The sound of her breath hadn't left me.
Even hours later, standing on the balcony outside my own room, I could still hear it—the way she'd gasped when I touched her, the silence that had followed when I asked her to tell me to stop. She hadn't. God help me, she hadn't.
I gripped the railing, my knuckles whitening. The city lights below were scattered like a reflection of my thoughts—shattered and restless.
What the hell was I doing?
I'd spent years building walls so high even my past couldn't climb them. I'd learned control, discipline, distance. And then Elena walked back into my life, and all of that—every ounce of control I'd mastered—crumbled with a single look.
I could still smell her perfume, faint and sweet on my fingers.
I'd promised myself I'd stay away from her. She was light, warmth, softness. Everything that belonged to someone like Daniel, not me.
And yet… when she'd looked at me in that room—eyes wide, chest rising fast, the air trembling between us—I hadn't seen innocence. I'd seen recognition.
Something in her remembered me.
A shadow moved in the reflection of the glass doors behind me. Maya's voice broke through the fog.
"You're brooding again."
I turned slightly. She leaned against the frame, arms crossed, watching me with that familiar half-smile.
"Just thinking," I said.
She arched a brow. "About Elena?"
I didn't answer. I didn't have to.
Maya sighed. "You know, she's been through a lot. Don't make this harder for her than it already is."
I gave a quiet, humorless laugh. "You think I want to hurt her?"
"I think you're capable of it," she said softly. "You always were."
Her words landed like a bruise.
When Maya left, I stayed there, staring out at the sky until the horizon started to pale. The night had slipped away without me noticing. My phone buzzed once—another message from the board, something about a deal in Milan—but I didn't read it. Business felt meaningless in the shadow of her name.
Later that morning, I saw her again. She was in the garden, helping Maya arrange the decorations for the wedding rehearsal. Her laughter floated across the yard, light and easy, as if last night had never happened.
Daniel stood beside her, handing her ribbons, smiling that patient, good-man smile of his.
Something inside me twisted.
She looked up once, maybe by accident, and our eyes met. Just for a heartbeat. But in that moment, everything else blurred—the noise, the people, the sunlight. All I saw was her.
Her expression faltered, the smallest flicker of memory crossing her face. She remembered. She felt it too.
Daniel said something that made her laugh again, and the sound tore at me like a secret I wasn't meant to hear. I forced myself to look away.
I'd waited for years, quietly, patiently, telling myself it wasn't the right time. That she needed to heal, to forget the ghosts we both carried. But now that she was here, real and close enough to touch, every rule I'd built for myself felt like a cage.
I wanted her. Not as a fleeting distraction. Not as a memory of what I couldn't have. I wanted the version of her that still dreamed, still fought to smile even when it hurt. I wanted to be the one who helped her forget—not by burying the past, but by rewriting it.
And maybe that was selfish. Maybe that was love.
I didn't know anymore.
All I knew was that watching her with Daniel felt like punishment, and that last night, for one stolen moment, she'd looked at me like I was the only man left in her world.
And I wasn't ready to let that go.