Ellie POV

Three years later.

The air in Florence was heavy and warm, thick with the scent of jasmine and grilled bread. I stood on the balcony of a villa, holding a glass of prosecco that caught the golden light of the setting sun.

I wasn't the same girl who had once cried over a sketchbook.

That girl was gone.

My hair was shorter now, cut sharper against my jawline. My dress was black silk, backless, and daring.

"You look stunning," a voice murmured behind me.

I turned to find David.

He was everything Marcus wasn't. Warm. Open. Safe. He smiled at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners with genuine affection. He was a fellow artist, a man who saw the world in vibrant colors, not black-and-white contracts.

"You're biased," I teased, leaning back into him.

"I'm honest," he corrected.

He kissed my forehead. It was a soft, lingering touch that made my shoulders relax, melting away the tension of the day.

"Ready for the toast?" he asked.

"Ready."

We walked inside. It was a small engagement party—not ours, but a friend's—though we were celebrating my gallery opening, too.

"Ellie!" someone shouted over the low hum of music. "Video call! It's the Arizona team!"

My stomach dropped to the floor.

A laptop was set up on the main table among the platters of antipasti. The screen flickered, and suddenly, there he was.

Marcus.

He looked older. There were silver threads weaving through his dark hair now. He was sitting in his office, the same cold, imposing glass fortress I remembered. Chloe was nowhere to be seen.

"Hello, everyone," Marcus said. His voice was tinny through the speakers, but it still commanded the room with effortless authority.

Then, his eyes found me.

He stopped.

He stared at the screen. His gaze raked over my dress. He stared at the way I was standing, confident and poised, a stranger to the girl he used to own.

"Ellie," he said. It wasn't a greeting. It was a question.

"Hello, Marcus," I said. My voice was steady. I didn't shake.

David stepped up beside me, his presence a solid wall of heat. He wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me close. It was a natural gesture, but also a possessive one.

Marcus's eyes dropped to David's hand on my waist. His jaw tightened visibly. I saw a flash of something volatile in his eyes—shock? Anger?

"Who is this?" Marcus asked, his tone dropping to absolute freezing.

"This is David," I said, smiling up at the man beside me. "My partner."

Silence.

Marcus looked like he had been punched in the gut. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

"Nice to meet you, sir," David said cheerfully. He leaned down and kissed my temple, right on camera. "Ellie has told me... well, actually, she hasn't said much about you."

It was a lie, but a perfect one.

Marcus flinched.

"Ellie," Marcus said, his voice strained tight.

"We need to discuss your return schedule. The flight is next week."

"I know," I said. "I'll be there."

"Good. Be careful," he said automatically. It was a reflex. A habit.

"I'm always careful," I said. "And I'm not alone anymore."

I saw his hand clench into a fist on his desk, knuckles turning white.

"David," someone called out from the kitchen, "Cut the cake!"

"Coming!" David grinned. He looked back at the screen. "Bye, Mr. Thorne."

I reached out to close the laptop.

For a split second, before the connection cut, I saw Marcus's face. The composure was gone. He looked lost. He looked furious.

I clicked End Call.

The screen went black.

I took a deep breath of the humid Florence air.

I was going back to Arizona in a week. But I wasn't going back to him.

I looked at the ring on my right hand—not an engagement ring, but a promise ring David had given me.

I was ready.

Let the games begin.

Ellie POV

The air in the Thorne estate was exactly as I remembered it. Stagnant. Sterile. Cold.

It smelled of lemon polish and expensive lilies—a scent that once promised safety but now only made my throat constrict.

I stood in the hallway, my suitcase handle digging into my palm. I wasn't here to stay. I was here to perform an autopsy on my past.

I had forty-eight hours. Just enough time to pack the rest of my things, sign whatever papers Marcus needed for his tax deductions regarding my guardianship, and get back to Florence before David's wedding.

My wedding.

I grazed my thumb over the ring hidden on a chain under my shirt. The metal was warm against my skin, a secret anchor keeping me from drifting away in this house of ghosts.

I walked into the library. It was silent. I started pulling books off the shelves—the ones I had bought with my allowance, the ones with my notes scrawled in the margins. I needed to purge this room of me.

"You're back."

I didn't flinch. I didn't turn around immediately. I placed a copy of *Pride and Prejudice* into a cardboard box before facing him.

Marcus stood in the doorway. He looked impeccable, as always. Crisp white shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a glass of scotch in his hand. But there were dark circles under his eyes that hadn't been there before, shadows that spoke of restless nights.

"Hello, Marcus," I said. My voice was flat. It sounded like someone else's voice.

He walked into the room, his eyes scanning the boxes. "You didn't tell me you were coming today."

"I emailed your assistant," I said. "I'm just collecting my things."

"You have plenty of things here," he said, his tone sharpening with irritation. "You don't need to strip the shelves bare."

"I prefer to travel light."

He took a step closer. The scent of his cologne—sandalwood and rain—hit me. My stomach twisted, but I forced my face to remain blank.

"Chloe and I have set a date," he said suddenly.

It was a test. I knew it was a test. He wanted to see if the little girl who used to follow him around with heart-eyes would crumble.

I picked up a ceramic vase I had painted when I was fifteen. "That's wonderful. I'm happy for you."

I meant it. Or rather, I didn't care enough to be unhappy.

Marcus frowned. This wasn't the reaction he expected. He swirled his drink, the ice clinking sharp and lonely against the glass. "You seem... different, Ellie."

"It's been three years," I said. "People change."

"Not that much."

He watched me for a moment longer, a flicker of unease crossing his face. It was the look of a man who realized a piece of furniture had moved itself across the room without his permission.

"I need that Desert Flower sculpture," I said, changing the subject. "The one I made. I want to take it with me."

Marcus stiffened. He looked away, taking a long sip of his drink. "I don't know where it is. The cleaners probably moved it."

"It was on the mantel," I said. "It was the only thing of my parents I had left in this room."

"It's just clay, Ellie," he said dismissively. "Stop being dramatic. I'll buy you a new one."

The casual cruelty of it almost made me laugh. As if he could simply buy me a replacement childhood memory.

"Never mind," I said. "I'll look for it myself."

I turned my back on him and walked toward the high shelves in the corner. I needed to get away from his suffocating presence. I reached up, feeling along the dusty top shelf where I used to hide my treasures.

My fingers brushed against cold metal.

I pulled it down. It wasn't the sculpture. It was a small, tarnished silver locket.

My breath hitched. It was my mother's. I thought it had been lost in the move ten years ago. Marcus had told me it was gone.

But here it was. Hidden in his study. Behind his law books.

Why did he have it?

I opened it. My parents' faces smiled back at me. A wave of grief washed over me, so potent it made my knees weak. I clutched it to my chest, squeezing my eyes shut.

"What do you have there?" Marcus asked. He was right behind me now.

I spun around, trying to hide the locket, but the sudden movement made the room tilt dangerously. I hadn't eaten since I left Florence. The jet lag and the emotional exhaustion crashed into me at once.

My foot caught on the edge of a box.

I stumbled backward.

"Ellie!"

Marcus lunged. His arm caught me around the waist, pulling me hard against his chest to stop me from falling. The momentum slammed my body against his.

For a second, time stopped.

I was pressed against him, my hands braced on his shoulders. I could feel the heat of his body searing through his shirt. I could feel the rapid, heavy beat of his heart.

He looked down at me, his eyes dark and unfocused. His grip on my waist tightened, not letting go even though I had regained my balance. The air between us crackled with a dangerous, terrifying electricity.

I tried to push away, but my limbs felt heavy, useless.

"Marcus," I whispered, a warning and a plea.

He didn't move. He just stared at my mouth, his breathing ragged, as if he was seeing me for the first time in his life.

Ellie POV

The silence in the library was heavy, not just quiet, but suffocating.

Marcus's hand was burning through the fabric of my shirt. He held me fast, refusing to let go. His gaze was intense, searching, stripping away the layers of indifference I had carefully built over the last three years.

For a heartbeat, I felt a ghost of the old feeling. That desperate, pathetic yearning to be held by him. To be seen by him.

He leaned in. His head lowered toward mine until his breath mingled with my own. His eyes were half-closed, his expression softened into something that looked painfully like affection.

My heart hammered against my ribs. I was frozen, caught between the past and the present.

"I've missed..." he murmured, his voice rough, drunk on the proximity.

He brushed his lips against my forehead. It was tender. It was intimate. It was everything I had once prayed for.

Then he shattered it.

"Chloe."

The name crashed into me like a physical blow.

The world around me seemed to fracture.

He wasn't holding me. He was holding a placeholder. He was holding a warm body and projecting the woman he actually wanted onto me.

I wasn't Ellie to him. I wasn't even a person. I was just a vessel for his confused lust.

A wave of nausea rolled through me. I shoved him. I shoved him with every ounce of strength I had left.

"Get off me!" I gasped, stumbling back.

Marcus blinked, shaking his head as if waking from a trance. He looked at me, then at his empty hands, confusion clouding his features. "Ellie? I... I thought..."

"You thought I was her," I spat, wiping my forehead where his lips had touched as if it were burned. "You called me Chloe."

His face paled. "No. I didn't. You're hearing things."

"I heard you," I said, my voice shaking with rage and humiliation. "You are sick, Marcus."

"Marcus?"

A sharp voice cut from the hallway.

We both turned. Chloe was standing there. She was wearing a pristine white dress, looking every inch the perfect fiancée. Her eyes darted from Marcus's flushed face to my disheveled hair.

She didn't look surprised. She looked triumphant.

"Well," she said, walking into the room, her heels clicking ominously on the hardwood floor. "I leave for an hour to handle the florists, and I come back to this."

"Nothing happened," Marcus said quickly, stepping away from me as if I were contagious. He smoothed his shirt, composing himself into the cold CEO again. "Ellie fell. I caught her."

"Of course she fell," Chloe said, her voice dripping with poison. She stopped in front of me, looking me up and down with a sneer. "She's always been clumsy, hasn't she? Always falling into places she doesn't belong."

I straightened my spine. "I'm leaving."

"Not yet," another voice boomed.

Richard and Eleanor Thorne, Marcus's parents, walked in behind Chloe. They must have arrived for the wedding preparations. They looked at me like I was a stain on their antique Persian rug.

"We saw that," Eleanor said, her nose wrinkling in disgust. "Throwing yourself at him in his own study? Have you no shame, girl?"

"He grabbed me," I said, my voice tight.

"Lies," Richard scoffed. "We know how you looked at him growing up. It was pathetic then, and it's repulsive now."

I looked at Marcus. I waited for him to defend me. I waited for him to tell the truth.

He looked at the floor.

He said nothing.

He stood there and let them tear me apart. He let them paint me as the seductress, the ungrateful ward, the problem.

Chloe wrapped her arm around Marcus's bicep, staking her claim. "You should go, Ellie. Before you embarrass yourself further. If you stay, I'll make sure everyone in this town knows exactly what kind of girl you are."

I looked at them. The united front. The Thorne family and their perfect bride.

I felt something inside me snap. It wasn't my heart. It was the last tether binding me to this place.

"You're right," I said softly. "I don't belong here."

I grabbed the locket from the shelf where I had dropped it. I clenched it in my fist until the metal bit into my palm.

"I'm going to my room to get my bag," I said. "And then you will never see me again."

I walked past them. I didn't run. I didn't cry.

But as I climbed the stairs, my vision blurred. The tears were hot and silent, sliding down my face not because I lost him, but because I realized I had never, ever had him.