002

The Drunken Stranger

~ANAYA POV~

The heavy iron gates closed behind me.

I didn't look back. I couldn't.

If I looked back, I might see the master bedroom light go out. I might see the shadow of the woman wearing my grandmother’s robe.

I slammed my foot on the gas pedal. The sky opened, and rain crashed against the windshield.

I had no destination. I just needed to run.

Away from the ruined dinner. Away from the empty promises. Away from the woman I had become—a ghost who had spent three years begging for scraps of affection.

The rush of leaving slowly faded. All that was left was emptiness.

An hour later, the neon sign of The Obsidian stood out in the storm. It was a fancy hotel bar—dark, quiet, and expensive.

I parked, stepped out into the pouring rain, and walked inside. My midnight-blue saree was soaked, and hair clung to my neck.

For the first time in my life, I didn't care how I looked.

I slid onto a leather barstool at the back.

"Champagne," I told the bartender, my voice raw. "The strongest you have."

He nodded and poured a crystal flute.

I drank it in three quick swallows. Cold, sharp, and burning down my throat.

‘One drink to forget the robe.’

I gave a sign for another.

‘Two drinks to forget his laughter.’

By the third glass, the room softened around the edges. The heaviness in my chest began to numb. I felt light. Unanchored. Free.

"Bad night?" a man two seats down asked, holding a glass of scotch.

I stared down at my bare left hand. The pale ring mark looked like a fresh scar.

"Bad marriage," I whispered.

He leaned closer. "A woman like you shouldn't be sitting alone."

"A woman like me shouldn't have stayed for three years," I murmured, turning away.

By 2:00 a.m., the room began to spin. Heat flushed my cheeks, and my stomach churned.

I needed air.

I pushed off the barstool, my knees wobbling. "I have to go..."

I took a step forward, my vision swimming with bright colors—and then I froze.

I forgot how to breathe.

Three men had just stepped into the bar. They stood near the entrance, tall and imposing against the soft light of the lobby.

One moved with quiet, dangerous grace, broad-shouldered and carved from stone. To his left, a man wore the kind of lazy, sharp smile that used to get him into trouble. To his right, the third stood so still he could have been made of ice.

I knew them before my mind could even process it.

Lucien. Théo. Raphaël.

My heart beat violently against my ribs.

No. This wasn't real. It couldn't be.

They were in France. They were memories locked away in a box I swore I'd never open.

I had drank too much champagne. My mind was stitching old memories onto strangers.

Trembling, I backed away, but my hand knocked into the crystal glass on the counter.

Smash.

The glass shattered across the floor.

Every conversation in the bar stopped.

The three men snapped their heads toward the sound.

Théo’s lazy smile instantly vanished. Raphaël’s cold face cracked, his dark eyes flashing with pure shock.

But Lucien... Lucien froze. All color drained from his face as his piercing gray eyes locked onto mine.

Anaya…” he breathed.

He was already moving.

The sound of my name on his lips was like a ghost calling from eight years ago. He looked like a man who had seen the dead come back to life.

Panic, quick and blinding, cut through my drunken fog.

I turned to run, but my heel caught on the hem of my silk saree. My ankle twisted. The floor staggered.

I closed my eyes, bracing for the hard marble.

It never came.

Strong arms caught me mid-fall, pulling me flush against a chest that felt like solid iron. The scent of winter pine, rain, and wild ash hit me like a drug.

"Careful, little rose," a deep voice rumbled.

It settled somewhere deep inside me.

Only one man had ever called me that.

I looked up, my vision swimming with blurred light, and stared into the storm-gray eyes of Lucien de Valois.

His grip on my waist was iron-tight—possessive, protective, and terrifying.

My mouth opened, but no sound came out.

The room spun faster and faster until the lights broke up into white.

Then, everything went black.