All Chapters of WHEN THE PAST CHOSE US : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Chapter One.Serena — first person.The elevator doors separated on the thirty-second floor,and for a minute she forgot how to breathe. Blackwood Holdings doesn't look like an office,it looks like something built to remind you exactly how small you are,glass walls stretching floor to ceiling,the city laid out below like it belongs to whoever sits at the top of the building. Her reflection followed her across the polished floor,blazer too stiff,heels too loud,badge clipped crooked to her collar. She fixed it twice before she the reception desk.“Serena Hart,” the receptionist said without looking up from her screen, “You're in Marketing Strategy,third door on the left,someone will be there to orient you.”She thanked the woman warmly,and she meant every word far more deeply than anyone could guess. Getting this job had not been easy,it had taken six exhausting months, countless applications,and four intense interview rounds with people whose names she had repeated so often that they f

Chapter 3Serena — first person.“What does that mean?”,Serena asked.Serena hadn't intended to confront Damien,she had come to his office with one purpose: deliver the revised presentation and discuss the Whitmore proposal. But the image on his computer screen refused to leave her mind. Twice that morning she had seen her surname—Hart—on a confidential compliance file, and the way Damien had hurried to hide it both times made it impossible to dismiss as coincidence.Before she could stop herself, the question slipped out.She asked what the compliance flag meant.For a fleeting moment, Damien's composure cracked,It wasn't obvious enough for most people to notice, but Serena saw it. Something flickered in his expression before years of discipline buried it again. When he answered, his voice was calm, almost detached, explaining that every employee went through routine compliance screening. Sometimes surnames matched people who had previously dealt with Blackwood Holdings. Most of the

Chapter 5Serena — frist Person Serena left Damien Blackwood's office with her composure intact,She forced herself to walk calmly through the hallway, keeping her back straight and her expression neutral until she was safely back on the strategy floor. Every instinct told her to turn around, march back into his office, and demand answers. She wanted to ask why her father's name had affected him so deeply,she wanted to know what had been inside the folder he had hidden so quickly. But years of self-control kept those questions locked behind her teeth.The moment she reached her desk, the mask slipped.She sat down and realized her hands were trembling. Quietly, she pressed them against her thighs beneath the desk, hoping no one would notice,she replayed the meeting over and over in her mind. Damien's reaction hadn't been normal,his answer had come too quickly, too sharply, as if he had rejected the truth before he had even thought about it. She had spent years working in s

Chapter 7Serena — 1st PersonMy Dad let out a long and slow breath, the kind of breath that means he was deciding how much of the truth I actually get to have."I'm not lying to you," he said, which is exactly the kind of thing a person says right before they lie. "I knew an Eleanor once,a long time ago,before i knew your mother. It's not relevant to your job Serena, and it's not something I want to dig up over the phone.""Eleanor," I repeated in a much more quiet and serious voice, my back still pressed against the cold stairwell wall.The silence that answered me was worse than any word he could have said."Dad —" I said but he interrupted me before I could even finish what I was going to say."I have to go sweetheart, I love you. Congratulations again on the job." And then, before I could push any further, the line went dead, gentle and final, the exact tone he used when I was nine and asking too many questions about why Mom wasn't coming home from the hospital.I stood on that s

Chapter 9Serena — 1st PersonSerena didn't remember much of the subway ride home.She remembered standing on the platform with Damien's words running through her mind—there are things about our families I'm still trying to understand myself—and she remembered getting off two stops early because she needed to walk.She needed her body to do something while her mind tried to catch up.Her apartment was dark when she let herself in. She forgot to leave a light on again. She dropped her bag beside the door, kicked off her shoes, and sank onto the couch without taking off her blazer.For a while, she simply stared at the window.New York glowed beyond the glass, thousands of lights scattered across the buildings while cars moved below like tiny streams of gold.Everything outside looked normal. But Serena didn't feel normal.Few days ago,she hadn't known Damien Blackwood existed.Her biggest concerns had been remembering everyone's names at Blackwood Holdings, choosing the right clothes