LOGIN"Mom... why does he have our eyes?"The question struck Elena with a force that left her momentarily unable to think.Ethan stood between her and Adrian with a paper plate in his hands, a half-eaten slice of chocolate cake forgotten in the wake of his curiosity. He had asked the question with complete innocence, unaware that he had just exposed the secret Elena had spent six years protecting.Beside him, Liam frowned."Actually, I asked that before."The silence that followed seemed to irritate him."At the airport," he added, looking pointedly at his brother. "I told you.""You also said the airport security guard was a retired superhero," Ethan reminded him.Liam shrugged. "He looked like one.""This is why nobody listens to you.""This is why people should listen to me more."Under normal circumstances, Elena would have smiled at the familiar exchange. The boys could turn almost any situation into an argument, and somehow they always managed to sound completely serious while doing
Elena was still angry when she woke up the next morning, and the worst part was that the anger had nowhere to go.She had spent three hours the night before reading through archived records, cross-referencing dates, and rebuilding a timeline that destroyed every excuse she had ever made for Adrian Lancaster. Three days. He had been meeting privately with Camille for three full days before he ever acknowledged the situation to Elena, and all that time he came home, looked her directly in the face, and said nothing. Not a word. Just that familiar emotional distance she had spent years convincing herself she could love him through.She closed her laptop hard enough to rattle the table.By the time Saturday evening arrived, Elena had managed to contain her anger, she needed to since she had to attend a gala full of powerful people. The Grand Alcott gala was not optional. Half the names on the pharmaceutical task force would be there, and disappearing again would only give Adrian more reas
Elena barely slept after her conversation with Adrian the night before.She spent hours turning restlessly beneath the sheets, chasing sleep that never came. Every time she closed her eyes, all she saw was Adrian’s face looking at her with the same quiet intensity that had once made her forget how to breathe.“God, just let me sleep,” she muttered into her pillow in frustration.Six years had passed, yet Adrian Lancaster still knew exactly how to get inside her head and stay there.By morning, exhaustion sat heavily behind her eyes, but she forced herself out of bed anyway, grabbed a coffee, and prepared for another day she already knew would test her patience.The underground parking garage beneath Lancaster Pharmaceuticals was nearly empty when Elena arrived that morning.A black Aston Martin occupied the space beside hers.Of course it did.Adrian leaned casually against the driver’s side door, scrolling through his phone.His suit jacket hung open slightly, dark hair still damp fr
The boardroom doors closed behind Elena just as another wave of hurried voices swept through the executive floor of Lancaster Pharmaceuticals.She tightened her grip around the files pressed against her chest and headed toward the elevators without slowing down. The meeting had already exhausted her patience, and remaining inside this building any longer than necessary felt like willingly reopening wounds she had spent six years trying to survive.She pressed the elevator button harder than necessary.The doors opened almost immediately.Relief barely had time to settle before a hand stopped the doors from closing again.Elena’s heartbeat stumbled once.Adrian stepped inside.“Ugh,” she said under her breath while rolling her eyes frustratedly.The elevator doors slid shut behind them, sealing them into a silence that suddenly felt far too small for both of them.Elena kept her attention fixed on the glowing numbers above the doors while Adrian stood beside her close enough for memori
Elena threw herself into work the same way she always did whenever her personal life became too difficult to handle.By Thursday morning, Elena had already rewritten three research reports, reorganized an entire laboratory database, and terrified half the junior researchers at Orion Medical Research Institute without raising her voice once.Aubrey watched her from across the lab with visible concern.“Dr. Morrell,” she said carefully, lowering a stack of files onto the workstation, “you’ve had four cups of coffee since seven this morning.”Elena continued reviewing chemical analysis results without looking up. “Then this is probably not the moment to interrupt my fifth.”“That is not a reassuring answer.”“It was not meant to be.”Aubrey opened her mouth, hesitated, then quietly placed another coffee beside her anyway.That alone told Elena she was beginning to understand how she worked.Most people tried to slow her down when she became overwhelmed.Elena only survived by moving fast
The private dining room felt smaller the moment Adrian Lancaster walked into it.His presence had always done that to spaces. It shifted the atmosphere before he even spoke, pressing invisible weight into the air until every person inside became painfully aware of themselves. The bodyguards entering ahead of him were intimidating enough, tall men dressed in black with expressions that warned people not to get too close, but Adrian himself was something entirely different.There was a dangerous stillness to him that unsettled people almost immediately. He was never unnecessarily loud or dramatic, yet somehow that made him even more intimidating.Sophia reacted before anyone else could.The moment she saw him, she ran.Her tiny shoes hit the polished floor quickly as she rushed straight toward him, throwing herself against him with enough force to make one of the bodyguards instinctively step forward before stopping himself.“Daddy!”The sound of her voice seemed to break something invi







