Chapter One: The Return

Rae

The city hadn’t changed only I had.

The skyline still burned gold at sunset, skyscrapers gleaming like ambition made flesh, cars humming like restless hearts below. But as the elevator carried me up the mirrored tower of Collins Group Headquarters, I felt the sharp truth of every step that had led me back. Five years. Five years since I’d sworn never to return.

The doors slid open with a soft chime. A dozen faces turned toward me, perfectly rehearsed smiles masking curiosity. The prodigal daughter returns. My heels clicked against marble as I crossed the floor, a sound too confident for the woman wearing it.

“Miss Collins,” the receptionist said, voice clipped and reverent. “Welcome home.”

Home. The word bit deeper than it should have.

My reflection flashed in the glass, tailored white suit, diamond engagement ring, expression serene. Picture perfect. I’d practiced that look in the mirror long before I earned it.

“Everyone’s waiting upstairs,” she added. “Your fiancé included.”

Of course he was.

Ethan Cross didn’t like to be kept waiting.

The elevator doors closed again, sealing me in. My heart picked up a rhythm I didn’t ask for. I told myself it was nerves, not dread. Not the feeling that the air here was heavier than it used to be.

When the doors opened onto the executive floor, the world turned into a performance.

Applause. Flashes of cameras. “Rae Collins, future CEO,” someone whispered with awe.

And standing at the center of it all was Ethan. Flawless in his black suit, blue eyes sharp as glass, smile perfectly sculpted. The kind of man who looked at life like a chessboard and always moved first.

He leaned in to kiss my cheek. “Welcome home, darling. You look… expensive.”

“That’s one way to say you missed me,” I murmured.

He laughed softly, hand sliding to the small of my back, steering me through the crowd. Every touch felt like choreography. Every smile felt practiced.

And then I saw him.

Across the room.

Dane Mercer.

He stood by the panoramic window, half in shadow, half bathed in gold light from the setting sun. Taller, broader than I remembered, his jaw lined with quiet defiance. The years had carved him into something harder, like steel forged in fire.

For a second, the noise around me vanished. I couldn’t breathe. He wasn’t supposed to be here.

Our eyes met, and time fractured. Memories hit like static, his hands covered in clay, my laughter echoing in his studio, his voice whispering promises we couldn’t keep. Then the betrayal. The silence. The end.

Ethan followed my gaze. His smile froze, just for an instant. Then it returned colder and practiced. “Ah. Dane Mercer. I was hoping you’d join us.”

Of course he was here. The new partnership announcement. Mercer Designs had just become our firm’s latest ally, a name whispered through the industry as a threat to old empires.

A cruel twist of fate. Or karma.

Dane’s voice cut through the applause, smooth and calm, carrying that quiet arrogance that once made me fall too fast. “Congratulations, Rae. I hear the city missed you.”

My lips curved, controlled. “It missed my father’s money, more like.”

A flicker of something dark flashed in his eyes, pain, anger, maybe both. Then he smiled, sharp and dangerous. “Still blunt, I see.”

“Still proud,” I countered.

Ethan’s arm tightened around me. “Let’s keep things civil, shall we? We’re all professionals here.”

Professionals. Right.

No one in this room knew what had happened between us. No one knew how a single lie had destroyed him and nearly me with it.

But Dane did.

And from the way he looked at me, I could tell he hadn’t forgiven me.

Dane

I’d promised myself she wouldn’t matter.

Five years of silence. Five years of rebuilding from the ashes she left behind. I’d clawed my way up from nothing, and every blueprint, every sleepless night had been fueled by one memory, Rae Collins walking away from me.

And now here she was, standing across the room like a ghost dressed in white.

Beautiful. Controlled. Untouchable.

The last time I saw her, she’d been crying in my apartment, whispering that she had no choice. I’d told her love was about fighting for what mattered. She’d told me I didn’t understand what “power” meant.

She was right. Back then, I didn’t.

Now I did.

Ethan Cross’s hand sat possessively at her back. I wondered if he knew how often she used to flinch at control, how fiercely she’d once fought to be free.

When she met my gaze, I saw the smallest tremor in her perfect mask. The part of her that remembered what we were.

The part she’d buried.

I raised my glass slightly, a mock toast. “To old faces,” I said softly.

Her lips parted like she wanted to say something. Then she didn’t. She just turned back toward the cameras and smiled like a woman made of porcelain.

Cold. Flawless. Fragile beneath the glaze.

Ethan leaned in to speak to her, but his eyes flicked to me. Challenge. Territory. Possession.

I smiled back. Let him think he’d won.

But inside, something dangerous shifted.

Because no matter how much I hated her, no matter how deep the wound went, I still remembered what her skin felt like beneath my hands.

I still remembered the sound she made when she said my name and I knew that no matter how far she’d run…

She wasn’t done breaking me.

Rae

The night bled into celebration. Champagne. Flashbulbs. Phrases like legacy, partnership, expansion.

But all I could feel was his eyes on me.

When I finally escaped to the terrace, the cold air hit like a confession. I pressed my palms to the glass railing, breathing in the city. It smelled the same, like ambition and asphalt.

“Running already?”

His voice came from behind me, low, familiar.

I turned. “Some of us need air.”

Dane stepped closer, the distance between us shrinking until the city noise faded. “Air or escape?”

I swallowed. “Same thing.”

He studied me, eyes tracing every inch of the façade I’d built. “You haven’t changed.”

“You have,” I whispered.

He smiled, bitter. “You made sure of that.”

For a moment, silence stretched between us, thick and electric. Then he said, softer, “Why are you really back, Rae?”

The truth burned behind my teeth: To make it right. To prove I’m not the woman who destroyed you.

But I only said, “To take what’s mine.”

He stepped closer. “Careful. Some things don’t belong to you anymore.”

His breath brushed my skin. My heart betrayed me, beating faster than it should.

Then the terrace door opened.

“Rae?” Ethan’s voice

Dane didn’t move. His eyes stayed on me, a silent challenge.

I whispered, “This isn’t over.”

He smiled faintly, the ghost of the man I used to love flickering behind the cold. “No, Rae. It never was.”