She walked over, her arthritic joints clicking softly, and guided me into a chair. She pushed the chipped blue-flowered mug toward me—the exact same mug I had been holding yesterday.

“I didn't need second-sight to know Julian Sterling was rotten,” Eleanor said, pulling out the chair opposite me and sitting down. Her voice was steady, unyielding. “I told you on your wedding day: men like that do not change their nature. They only change their masks. What has he done now?”

I swallowed hard, wiping my cheeks with the back of my hand.

“He planned a trip,” I said, my voice trembling. “A romantic getaway to a cabin in the Poconos. Just the two of us, he said. He booked it for this weekend.”

Eleanor’s expression didn't soften; it hardened into stone. “And?”

“I checked his laptop last night,” I whispered, leaning forward across the table. “The reservation wasn't for two people, Grandma. It was booked for three.”

The kitchen grew so quiet I could hear the grandfather clock ticking in the hallway and the wet November wind whistling against the glass.

Eleanor closed her eyes for a long moment, her lips moving in a silent, ancient rhythm. When she opened them, a cold, dangerous fire burned within their pale depths.

“Three,” she repeated, tasting the word like poison. “One to smile. One to watch. And one to bury.”

The words struck me like a physical blow. I gasped, leaning back in my chair. “Bury? Grandma, stop it. You’re scaring me. You make it sound like—like he’s going to murder me.”

“Murder is a crude word, Khloe,” Eleanor said evenly, reaching across the table to clasp my cold hand in her twisted, fragile fingers. Her grip was surprisingly strong. “Men like Julian Sterling do not dirty their own hands if they can avoid it. They arrange accidents. They create disappearances. A woman goes hiking in the deep woods. A woman slips on wet rocks near a lake. A grieving husband returns alone, weeping for the cameras.”

A wave of nausea washed over me. I looked down at our joined hands, remembering her past warning about hands confessing what tongues conceal.

“What do I do?” I whispered, the defiance completely draining out of me, leaving behind a cold, sharp terror. “If I don't go, he’ll know I searched his laptop. He’ll become suspicious. He’ll lock me out, or worse, he’ll accelerate whatever plan he has.”