LOGINALISTAIR'S POV:I walk into Elara's room and I feel like I am stepping straight into a dream.The space feels soft, warm, and quiet, lit only by a single small lamp sitting on the wooden nightstand. The walls are still painted that pale pink color, the white furniture is elegant, and the large window looks right out over the dark garden below. The room smells completely like her, a floral scent that has been haunting my mind for seven long years.She is sitting right in the middle of the bed. Her legs are tucked up under her dress, and her hands are clasped tightly together in her lap. She looks terrified. Her dark green eyes are wide, her lips are slightly parted, and her whole body is tense with anticipation.I push the heavy door shut behind me. The tiny click of the latch sounding out in the quiet room feels strangely loud.I just stand there near the threshold for a long moment, staring at her face. She is so beautiful. She is far more beautiful than I remembered. She is mo
ELARA'S POV:I think about all the dark nights I lay awake in my apartment in the city, staring at the ceiling and wondering if he ever sat in his New York home thinking about me too.I think about the exact second I turned around in the garden and saw him standing by the car tonight. My heart had stopped completely. The air had burned in my throat. Everything else around us had faded into nothing, leaving only him standing there on the gravel.I think about the lies he told me downstairs. The way he kept his eyes cold, looked away, and told me, "I am just tired. The flight was long."I did not believe a single word of it. I have never believed him when he puts on that fake tone. I have always known when Alistair Ashcroft is lying straight to my face.He was lying tonight. I know it in my gut.I do not know what kind of secret he has been carrying around for the last seven years. I do not know what made him pack his bags and run away to New York without a real goodbye. But sittin
ELARA'S POV:I walk down the long hallway toward my bedroom. The air in the corridor is cool, and the only light comes from the small brass wall lights scattered along the wallpaper. My shoes make a quiet tapping sound on the floor. The rest of the house is quiet now, the loud noise of dinner finally dying down into the late hours of the night.I open the door to my bedroom, step inside, and push it closed behind me.I toss my shoes near the closet and lie down flat on top of the bed. I lie there on my back, staring up at the white ceiling in the dark.The big glass window looks right out over the side garden, right down at the red roses my father planted years ago, and the wooden bench where I used to sit for hours and think about my life.I lay there and think about Alistair.I think about the way he sat across from me during dinner, his gray eyes following every small move I made with my hands. He looked like he was trying to memorize every detail of my face, like he was terri
ELARA'S POV:I am completely confused becaese that is the only word for it. I am confused in a way that I have not felt in seven long years, the type of confusing feeling that makes my head spin, my heart race, and my stomach drop with something that feels dangerously like hope.I have spent seven full years trying to wipe Alistair out of my mind.Seven years of telling myself that I was totally over him. Seven years of lying to my own face, pretending that what I felt when I was eighteen was just a stupid teenage crush that would fade away as I got older. I went out on dates with other men. I built my clothing career from the ground up. I traveled to different cities, worked late nights, and got almost everything I ever wanted in life. I told myself, over and over until my throat hurt, that I was fine. I was happy. I did not need him in my life anymore.But the very second I saw him step out of that car today, every single one of those buried feelings came crashing right back int
ALISTAIR'S POV:I force myself to turn my head back and look at her. She is standing right there in her light blue dress, her dark hair hanging over her chest, her green eyes searching my face with a desperate kind of curiosity.For a second, I come so close to breaking down and telling her every single thing that has nothing to do with Vladimir. I want to tell her about the absolute hell I went through during those final months in this house. I want to tell her how I spent every night lying awake in my bed, listening to her footsteps in the hallway, fighting the urge to get up and walk into her room. I want to tell her that I have been completely, insanely in love with her since I was fifteen years old, and that leaving the country was the only way I could keep myself from ruining her life.The truth is sitting right on the tip of my tongue, heavy and dangerous.But the fear hits me like a bucket of ice water. I am too terrified of what happens after those words leave my mouth. I
ALISTAIR'S POV:She shakes her head slowly. "Not at all. I do not remember anything after three in the morning. My brain was completely fried."The corner of my mouth twitches up into a small, real smile."You snored the whole way up the stairs," I say.She gasps, her hand flying up to cover her mouth. "I did not! I do not snore!""You definitely did," I say, keeping my tone deadpan. "It was actually a pretty loud."A bright flush of red spreads across her cheeks and down her neck. She looks down at her cloth napkin, trying to hide the big grin spreading across her face.The rest of the dinner passes in a strange blur. My mother goes back to talking about the party schedule, my father talks about some repair work needed on the roof of the manor, and Hope keeps bugging Elara to look at some clothing sketches she drew in her notebook earlier today.But the heavy mood over our side of the table has shifted. The cold wall between Elara and me feels a little thinner now.Every cou
Her phone buzzed.She pulled it out of her pocket. A message from Harold Wentworth, her father's lawyer."Divorce papers are ready. I've emailed them to you. Print, sign, and leave them for him. I'll handle the rest."She opened the email. Scrolled through the document. Page after page of legal lan
She watched from the window as her father walked out to greet him.August Valancourt shook Lysander's hand with both of his, the way he did with people he truly respected, and he said something that made Lysander nod solemnly. Then her mother appeared, and Isabelle kissed Lysander on both cheeks, t
At seven thirty she put the pasta water on to boil, figuring she'd wait until he was actually here to cook it so it would be fresh. She sat on the couch with a book she couldn't focus on, her phone in her hand, checking it every thirty seconds like a teenager waiting for some boy to notice her. At
Celestine started cooking at three in the afternoon, flour on her hands, music playing low from her phone and the smell of tomatoes and garlic filling the whole penthouse.She made the sauce from scratch, the way her grandmother taught her when she was maybe ten years old. She rolled out the pasta





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