The morning of the announcement arrived with the muted, pearlescent light of a Los Angeles dawn. Lu Huai was already awake, had been for hours, watching the cityscape shift from a blanket of scattered diamonds to the hazy gold of daybreak. Her phone, silenced since midnight, lay face-down on the bedside table. The world outside this room was about to erupt, but in here, there was only a profound, purposeful calm.
She dressed in simple, expensive clothes meant to blend, not impress: tailored linen trousers, a cashmere sweater, soft leather flats. Her makeup was minimal, her dark hair pulled into a low ponytail. The diamond studs in her ears, a gift from a luxury brand for her Oscar win, were the only hint of her former life. She took them off, placing them carefully in the velvet box on her dresser. They felt heavy. Unnecessary.
Miranda's work was flawless. At precisely 9:00 AM Eastern Time, the press release went out through all official channels. Lu Huai's social media accounts, managed by Miranda's team, posted the same succinct statement, followed by a complete, deafening silence. No personal note, no reflective farewell video. Just the corporate words, cold and final.
Lu Huai didn't need to look at her phone to know the chaos that followed. She could feel it, a distant tremor through the foundations of the life she was leaving. The penthouse, a fortress of glass and steel, felt suddenly fragile, its walls too thin to hold back the coming storm of speculation.
By 9:05, the first notifications would have hit industry insiders. By 9:10, the entertainment news desks were scrambling. By 9:15, the first online headlines would be live: "Lu Huai Steps Away at the Peak of Her Career." "Shock Retirement: What Drove the Reclusive Star to Leave?" The "Celeb Scoop" photo from the clinic would be dredged up, analyzed, twisted. The "personal pursuits" line would be picked apart. The vacuum Miranda feared was being filled, rapidly and chaotically, with rumor and conjecture.
A soft knock on the main door. Not the aggressive pounding of paparazzi—her building's security was impeccable, and Miranda had likely already activated a discreet perimeter team. This was a coded knock. Two short, one long.
Lu Huai opened the door. A man in his late forties stood there, dressed in the unassuming uniform of a high-end moving coordinator. His name was Karl, and for the past five years, he had quietly managed the logistics of her most private transactions—art acquisitions, confidential donations, the occasional discreet relocation of sensitive items. He was ex-military, with calm eyes that missed nothing and a mouth that seldom spoke.
"Ms. Huai," he said with a slight nod. His voice was low and even. "The first wave is clear. The service entrance is secured. Your vehicle is staged below."
"Thank you, Karl." Lu Huai gestured to the apartment. Aside from a single, medium-sized suitcase and a slim laptop case by the door, the space looked untouched. The art, the furniture, the shelves of awards—they were all just set dressing now. "The inventory list is on the server. Your team can proceed as discussed. Everything is to go into storage. The Malibu property team will handle the final walk-through at the end of the month."
"Understood." His gaze swept the room once, a tactical assessment. "The decoy vehicle left the main garage three minutes ago. It will draw the initial pursuit towards the airport. We have a ninety-seven percent confidence window."
Lu Huai allowed herself a small, tight smile. Miranda handled the narrative. Karl handled the exfiltration. They were the only two people on earth who knew the full scope of her departure. "Let's go."
She picked up her suitcase. It was lighter than expected. It contained no designer gowns, no press clippings. Just a few changes of soft, comfortable clothes, a folder of essential documents, the sonogram photo, and a single, worn copy of Pride and Prejudice that had belonged to her mother. The laptop case held her digital life, encrypted and scrubbed, a portal to the L.H. Capital empire and little else.
They didn't take the private elevator to the penthouse garage. Instead, Karl led her through a service door, down a stark concrete staircase, and into the building's underbelly—a world of humming generators, piping, and fluorescent lights. A nondescript white van, identical to those used by a high-end grocery delivery service, idled by a loading dock. The driver, a woman with a severe bun and sharp eyes, gave Karl a brief nod.
Lu Huai slid the side door open and stepped into the van's empty cargo area. There were two plain metal chairs bolted to the floor. She took one. Karl took the other, pulling the door shut behind them. The interior plunged into near-darkness, only slivers of light from the front cabin seeping through a partition.
The van pulled away smoothly, merging into the mid-morning traffic. Lu Huai closed her eyes, not in fear, but in focus. She tracked their progress by sound and feel. The stop-and-go of downtown, the smoother flow of a freeway on-ramp, the sustained speed of the highway heading east, away from the ocean, away from Hollywood.
"We're clear of the initial perimeter," Karl said after twenty minutes, checking a tablet that glowed in the dimness. "No tails. The decoy is currently leading a six-car parade on the 405 towards LAX. Online chatter is confirming the airport narrative."
Lu Huai nodded, the motion unseen. The plan was working. Let them chase a ghost to the private jet terminals. By the time they realized she wasn't on any flight manifest, she would be gone.
They drove for two hours, the landscape outside the small, tinted windows shifting from urban sprawl to the sun-bleached hills of the Inland Empire. The van eventually exited the freeway, winding through a series of increasingly rural roads before turning into the secure lot of a small, private airfield. Not the glamorous Van Nuys or Santa Monica airports favored by celebrities, but a utilitarian strip servicing cargo and charter flights.
The van rolled to a stop inside a hangar. The door slid open. Not to a gleaming private jet, but to a sturdy, twin-propeller aircraft used for regional freight. It was painted a dull grey, its only marking a tail number. A man in a pilot's jumpsuit stood by the open hatch, clipboard in hand.
"Right on schedule, Karl," the pilot said, his voice cheerful. "She's all fueled and pre-flighted. Weather's good all the way."
"Thank you, Mike." Karl turned to Lu Huai. "This is the last leg of my purview, Ms. Huai. Mike will get you to your first stop. From there, you're on your own itinerary."
Lu Huai stood, her legs slightly stiff from the drive. She reached out and shook Karl's hand. "My gratitude. For everything."
"A pleasure, ma'am. Good luck." His expression was, as always, professionally inscrutable, but there was a faint warmth in his eyes. He'd seen many clients in transitions—divorces, scandals, new ventures. This felt different. This felt like an exodus.
She boarded the small plane. The interior was Spartan, fitted with cargo straps and netting, but two comfortable passenger seats had been installed near the front. She stowed her suitcase and laptop case, buckled herself in. The pilot, Mike, completed his checks with efficient, practiced motions. The engines coughed to life, then settled into a powerful, vibrating roar.
As the plane taxied and then lifted into the cloudless blue sky, Lu Huai looked out the small window. Los Angeles shrank beneath her, a vast, glittering tapestry of dreams and desperation. The neighborhoods she knew, the studios, the theaters, the restaurants—they all blurred into an indistinct sprawl. The tightness in her chest, a constant companion for years, began to ease, millimeter by millimeter.
She wasn't flying towards something. Not yet. She was flying away. Away from the schedules and the scripts and the scrutiny. Away from the expectations that hung on her like a second skin. Away from the ghost of a man whose face she tried, and failed, to forget. The ghost who had, through a single, catastrophic lapse in her famously rigid control, left a permanent mark on her life. A ghost whose identity was a secret she would carry, and guard, to her grave.
The plane climbed higher. She leaned her head against the cool plexiglass window. In her stomach, a faint, fluttering sensation, like a butterfly's wing. It wasn't nausea. It was a reminder. A promise.
She placed a hand low on her abdomen. "Just a little further," she whispered, the words lost in the engine's drone. "We're almost there."
Three hours later, the plane touched down on another private airstrip, this one nestled in the pine-forested hills of Northern California. The air that greeted her as she descended the steps was cool, dry, and scented with pine and earth. It was a clean smell, unlike the exhaust and salt-tinged air of LA.
A dark green SUV was waiting, the driver a silent, middle-aged woman who merely nodded in greeting and loaded Lu Huai's single bag. They drove in silence for another hour, the roads growing narrower, the towns smaller and further apart. They passed through a quiet, picturesque town with a single main street lined with clapboard buildings housing a grocery store, a diner, a library, and an antique shop. Willow Creek, the sign said. Population 8,742.
They drove through the town and up a winding mountain road, dense with redwoods and firs. Finally, the SUV turned onto a gravel drive, passing under a simple wooden arch. The sign, hand-carved and rustic, read: Serenity Pines Prenatal & Family Retreat.
The SUV came to a stop in front of a large, rustic yet elegant lodge built of logs and stone, with wide porches and soaring windows that looked out over a valley. It looked less like a medical facility and more like an exclusive mountain resort. Several smaller cabins were nestled among the trees, offering privacy.
A woman in her sixties, with kind eyes and a brisk, no-nonsense demeanor, was waiting on the porch steps. Dr. Eleanor Vance, Miranda's aunt, and one of the most discreet and respected obstetricians on the West Coast for those who required absolute privacy. She had officially retired from her Los Angeles practice five years ago to open this retreat.
"Lu Huai," Dr. Vance said, her voice warm and firm, devoid of the sycophancy or awe Lu Huai was used to. "Welcome. Let's get you settled."
There were no forms to fill out in a public waiting room, no gawking receptionists. Dr. Vance led her directly to one of the secluded cabins. It was cozy and beautifully appointed, with a stone fireplace, a small kitchenette, and a bedroom with a view of the forest. It smelled of lemon polish and dried lavender.
"The clinic is in the main lodge, completely private entrance," Dr. Vance explained, handing her a simple key. "My staff consists of two nurses and a nutritionist, all of whom have signed lifetime NDAs more stringent than any government security clearance. You are registered here under the name Lily Lu. Your file exists only on a secured, air-gapped server. As far as the world is concerned, you are currently somewhere over the Atlantic, pondering your future in a Swiss chalet."
Lu Huai felt a wave of exhaustion, the kind that comes not from physical labor, but from the release of a long-held, immense tension. "Thank you, Dr. Vance."
"Eleanor, please." The older woman smiled, her eyes crinkling. "Rest today. We'll do a full check-up tomorrow, just to make sure the travel was no bother. The pantry is stocked. There's a landline for the internal network. No internet, no cell service that isn't routed through our own secure tower. You are, for all intents and purposes, a ghost." She patted Lu Huai's arm. "Be a ghost. Read. Walk in the woods. Sleep. Let that baby grow in peace."
After Dr. Vance—Eleanor—left, Lu Huai stood in the center of the quiet cabin. The silence was profound, broken only by the distant call of a bird and the sigh of the wind in the treetops. It wasn't the dead silence of her LA penthouse. It was a living, breathing quiet.
She walked to the large window, looking out at the towering redwoods. Somewhere down in the valley, the small town of Willow Creek was going about its day, utterly unaware that its most famous temporary resident had just arrived. Her phone, when she powered it on just for a moment, showed dozens of missed calls and hundreds of notifications. She deleted them all without reading, then removed the SIM card, snapping it in half before dropping the pieces into the kitchen trash. The phone itself, a burner, she would dispose of later.
She was Lily Lu now. A woman expecting a child. A woman with no past, and a future that was a blank, clean slate.