Shawn’s Point of View
The silence in the mansion was a heavy shroud, echoing off the marble floors and glittering chandeliers, a void where Ella’s presence had once glowed. Her jasmine scent lingered, faint but piercing, a cruel ghost of the warmth she’d left behind just hours ago.
The memory of her standing in my room, her long black hair spilling over her shoulders, her eyes locking with mine in a moment that teetered on the edge of a kiss, burned in my chest. Now, the guest suite was empty, her laughter silenced, and the sprawling estate felt hollow, a monument to loneliness I hadn’t noticed until she’d filled it with light.
I shifted in my wheelchair, the ache from my recent aortic surgery a dull throb, but the real pain was deeper, a longing I couldn’t shake. Ella had changed everything.
I’d been alone for years, ever since my parents’ car accident a decade ago, drowning in work to outrun the grief, the coarctation of the aorta that weakened my body but not my drive. Boardrooms
