The silence in the study felt suffocating.
Lucian sat still behind his desk, the cool light of the desk lamp illuminating the edges of files he had no interest in reading. His eyes rested on a blank page in front of him, but his mind was anything but blank. It replayed a singular moment over and over again—her eyes flicking away, her soft-spoken excuse, the way she subtly withdrew her hand when their fingers brushed over the dinner table.
She was avoiding him.
Not dramatically. Not rebelliously. Quietly.
Ivy never ran from confrontation. She met pressure with fire, resistance with steel. But lately, something had changed. Her silences weren't empty—they were thick with weight.
He leaned back in his chair, loosened the collar of his shirt, and exhaled slowly. This wasn't like her.
Driven by a restlessness he couldn't name, Lucian rose and left the study. He moved into the living room, intending to distract himself, maybe even pretend he wasn't bothered.
He switched on the television, its artificial brightness slicing into the calm, and lowered himself onto the leather couch.
And then he saw it.
A black cord nestled between the cushions. A small silver pendant glinting against the dim glow of the room.
He reached for it slowly.
It was her necklace.
His fingers curled around the familiar item. It was unmistakably Ivy's. Subtle, understated—exactly her style. Something she wore often, but never talked about.
Lucian stood, the necklace resting in his palm, and everything in him stilled.
Ivy never forgot anything.
She was sharp, meticulous. But this… this wasn't a message.
It was a mistake.
She was avoiding him so hard she hadn't even noticed she left behind something clearly important. That was how deep the avoidance had burrowed into her.
And then… it hit him.
The pendant. That shape. That feeling.
It unlocked something.
A memory he had long buried beneath years of steel and cold silence.
Blood.
Water.
Pain.
He saw himself—barely conscious, the scent of river mud and rust filling his nostrils. His body was weak, drenched, battered. He remembered trying to move, his breath ragged. His vision blurred.
And then… a voice.
A hand.
A warmth against his lips.
He had dismissed it before as a fever dream. Delirium.
But the memory sharpened now with chilling clarity.
He had been fading in and out of consciousness when someone pulled him from the riverbank. Slender arms, trembling slightly but determined. A figure crouched beside him. Her face shadowed, her movements quick.
And then—mouth to mouth.
Lucian inhaled sharply at the recollection. He had felt it then—the sudden rush of air, her breath filling his lungs, her palms pressed against his chest.
He remembered her muttering something in a flurry of panic, her voice angry but shaken.
"You better not die after stealing my first kiss, you idiot!"
The words slammed into his chest now as clearly as they had that day.
A ghost of a smirk curved his lips in the present.
It had been Ivy.
She had saved him.
He had stolen her first kiss and nearly died doing it.
But she saved him anyway.
Lucian stared down at the necklace, the past aligning with the present in a way that made his stomach twist.
She had never mentioned it.
Not once.
All this time, she had carried that moment quietly, alone. As if it didn't matter. As if he would never remember.
And maybe, he wouldn't have.
But fate—or her mistake—had just changed that.
He ran his thumb slowly over the pendant, the smirk fading into something softer. Something unreadable.
Now that he knew…
He wasn't sure what stunned him more: that she had saved his life, or that she'd given him that moment and chose silence.
And just like that, Ivy Walker was no longer just the mysterious, sharp-tongued hacker he had hired.
She was the ghost who had once brought him back to life 🙃🙃🙃
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