The Royal Palace was a masterpiece of grandeur that night.
Golden chandeliers cast warm halos over marble floors, and the sweet scent of white roses filled the halls. Outside, fireworks lit the night sky, celebrating the imminent royal wedding that the entire world was waiting to witness.
But within the highest tower, far above the noise and celebration, Amelia stood alone by her balcony window.
Her silk nightgown flowed softly around her as the cool midnight breeze caressed her skin. She should have felt joy—she was about to marry a man who cherished her, a man who picked up the broken pieces Ethan Blake had left behind and molded them into a life of untouchable perfection.
Yet, tonight… she couldn't sleep.
A strange heaviness weighed down her heart, as if the shadows of a past she'd long buried were clawing their way back for one final moment of reckoning.
She closed her eyes.
And in that fragile moment between wakefulness and sleep… the dream began.
A vast expanse of white stretched endlessly before her—an ocean of blooming lilies swaying gently under a breeze that carried a familiar sorrow.
It felt hauntingly peaceful… and painfully familiar.
"Amelia…"
The voice she had promised herself she'd forget forever.
Her eyes snapped open in the dream, and there he stood.
Ethan Blake.
But he wasn't the man she remembered.
Gone was the arrogant, untouchable CEO who once looked down on the world from his ivory tower. In his place stood a ghost of a man—faded, broken, a mere shadow of his former self. His once commanding eyes were hollow, his broad shoulders hunched with the unbearable weight of regret.
He took a slow, tortured step toward her.
His voice cracked like brittle glass.
"I… never got to say goodbye."
Amelia clenched her fists, her nails biting into her palms.
"Goodbye?" she hissed. "Ethan, you said everything you needed to when you turned your back on me… when you turned your back on your children! You don't deserve a goodbye!"
Ethan fell to his knees, his translucent hands clutching at the lilies beneath him as if they could anchor his fading existence.
"I know… I know I don't deserve this. But please… for the love I destroyed, for the lives I abandoned… let me say it just this once. And then I'll disappear. Forever."
Tears welled up in Amelia's eyes despite herself.
She hated that even now, even in this dream, his brokenness still pulled at the final threads of her heart.
She stepped forward, her voice trembling with both fury and the faintest hint of sadness.
"Do you even understand what you did to me, Ethan Blake? Do you remember the night I knelt at your feet in that torn wedding dress, begging for mercy you never showed?"
Ethan's ghostly form shook with silent sobs.
"I remember… every second. I relive it every day in this endless hell."
"And when I gave birth alone, without you by my side? When I watched our children fall asleep crying for a father who never came?"
His voice broke apart completely.
"Amelia… I have no excuses left. Just… let me see you happy. Truly happy. And then… I'll let go."
Amelia's shoulders sagged with the unbearable weight of memories.
She slowly walked toward him, her feet brushing through the sea of lilies.
When she stood before him, she knelt gracefully, her face level with his, forcing him to meet her eyes—the eyes of the woman he had destroyed.
Her voice was low and deadly calm.
"You see me now, Ethan. Strong. Whole. Without you."
He nodded, his face a mask of tortured regret.
"And that's why… this is goodbye," he whispered.
Amelia stood up slowly, every movement deliberate and full of finality.
She took a deep breath, her words slicing through the air like a blade.
"You had your chance, Ethan Blake. You threw it away. And now… even your memory is not worthy of my sorrow."
Ethan's body began to fade, his form breaking apart like dust caught in the wind.
His final words echoed faintly as his presence vanished completely from her dream.
"Thank you… for teaching me what love truly means… even if I learned it too late."
Amelia's eyes flew open.
She lay in her bed, tears streaming silently down her cheeks, her chest heaving with emotions she thought she had long buried.
But this time…
They weren't tears of pain.
They were tears of release.
She stepped out onto her balcony, the first light of dawn painting the sky in shades of pink and gold.
Today was her wedding day.
And for the first time in a decade, she felt… free.
Truly, finally free.