Chapter 1. The Ghost in Her eyes.

Elena's POV 

Three Years–

I stared at the phone long after the message came in.

“I’ll come home tonight.”

Four words.

After days of silence, weeks of sleeping alone, and three years of a marriage that felt more like slow erosion than union… he was coming home.

I didn’t know what to do with that. What to feel. I should have been angry. Maybe I was. But underneath it all, under the bruises silence left on a woman’s heart, there was hope—small and aching and foolish.

So I waited.

I didn't bake because I didn't expect anything. I baked because my hands needed something to do that wasn’t reaching for him in my sleep. The lavender? That was accidental. A candle I lit just to make the house feel less cold. I wasn’t trying to lure him into softness.

Not this time.

I told myself I wouldn’t dress up. That I wouldn’t let him see how much I still wanted him to want me. But when the clock ticked past nine and headlights touched the driveway, I panicked. I ran upstairs and changed into the only silk I owned that still fit right—wine-coloured, shoulder-baring, delicate in all the ways I didn’t feel.

I hadn’t worn heels. I didn't need them. The moment I heard the door open, my breath caught in my throat, and I found myself standing at the top of the stairs barefoot like a girl hoping her fairytale had come back from the dead.

And there he was.

Lucien.

He didn’t bring flowers. Didn’t knock. Didn’t even look surprised to find me waiting, only... burdened. Like coming home had cost him something.

His eyes met mine, and I felt it—that flicker. That slow-burning ache that had never gone away, no matter how cold he became. For a moment, the distance between us didn’t matter. For a moment, I remembered what it was like to be touched like I meant something.

He didn’t speak. Neither did I.

He just kissed me.

But not like a man kissing his wife.

He kissed me like a man chasing a ghost—fervent, lost, desperate.

And I let him.

I let him take me to our bedroom. Let him lift me like I was still the woman he once burned for. I told myself it meant something.

Until it didn’t.

His whisper came like a crack through the stillness. “Condom.”

I reached for the drawer and handed it to him without thinking.

Then I saw his expression.

His face turned to stone as he stared at the foil in his hand. “It’s… slit,” he said like a curse.

“What?” I leaned in, blinking. “Wait—no, I didn’t—Lucien, I would never—”

But it was too late. I knew that look. Accusation. Disbelief. Fury tightly leashed by control.

He grabbed the drawer and dumped it. One. Two. Three—each one opened. Tidy tears in every packet.

A sick chill crawled up my spine.

“No,” I said, shaking my head, voice barely there. “I didn’t do this. I swear—I didn’t—”

He didn’t believe me.

“You expect me to think someone else came in here and did this?” His voice was low, dangerously calm. “Who, Elena?”

I searched my memory. Clung to anything.

“Your mother—she was here last week, she said she was dropping off—”

His laugh was bitter. “My mother? The one who thinks you’re a stain on the family name?”

“She said she’d accept me if we had a child,” I whispered. “She even gave me the family bracelet—”

Lucien’s face twisted some cruel combination of doubt and disdain. It gutted me.

I stepped closer, barefoot on marble, heart in my throat. “I’ve never lied to you. Not once. Why is it so easy for you to think the worst of me?”

He stared at me like I was a stranger.

“Because you never deny it with your eyes,” he said coldly.

The words hit like a slap. I flinched.

I wanted to scream at him. Ask him how much longer I was going to pay for a mistake I didn’t even understand. Four years ago. A hotel room. A marriage that felt like penance instead of a promise.

“I thought tonight meant something,” I said, voice shaking. “I thought we were trying again—”

But he was already pulling his shirt back on.

“No,” I whispered, stepping forward, and grabbing his wrist. “Don’t walk out again. Not this time.”

His phone rang.

And everything stopped.

He looked at it. Answered.

“Yes,” he said after a pause, voice gentle, warm—foreign. “I’ll be there soon.”

It was Diane.

He didn’t have to say her name. I knew that softness. That unguarded tone.

It never belonged to me.

“You’re leaving to see her, aren’t you?” I asked.

Silence.

He didn’t deny it.

I swallowed the lump rising in my throat and stepped between him and the door.

“You promised me today. You said you’d come home.”

“I came,” he said like it meant something.

“That’s not enough!” My voice broke, rising with everything I’d kept buried. “You kissed me like you meant it. You looked at me like I was someone. And now you’re going to her?”

He finally looked at me.

Really looked.

I saw something flicker in his eyes—regret, maybe. Or pity. I didn’t want to either.

“Elena,” he said carefully, “you’re not in a position to question me.”

And that did it.

The last piece of me cracked.

“If you walk out that door,” I said, voice calm, final, “we’re done. I’ll file for divorce.”

The air between us went still.

I thought maybe—just maybe—that would stop him.

It didn’t.

He turned and walked out.

Didn’t say a word. Didn’t look back.

And in the

hallway mirror, I saw myself.

Standing in silk, arms wrapped around my body like a shield. My face was dry, but everything inside me drowned.