Liam woke up with a headache that felt like pressure behind his eyes.
The room was quiet. Too quiet.
For a moment, he didn't move. He stared at the ceiling, breathing slowly, letting the fog in his head clear bit by bit. The smell of alcohol lingered faintly in the air, mixed with something warmer… familiar.
Then memory returned.
Not in pieces.
All at once.
His jaw tightened.
He sat up, running a hand through his hair, stopping halfway when he noticed someone beside him. Lorette was asleep, turned slightly away from him, her hair spread across the pillow. The sight didn't soften him.
It irritated him.
Not her.
The situation.
He swung his legs off the bed and stood, every movement precise, controlled. He picked up his shirt from the floor, slipped it on, and went to the window. The city outside was already awake. Cars moved. People lived. Nothing had changed.
Except something had.
His chest felt tight—not with regret, not with guilt—but with anger. Quiet anger. The kind that didn't shout or break things. The kind that sat deep and burned slowly.
He hadn't planned that night.
He hated that.
Behind him, Lorette stirred. "Liam…?" her voice was soft, hopeful.
He turned halfway, his expression already locked behind calm. "You need to visit a clinic today," he said flatly.
She blinked, confused. "What?"
"A clinic," he repeated, voice even. "I'll have my driver take you. Make sure everything is… handled."
The color drained slightly from her face.
"Oh," she said quietly. After a pause, she nodded. "Okay."
There was no comfort in his tone. No apology. No explanation.
He turned away again.
Inside, his thoughts were razor-sharp.
Stupid.
Careless.
Unnecessary.
This was not who he was supposed to be. Not the man he had rebuilt himself into. He had promised himself there would be no mistakes like this. No weakness. No moments where the past crept in wearing someone else's face.
And yet—
A name surfaced in his mind.
Unwanted.
Uninvited.
Oliver.
His fingers curled slowly into a fist.
Anger flared—not at Lorette, not even at himself alone—but at the memory that refused to die. At the way it still had power over him. At how even now, after everything, it could reach into his chest and twist.
He exhaled through his nose, steadying himself.
This would not repeat.
He would handle this the way he handled everything now: cleanly, quietly, efficiently. Feelings were useless. The past was over. He had work. Responsibility. A future already laid out in front of him.
Love had been a mistake.
He straightened his cuffs, glanced once more at the bed—then walked out of the room without looking back.
Control restored.
Or so he told himself.
Oliver had settled into the rhythm of his life at the research institute. The office was calm, quiet, and filled with the faint hum of computers and the occasional clink of a coffee cup. He spoke little, letting his work speak for him, and everyone had learned to respect his presence. He didn't need to say much—his precision and focus were more than enough to earn that kind of respect.
One day, the institute received a high-level contract proposal. It was serious work, the kind that demanded skill and focus, the kind that left little room for socializing or distractions. Oliver was assigned to the project immediately. His calm, detached manner, his quiet intelligence, and the sharpness of his mind made him the perfect choice.
At first, he only glanced at the company's name on the proposal form: Stellar Corporations. It didn't strike him. Just another client, he thought. Important, yes, but nothing more. He didn't connect it to anyone in his past.
That evening, when he returned home, Lois was already in the sitting room. He found him lying on the couch, laptop perched on the armrest, casually typing away. A faint aroma of something warm and light from the kitchen filled the room.
"Hey," Oliver greeted, his voice low and even.
Lois looked up and smiled, "Dinner's ready. I made something light; I thought you might be hungry after a long day."
Oliver nodded in quiet thanks, and they ate together without much conversation, just the soft clatter of cutlery and the occasional hum of the laptop. After cleaning up, Oliver retreated to his room briefly, but the thought of the new project wouldn't leave him. He returned downstairs to the sitting room, this time with his own laptop, intending to read over the proposal in detail.
As he scrolled through the documents, curiosity nudged him to check more about the company. He opened a browser and typed the name—Stellar Corporations.
Then, there it was.
The CEO. His chest suddenly tightened. A familiar face stared back at him from the search results: Liam Adrien. Oliver froze. His fingers hovered over the mouse, and for a moment, he couldn't breathe as memories—vivid and raw—rushed into his mind.
He quickly closed the page, shaking his head slightly as if to clear it. Lois, lying back on the couch, noticed the sharp intake of breath and the tense set of Oliver's shoulders. Curious, he peeked over at the screen and had caught a glimpse of the image before it disappeared. A young, strikingly handsome man, with the same piercing gaze that Oliver had never been able to forget.
Lois raised an eyebrow, "Everything okay?"
Oliver only shook his head, forcing a neutral expression. "Yeah. It's fine," he said softly. Inside, though, a storm of thoughts churned.
He told himself firmly: It's just a company. I won't see him. It's nothing more than work.
He closed the laptop, sliding it to the side, and sat back on the couch next to Lois. He tried to focus on the evening, on the warm light of the room, on the quiet hum of the city outside the window. But even as he sipped the tea Lois poured him, he knew one thing for certain: he couldn't erase the name from his mind, and now, fate had quietly, inexorably, pulled them back onto the same path...