Lagos was unlike anything Julian had ever known.
It pulsed.
It breathed.
It wasn't just a city — it was a heartbeat. A chaos of horns, laughter, motorbikes, smoke, sunlight, dust and music that poured from windows like declarations. The air smelled of spice and diesel and something ancient.
And for the first time in his life, Julian Wolfe wasn't in control.
He wasn't the richest man in the room. He wasn't the headline. He was just a man.
A man chasing the woman who had slipped through his fingers not because she didn't love him — but because she loved herself more.
It took three days.
Three days of waiting, calling, asking. His driver spoke better Yoruba than he did, guided him past streets and roads that twisted like memory. He skipped hotels and stayed in a modest guesthouse near Yaba, the heat clinging to his skin at night, his thoughts heavier than the air.
On the third day, someone pointed him toward a village compound just outside Lagos — quiet, tucked behind swaying trees and corrugated rooftops. The place where her grandmother once lived. Where she used to spend childhood summers, learning to make shea butter from scratch and braiding her cousins' hair by moonlight.
Julian arrived with his heart in his throat.
He stepped into the red-dust courtyard, the late afternoon sun spilling across the earth like melted amber.
And there she was.
Selena.
Sitting on a low wooden stool in the shade of a mango tree, her feet bare, the hem of her wrapper brushing the ground. Her hair was wrapped in silk the color of sunrise. Her face was makeup-free, soft, radiant in a way that didn't need polish. She held a mortar in her lap, turning it with a wooden pestle, working raw shea like she had a lifetime ago.
She didn't look up.
Didn't gasp or flinch.
As if she knew he'd come.
"Why are you here?" she asked, still moving the mortar in her lap.
Julian stood at the edge of the courtyard like he was standing at the edge of himself.
"To find the woman I lost," he said quietly. "The one I never deserved."
Selena said nothing at first.
She kept mixing.
Birds called from a tree nearby. Somewhere in the compound, a child laughed. Smoke curled from a small cooking pot not far from her stool.
"I thought I came here to run away," she said after a while. "From you. From the noise. From the past."
She paused, running her fingers through the creamy butter.
"But I didn't run. I came to remember."
He stepped closer.
She didn't stop him.
Selena stared into the bowl. "I started this brand here," she murmured. "With that same mortar. Mixing shea and oils by hand before I ever knew what it meant to be used. Or replaced. Or… worshipped."
Julian swallowed hard.
"I know," he said.
And then: "I don't want to fix you, Selena. I don't want to polish you or sell you or make you smaller to fit into something easy."
He knelt beside her, the dust coating the knees of his pants.
"I want to learn you. Whatever that takes, however long it takes."
She finally looked at him.
Her eyes were tired, rimmed red — but clear. And steady.
"I don't want love that comes with a contract," she said.
"I burned it," Julian replied.
She blinked. "Literally?"
"Gone."
A flicker of a smile.
"I don't want to be saved."
He reached for her hand — didn't take it, just offered his palm in silence.
"I just want to stand next to you," he said.
The wind shifted.
A mango fell from a branch behind them.
For a long moment, she just stared at him. At the man who once used her for leverage. Who later offered her a deed like a redemption card. Who failed her when she needed words… and yet came halfway across the world without them.
This time, she didn't need flowers or promises.
She needed truth.
And he had finally come with it.
A tear slipped down her cheek — quiet, unspectacular. But true.
Then her lips curled.
A real smile.
Soft. Uneven. Forgiving.
And with a breath like the breaking of a wave, she whispered:
"Then stand."
Julian exhaled, like he'd been holding that breath since the moment she walked out.
He didn't speak again.
He just stood — beside her.
No press. No photographers. No audience.
Just him.
Just her.
And the sacred ground where she remembered who she was… before the world ever tried to rewrite her.