Chapter 5: I Know That Feeling

—Killian—

"I'm sorry, Mr. Hart, but the florist left in a hurry."

I stared at the hotel staff member, my jaw tightening with frustration. "What do you mean, left?"

"She said there was a family emergency, sir. Apologized profusely and rushed out through the service exit about A minute ago."

The young man shifted uncomfortably under my glare. "Should I... should I try to contact her? Get her to come back?"

"No." The word came out harsher than I intended. "That won't be necessary."

But as he hurried away, I stood frozen in the middle of my own gala, surrounded by Seattle's elite, and felt something dangerously close to panic clawing at my chest.

She was here. She'd been here, in this room, breathing the same air, and I'd missed her.

If it was even her at all.

Three weeks ago, my assistant James had knocked on my office door with his usual morning briefing and a tablet in his hands.

"Sir, there's something I think you should see," he'd said, his tone carefully neutral. James had worked for me long enough to know when to tread carefully.

"Make it quick. I have the Morrison meeting in twenty."

"It's about the Hart Enterprises gala. Rebecca Morrison sent over potential vendors for the floral arrangements." He'd hesitated, then set the tablet on my desk. "There's a post that's been circulating online. About a florist in Bellingham."

I'd barely glanced at the screen at first—social media wasn't exactly my area of concern. But something about the image made me look twice.

A woman arranging white orchids at what looked like a small-town wedding, her dark hair catching the light as she worked. The photo was taken from the side, her profile partially obscured, but there was something about the elegant line of her neck, the graceful way she moved her hands...

"What am I looking at, James?"

"The florist's name is Celeste Whitmore," he'd said carefully. "The post is praising her work, calling her a hidden gem in the Pacific Northwest. But sir... doesn't she look familiar to you?"

I'd stared at the image until my eyes burned. The woman could have been anyone—the photo wasn't clear enough to be certain. But the name...

Celeste.

"It's probably nothing," James had continued when I didn't respond. "Just a coincidence. The surname is completely different, and the location doesn't match any of our previous searches. But I thought you should know."

A coincidence. That's what I'd told myself as I'd stared at that grainy photo for the better part of an hour. Just a woman with the same first name as my ex-wife, working in a profession that Celeste had always shown an aptitude for during our brief marriage.

But coincidences had never sat well with me.

"Book her," I'd said finally.

"Sir?"

"For the gala. Book Celeste Whitmore for the floral arrangements."

James had looked uncomfortable. "Mr. Hart, if this is who you think it might be—"

"It's not." The lie had tasted bitter on my tongue. "But if it were, don't you think I'd want to know?"

Now, standing in the aftermath of her disappearance, I realized how desperately I'd wanted it to be her. How much I'd been counting on walking up to some stranger who happened to share my ex-wife's name and feeling nothing but mild disappointment.

Instead, I'd caught one glimpse of a woman in black moving quickly toward the exit, and every carefully constructed wall I'd built around the memory of Celeste Blackwood had come crashing down.

I pushed through the crowd, no longer caring about the political conversations I was abandoning or the business deals I was ignoring. The service entrance was just ahead, the heavy door still swinging slightly as if someone had passed through moments before.

But the corridor beyond was empty.

"Did you see which way she went?" I demanded of a passing server.

The girl looked startled. "Who, sir?"

"The woman in black. The florist."

"I... I think she went toward the parking garage? But—"

I was already moving, my dress shoes echoing against the concrete floors of the service corridors. The parking garage was three blocks away—if she'd had a car waiting, she could be anywhere by now.

But I had to try.

The elevator to the parking garage seemed to take forever. When the doors finally opened, I stepped into the fluorescent-lit concrete cavern and listened for the sound of an engine starting, footsteps, anything that might tell me which direction she'd gone.

Nothing.

I walked the perimeter of the garage anyway, checking every shadow, every corner where someone might hide. My heart was hammering against my ribs like I was chasing down a multi-million-dollar deal instead of a woman who might not even be the person I thought she was.

By the time I admitted defeat, my tuxedo was wrinkled and my carefully styled hair was falling into my eyes. I looked like a man who'd lost his mind, not the controlled CEO who'd built an empire through calculated precision.

What the hell was wrong with me?

Back in my office an hour later, I loosened my bow tie and poured myself three fingers of whiskey. The gala continued without me—Rebecca Morrison was more than capable of handling the social niceties I could no longer stomach.

I should be down there, networking with investors, solidifying partnerships, playing the political games that kept Hart Industries at the top of the corporate food chain. Instead, I was hiding in my office like a teenager nursing a broken heart.

Over what? A woman I'd divorced five years ago? A marriage that had been nothing more than a business arrangement from the beginning?

We had been divorced for so long it doesn't matter, I told myself, staring out at Seattle's glittering skyline. Celeste Blackwood was ancient history. Whatever we'd had—if we'd had anything at all—was over. Done. Filed away in the past where it belonged.

So why did it feel like there was a gaping hole in my chest where something vital used to be?

I'd spent five years convincing myself that the emptiness was normal, that successful men like me simply didn't have time for emotional complications. I'd dated occasionally—beautiful, accomplished women who understood that what I was offering was temporary and transactional.

None of them had ever looked at me the way Celeste had on our wedding day. Like I was worth something more than my net worth.

The whiskey burned going down, but it did nothing to fill the hollow ache that had been my constant companion since she'd walked out of my life. I'd gotten good at ignoring it, at burying it under work and ambition and the relentless pursuit of more.

But tonight, seeing that flash of familiar grace, feeling my heart stop at the possibility that she might be within reach again...

I realized the emptiness had never gone away. I'd just gotten better at pretending it didn't exist.

I picked up my phone, then set it down again. What would I even say to James? 'Find her. Bring her back. Tell her I've spent five years realizing I made the biggest mistake of my life.'

The truth was, I didn't even know what I wanted from her. An explanation for why she'd left so suddenly? An apology for disappearing without a word? A chance to prove that maybe, just maybe, we could have been something real if I hadn't been so determined to keep everything cold and professional?

Or did I just want to look into those dark eyes one more time?

I stared at my reflection in the window, seeing a man who had everything he'd ever thought he wanted and nothing that actually mattered.

The woman in black might not have been Celeste at all. It could have been anyone—a stranger who happened to move with familiar grace, who happened to trigger memories I'd spent years trying to forget.

But for the first time in five years, the possibility that she was still out there, still alive, still breathing somewhere in this city, made me realize just how empty my carefully constructed life had become.

And how desperately I wanted to fill that emptiness, even if it meant tearing down every wall I'd built to protect myself from feeling this lost again.