Chapter 48: Echoes of the Past

I couldn’t help but feel a chill crawling up my spine as I stepped out into the cold night air. The weight of the conversation still hung heavy on me, a thick fog of uncertainty clouding my thoughts. But there was something else gnawing at me, something I couldn’t shake—the memory of Liam.

I turned the corner of the grand estate, my heels clicking against the pavement with a rhythm I hadn’t quite noticed before. The night was still, the sky a blanket of dark velvet stretched over the horizon. The stars barely pierced through the city’s light pollution, but I found myself lost in them nonetheless. It was a brief escape from the chaos that had become my life.

The sharp sound of a door opening broke through my thoughts. I whipped around, already knowing who it was.

Liam.

His figure emerged from the shadows, his expression unreadable. “You’re leaving?” His voice was low, almost hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure whether to speak or not.

I didn’t answer immediately, my gaze dropping to the ground. There was so much I wanted to say, but no words felt right. The years between us seemed to stretch out, pulling at the thread of memories I’d long tried to bury.

“You’re not going to say goodbye?” he asked, a trace of something—maybe regret?—in his voice.

I let out a sharp breath and took a step closer, my eyes finally meeting his. “Goodbye? Is that what you think this is, Liam? A goodbye?”

He didn’t answer, but I saw the flicker of something in his eyes—something familiar, but tainted. The memories flooded back, unbidden.

There was a time, years ago, when we were closer than I cared to admit. Before everything became a game of power and manipulation. Before our families’ rivalry tore us apart.

We were supposed to be married, once. The thought still felt foreign on my tongue, as though it belonged to someone else. But it was true. There was a time when our families, in their infinite wisdom, decided that a union between us would be beneficial. The whole thing was arranged long before we even had a say in the matter. We were supposed to marry, seal the fate of the Sinclairs and the Caldwells, put an end to the long-standing feud between our families.

I remember the day they told me, so vividly. I was young, naive, full of dreams that had no place in the reality my parents had laid out for me. Liam, on the other hand, had seemed so different then. We were two children, raised to follow orders, our destinies already written in the stars.

But the day before the wedding, Liam disappeared.

I searched for him, desperate to understand why. I had convinced myself that maybe there was more to the arrangement than what I was being told. Maybe, just maybe, there was a chance for something real between us. But when I found him, sitting by the lake that overlooked our families’ estates, he was distant. Cold.

“I can’t do it,” he had said, his voice raw with emotion. “I can’t marry you, Elena.”

And then, just like that, he left. The wedding was called off, the plans shattered. The fallout was explosive, the tension between our families reaching a boiling point that it had never touched before. And that was the last time I had seen him up close—until now.

Liam took a step closer, his eyes searching mine, as if trying to read the emotions that swirled beneath the surface. “You never really understood why I left, did you?” he asked softly.

I swallowed hard, feeling the weight of the past bear down on me. “I never got the chance to understand why. You just disappeared.”

He nodded slowly, looking almost… regretful? “I didn’t want to be part of a game, Elena. I couldn’t be the pawn in our families’ feud. Not like that. I wanted more for myself. For us. But I couldn’t have it.”

His words struck a chord deep within me. There was truth in them, a truth that I had never fully allowed myself to acknowledge. All these years, I had blamed him for walking away. I had convinced myself that he was just another Caldwell, another man playing his part in the power struggle between our families. But now, I wondered.

“Did you ever care for me, Liam?” The words slipped out before I could stop them, my heart racing as the vulnerability settled in. I hadn’t meant to ask, but the question had been hovering at the edge of my mind for so long.

Liam’s gaze softened, and for a moment, I saw the boy I had once known—the boy who had held my hand in secret, shared whispered promises of a future that never came to be. The boy who had been everything to me before he was torn away.

“I did,” he said quietly, his voice thick with emotion. “But I couldn’t love you the way I should have. Not then. Not when our families were pulling the strings. It wasn’t fair to you.”

I felt my chest tighten as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. He had left because he wanted freedom. He had left because he didn’t want to be controlled. And yet… there was something more. Something unsaid between us.

“Then why are you here now?” I asked, the question raw and edged with anger. “Why are you back in my life, Liam? After everything?”

He hesitated, his eyes flickering with a mixture of guilt and something I couldn’t quite name. “Because, Elena, whether we like it or not, we’re still part of this. We’re still connected to it all. I can’t walk away from you again.”

My heart hammered in my chest as his words echoed in my ears. I wanted to scream, to push him away, to tell him that he had no right to come back into my life after all these years of silence and broken promises. But instead, I stood there, frozen, caught between the person I had been and the person I was becoming.

Liam took another step closer, closing the distance between us. His presence was overwhelming, suffocating. And yet, despite everything, I couldn’t make myself pull away.

“Liam, you have no idea what you’re asking for,” I whispered, my voice shaking.

“I know what I’m asking,” he replied, his voice steady, but his eyes betraying a vulnerability I hadn’t seen before. “I’m asking for the chance to fix what we both lost.”

I didn’t know how to respond. The years between us, the hurt, the anger—it was too much. And yet, the way he was looking at me made it impossible to ignore the strange pull I still felt toward him.

It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t right. But I couldn’t deny it.

And as Liam stepped even closer, I realized that the past wasn’t done with us yet.

But maybe, just maybe, it didn’t have to be a curse.