Chapter 5: Five Years Later

Alessia

It’s been five years since I walked away from Adrian Volkov—and I haven’t looked back.

Not really.

Not in ways that count.

Sure, sometimes I catch myself staring at my reflection longer than necessary, wondering if the shadows under my eyes were always there. If the quiet in my voice was born before him or because of him.

But I don’t speak his name. Not even in my thoughts. Not anymore.

The version of me that loved him—that waited for him—is gone.

She died in silence, on a cold bathroom floor, clutching a pregnancy test and trying not to scream.

Now… I’m someone else entirely.

Alessia Roman.

A name I chose myself. Not bought. Not inherited. Not gifted through contract.

I live in a two-bedroom flat above a flower shop in Nice, France. The kind of place where the window lets in too much sun in the morning and the old heater makes strange clanking noises in winter. But it’s mine. And it’s warm. God, it’s warm.

I run a small design studio not far from the water. Custom textiles, hand-painted silks, soft home pieces with imperfect brushstrokes and pieces of my soul stitched in.

I spend most of my mornings with paint under my fingernails and my son’s cereal spilled down the front of my shirt.

Caleb is four now.

He has my mouth, but his father’s eyes.

Gray like a storm caught behind glass. There are days he’ll look up at me with them and I have to remind myself to breathe.

Because it’s like Adrian is still somewhere inside the world, staring back at me through our son.

But Caleb isn’t him. He never was.

He’s gentle, curious, loud in the sweetest way. He talks with his hands and sleeps with his arms flung wide across the bed, as if the world owes him space and he knows it.

He is everything Adrian wasn’t.

And I love him so fiercely it scares me sometimes.

This morning started like any other—rushed and messy. Caleb insisted on tying his own shoelaces, which meant we were ten minutes late to daycare, but he beamed like he’d climbed Everest when he finished.

“You proud of me, Mama?”

Always. Always. Always.

Later that afternoon, I set up a small table at a local artisan market. Just a few pieces—some dyed linen runners, hand-painted throw covers, a silk robe I’d spent too many nights perfecting.

It wasn’t glamorous, but I liked it. The slow pace. The way people stopped and touched things gently, as if they could feel the care in the fabric.

And then she showed up.

A woman in her forties, sharp jaw, gold scarf, clean confidence. She introduced herself as Claire Dubois, said she worked for an international art house in Paris. Her eyes flicked across my display, then stopped on one of the robes.

“You made this?”

I nodded, suddenly nervous.

She turned it over, studying the stitching like it mattered. “It’s rare to find pieces with soul,” she said.

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

Claire smiled. “Your work. It feels lived-in. Like it belongs to someone before they even know it.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Compliments still felt foreign on my skin, like trying on someone else’s coat.

She handed me a card. “We’re hosting an exhibition next week in Paris. We’d like you to be part of it. Your story. Your work. The softness—it’s rare.”

My mouth opened. Closed. “Paris?”

“Yes. I’ll follow up tomorrow, but please—say yes. This deserves to be seen.”

I looked at her for a moment, flabbergasted, as if I completely had forgotten that city for a long time. Then, after a few moments, I nodded. Not for her, not for the opportunity.

For me.

Because five years ago, I ran. Hid. Changed my name to survive.

But I’m not hiding anymore.

That night, I sat on the edge of Caleb’s bed after he fell asleep. The Spider-Man blanket was half-kicked off, his hair a wild tangle of curls against the pillow. One of his arms was slung across a plush dinosaur with a missing eye.

I watched him breathe for longer than I should’ve. His chest rising and falling in that steady, perfect rhythm only children have. So unbothered. So unaware of the weight of the world outside his dreams.

I brushed a curl away from his forehead. My fingertips lingered, tracing the warmth of his skin. A silent apology for the things he didn’t know. The truths I’ve never spoken out loud.

He didn’t know his father.

And I wasn’t sure if I’d ever tell him.

What would I say? That his father once kissed me like I was nothing, then left me to become someone? That he never asked if I was happy? That I gave up everything, including my own last name, to protect the one person who should’ve protected me?

Would any of that matter to a child who just wanted to be loved?

I lowered my head and kissed Caleb’s forehead, breathing in that soft, milky scent that still clung to his hair after bath time.

He stirred slightly but didn’t wake.

I turned off the lamp beside his bed and stood in the doorway for a while, the room behind me swallowed in the shadows.

The business card from Claire was tucked inside my coat pocket. I’d said yes. I’d meant it.

Still, my chest tightened when I thought of Paris. The exposure. The people. The possibility.

But I pushed it down.

The past was dead. Buried. Forgotten.

Let it stay that way.

I pressed a kiss to Caleb’s forehead and turned off the lights.

Let the past stay buried.

Paris is just another city.

There’s no way Adrian Volkov will be there.

Right?