Chapter Ten

Eleanor. 

I considered backing out of going to the gala tonight atleast ten times tonight. But at some point I had to make my entrance back to society and this was the perfect opportunity, I needed to get this part over with, and I needed to come back on my own terms. 

But that doesn't mean this was easy, a part of me wanted to just go back to London and continue living my life like I had been for the past five years, but I could not keep hiding anymore, this is my home and my kids were old enough and they were starting to ask questions, questions I had no answers to, I had to do this for them. 

The mirror stares back at me with a stranger’s face. Five years is a long time to be gone. Five years is enough to let the world bury your name, to let whispers replace memories, and to let the man who once swore forever to you build a new life with someone else.

But not just anyone.

My own blood.

My sister, Amina.

My pulse hammers as I smooth the silk of my gown over my hips. Midnight blue clings to me like a secret, its slit daring and unapologetic. I tilt my chin and force myself to meet my own gaze. The woman staring back isn’t the broken Eleanor who had to disappear. She’s sharpened, harder, wrapped in armor made of elegance and survival.

I hook the diamond clasp of my necklace the one piece I kept from my old life. It glitters against my collarbone, catching the light like it remembers the nights I cried into my pillow when Jake Donovan chose my sister over me. My ex-husband. My once everything.

Ofcourse he had no idea that on that fateful day five years ago, I heard them in our matrimonial bed, he had been cheating on me way before I disappeared, I kept an eye on the news, followed their highly publicized wedding, love story of the century. Billionaire finds love in wife's sister after her sudden death, the press ate it up, it made sense that they would fall in love with each other after both losing me. But what the world didn't know was that they were together way before my disappearance. 

And tonight, he’s going to see that I’m not buried. I’m not erased. I’m back.

“Ma’am, the car is ready,” my driver calls softly from outside the suite.

I draw in a slow breath, careful not to let the tremor in my chest break the surface. “Coming.”

My heels click against the marble as I leave the hotel room, every step rehearsed like a queen returning to reclaim her throne. The air outside is crisp, biting against my bare shoulders, but I don’t shiver. I can’t. Not when the night holds the weight of a reckoning.

Sliding into the sleek black car, I smooth my gown and press my palms together, hiding the slight shake. My driver shuts the door, and I’m swallowed by leather and silence. The city blurs outside the tinted window as we move toward the gala. The skyline glitters like it’s holding its breath. New York hasn’t seen me in half a decade. Tonight, it will.

My phone buzzes with a single text from an unknown number: Are you sure about this?

I stare at the words for a heartbeat too long before locking the screen. There’s no turning back.

As we near the hotel where the gala is being held, the glow of spotlights cuts across the sky. I see the flash of cameras already exploding along the velvet ropes, the hum of excitement vibrating in the air even through the car windows. My throat tightens.

This is it.

The car slows to a stop, and for a moment, I stay frozen, my hand on the door handle. My lungs forget how to work. All those nights I dreamed of this, walking back into their world, into his line of sight and now it’s here.

The driver opens my door before doubt can swallow me whole.

I step out.

The night erupts.

A thousand flashes ignite, blinding and relentless, like fireworks exploding just for me. Shouts ripple across the crowd, my name tumbling off tongues that never expected to speak it again.

“Eleanor! Eleanor!”

“Is it really you?”

“Five years, where have you been?”

“Eleanor Donovan returns from the dead!”

Questions fly like bullets, but I keep my head high, my chin lifted. My heels sink into the crimson carpet as I glide forward, each step echoing with the sound of rebirth. The gown flows behind me, the slit daring just enough to remind them I’m not the same woman who vanished five years ago.

I hear gasps. I see phones held high, cameras shaking, journalists nearly climbing over one another just to capture me. It’s chaos, but to me, it’s music.

The queen they thought was gone has returned.

And then I feel it.

That unmistakable heat.

The weight of a gaze I once knew better than my own reflection.

My heart stumbles against my ribs as I look up.

There he is.

Jake Donovan.

He is standing at the edge of the carpet, dressed in his immaculate tux, his arm around her waist. Amina. My sister. She glows under the spotlight, smiling wide, but Jake, he isn’t smiling. Not anymore.

His eyes are locked on me, unblinking, stunned, as though he’s seeing a ghost step out of the grave he buried me in.

The noise around us fades to nothing. The cameras, the screaming, the lights, it all dissolves into the background. For one suspended moment, it’s just him and me across the sea of flashing bulbs.

My pulse roars in my ears, but I don’t break. I meet his stare with the same fire that carried me through the last five years.

I had rehearsed this moment, dreamt it. But nothing could have really prepared me for this.