Adira's POV
The annual Global Business Summit was the kind of event where power dressed in Armani suits and billion-pound deals were made over champagne flutes. I had been invited as one of the keynote speakers a recognition that The Study Spot Group had become more than a chain of cafés.
As I stepped onto the stage, cameras flashed. My heart beat steady, not from nerves, but from fire. I spoke about innovation, about creating spaces that inspired young people to dream. I spoke about my own journey, careful not to bare too much, but just enough to make them listen.
When I finished, the applause was thunderous.
I walked off the stage, my heels clicking against the marble, when I felt it. A gaze. Heavy. Familiar in a way that made my skin prickle.
I turned.
A man stood across the room, tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in a tailored black suit. His presence didn't just command the room it consumed it. People seemed to move aside without him asking. His eyes were on me.
For a second, my breath caught. There was something about those eyes...
But then someone called my name, and when I looked back, he was gone.
Later that night, at the gala dinner, I saw him again. This time, closer. He was speaking with a cluster of CEOs, his voice low, confident. They listened like students before a professor.
I leaned toward Tiana, who had flown in to support me. "Do you know who that is?"
She shook her head. "New face. But the way people are circling him? He's important."
Our eyes met again, across the tables. He raised his glass, a faint smile tugging at his lips. Something flickered inside me recognition. But it was impossible.
Because the boy I remembered wasn't this man.
Jayden's POV
From across the room, I watched her. Adira Ademide Williams.
Not the shy, bruised girl I remembered, but a woman. Powerful. Magnetic. Everything I always knew she could become.
She didn't know me. Not really. Not the man I'd become. But I knew her. I had followed every headline, every feature, every expansion she made. I had sat in boardrooms under another name, signing the papers that gave her the funding she needed when investors doubted her.
I had built an empire of my own CraigTech, one of the fastest-growing tech companies in Europe, valued in the billions. But none of it compared to this moment.
Watching her shine.
She thought fate didn't exist. She told me once to move on, to live my life. I had. But now?
Now it was time for me to step back into hers.