All Chapters of Mister Dream Man: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

* Jana *The rain hadn't stopped. Not even after we boarded the ship.It still came down in sheets, like the sky was mourning with us, like it wanted to drag the memory of that night across the water, stitch it into the waves so we could never escape it. I stood by the railing, my fingers gripping the cold steel, my dress still damp, my arms wrapped around my chest like I could hold the broken pieces of myself in place.The ferry wasn't salvation. It wasn't peace, or safety, or even hope. It was exile.Behind us, the island grew smaller, swallowed by fog and night and the black stretch of sea that separated us from everything we'd known. Everything we'd lost.Behind me, Edward paced like a lion with its mane on fire. His boots thudded across the soaked deck. He hadn't said a word in over an hour, but I could feel it building in him, the storm. Then, finally, it broke."Damn it!" he snarled, slamming his fist into the side of the ship's wall with a dull metallic thud. "We left without

* Jana *Later that week, while we sorted a shipment of donated fabric, Leticia's mood shifted. Softer, almost tender."Tell me about your mother," she said, folding a bolt of silk.I blinked. "You never asked before.""I'm asking now."I brushed my fingers over a roll of pale blue satin. "She had hands like yours. Quick. Sure. She'd sew while singing. Always made up songs. And she used to say... even the ugliest rip could become beautiful if you patched it with the right color."Leticia smiled faintly. "Smart woman.""She is," I said. "Wherever she is."A beat of silence."She left you and your siblings?""No," I said quickly. "No. We were running. She made us get on the boat first. Said she'd follow." My throat tightened. "But she never came."It was a minor lie, I never really knew until now what happened to Mom and where she is. Leticia's hands stilled on the fabric. "Mothers do impossible things when they're scared.""She wasn't scared."Leticia gave me a look. "Then she was lyin

* Lawrence *She looked familiar. The moment I walked into that conference room, I felt it, a tickle at the back of my mind, like a name just out of reach. Jana Salazar, her file said. But the face? The eyes? They stirred something. Not recognition exactly, but memory... elusive, shadowed, like the echo of a storm.She stood poised in front of the window, back straight, chin high, the city at her back like she was already conquering it. There was a cold elegance to her, polished, professional, and yet... electric. Too composed. As if that stillness had been practiced, sculpted. Forged.I'd seen hundreds, thousands, of applicants walk through these doors. None had that kind of presence.That's why I was here. I never sat in on first-round interviews anymore. Not unless something about the application tugged. Her résumé was strong, sure, but it was more than that. There was a sharpness between the lines of her CV. A burn. Like she'd survived something, and used it.The way she said "pos

* Lawrence *It had been three days since Jana Salazar arrived, and still... nothing. Her name didn't echo from the past. Her face didn't pull at any buried memory. But there was something. A chill under the skin every time she passed. The same way you sense the storm before the lightning. Familiar in the way déjà vu is, intimate, but unreliable.I sat behind my desk, jaw tense, fingers tapping against a closed folder.I'd gone through her file twice. Clean background. Excellent academic record. A few missing months in the employment timeline, but not enough to raise flags. At least not publicly.But every time she entered a room, the air shifted. And I did not fail to notice her. Still. Nothing concrete. And so, for now, I shelved the suspicion.What I couldn't shelve was the slow implosion of my relationship with Dianne.The door clicked open without a knock. Dianne.Of course."You're ignoring my texts again," she said sharply, stilettos clicking against the marble as she closed th

* Lawrence *It was the kind of event where everything glittered just enough to distract you from the weight behind it.Politics disguised as celebration. Champagne as lubricant for ambition. And me, smiling, shaking hands, nodding at pleasantries I wouldn't remember come morning. The string quartet played something elegant and forgettable. The chandeliers overhead glistened like diamonds on strings. Around me, the world blurred in muted tones of wealth, silk, and aftershave.But she stood out. Jana Salazar.Like a thread of ink drawn through water, subtle, slow, but impossible to ignore. And I was glad that Dianne was not here tonight at the Dankworth company anniversary. Even when she was invited but she did not show up.I greeted board members with the same tempered smile, allowed my mother to kiss my cheek, nodded at my father's quiet assessment. But my eyes, damn them, kept pulling east. Past floral arrangements and financial officers. Past crystal and custom suits. To her.The s