Kai wasn't sleeping, wasn't eating and the more he tried to outrun the thought of her, the more it followed him like a scent he couldn't scrub off. He'd never felt this kind of pull before. Not even for Brielle. Not even close.
It wasn't just desire.
It was something deeper.
Instinct. Memory. Guilt and a name he wasn't supposed to remember. He whispered it sometimes when he was alone, mouth tasting the syllables like forbidden fruit.
Ariella.
It felt like home and heartbreak in one breath. By Friday, he couldn't sit still.
He walked the halls of Lennox Corp like a man hunting his own ghost checking departments he never visited, reading employee files for no reason, scanning every security feed like a madman trying to remember a dream he'd never woken from. He didn't see Aria until just past noon.
She stood in the design wing, head bent over a table scattered with mood boards and product samples. Her fingers danced lightly over the textures velvet, suede, silk. The same fingers that once curled around his tie and yanked him into the kiss that had nearly ruined him.
He stepped in slowly. "What are you working on?"
She didn't look up. "A rebrand pitch for the New York line."
"I approved the last one."
"You'll like this one more."
He watched her a moment. "Do you always touch things like that?"
She looked up now, slowly. "Like what?"
"Like you've touched them before."
Aria's gaze didn't waver. "Maybe I have."
He moved closer.
She didn't back away.
His voice dropped. "Have we met before?"
"In what lifetime?" she asked, cool.
Kai stared at her searching for the fault line in her mask. The edge of something real. He found it when their hands brushed reaching for the same file.
And suddenly—
He saw it.
A flash. Quick. Violent.
Her. Crying in his arms.
His voice — "I'm sorry. I can't stay."
Her voice — "You said you'd fight for me."
His lips on her forehead.
Her whisper — "You promised."
The file dropped and Kai staggered back, heart pounding like a drum in his ears.
"What… the hell was that?"
Aria's face had gone still.
Cold.
She bent slowly, picked up the file, and handed it to him like nothing had happened.
"Are you okay, Mr. Lennox?"
He didn't answer because he wasn't. He spent the rest of the day tearing through his personal archive. Old press clippings. Event photos. Social media from years ago. Anything that might explain what was happening to his head and to his heart.
Nothing.
No mention of an Ariella. No scandal. No hint of a woman he'd once promised forever to and then forgotten but he knew something was missing and he knew who could help.
That night, he knocked on the door of the only person still alive who remembered his life better than he did.
His mother.
She looked at him with the same quiet concern she'd had since the accident. "You look like you haven't slept in days."
"I haven't."
She stepped aside. "Tea or whiskey?"
"Both."
They sat on the balcony of her high-rise apartment, the city glittering below them.
"Tell me something," he said finally. "Did I ever… before Brielle… was there anyone else serious?"
His mother blinked. "You never brought anyone to me."
"But did I talk about someone? Mention a girl?"
She hesitated.
"Kai…"
"Please."
She sipped her drink. "There was a time when you were distracted. Distant. Always disappearing on weekends. I asked once and you just smiled."
"What did I say?"
"You said, 'She's not mine yet.'"
Kai's chest twisted.
"Then what happened?"
"You changed overnight. You stopped talking about her. I assumed she'd broken your heart." Or you broke hers, he thought but out loud, he asked, "Do you remember her name?"
His mother paused.
"Something soft. A flower, maybe. No… no, it was…"
Her brow furrowed.
"…Ariella."
His heart stopped.
It was real.
She was real.
Back in his apartment, Kai opened his laptop with shaking hands. He searched her name.
Ariella Vale and there halfway down the page was a headline that nearly made him drop the computer.
"Heiress Presumed Dead After Cliffside Accident. Body Never Recovered."
His world tilted.
Photo included.
It was her.
Softer. Younger. But unmistakably her.
His Aria.
His Ariella.
The woman he kissed in the dark.
The woman who now worked four doors down.
The woman he left behind.
He stared at her photo, hand trembling then suddenly the kiss made sense. The look in her eyes. The pain in her voice.
You left me.
You promised me forever.
He had.
He had and he forgot.
Worse — he let them erase her like she never mattered but she was back.
And this time?
She wasn't here to love him.
She was here to make him pay.