London's evening fell fast, swallowing the sky in muted indigo as the city lights flickered alive one window at a time. Cars hummed along the Thames, and the fog returned in thin ribbons, drifting between buildings like ghosts that refused to rest.
Eleanor's penthouse felt too quiet when he returned.
He slipped off his coat, loosened his tie, and placed his phone on the kitchen counter but his movements were automatic, empty, performed by a man whose thoughts were still trapped in the echo of Isabella's voice.
"You don't get to erase our past just because it hurts you."
He had heard her footsteps leaving the office hours ago, the finality sharp as the click of a closing vault door. But the weight of her words lingered. They clung to him like the fog outside cold, persistent, impossible to ignore.
He poured himself a glass of water. It tasted metallic.
He wasn't sure why the argument unsettled him so deeply. Maybe because Isabella had stopped being obedient. Stopped being silent. Stopped being the version he could control.
She had always been fire. He was the one who had pretended she wasn't.
A soft buzz sounded from the penthouse entrance.
Eleanor frowned.
He wasn't expecting anyone.
He walked to the door and opened it.
Isabella stood there.
Not in her sharp business armor but in a dark wool coat, hair loosened from its usual precision, cheeks touched faintly pink from the cold. Her eyes looked cautious, but steady.
She wasn't here for reconciliation.
She was here for something else.
"Are you going to let me in," she asked calmly, "or do I have to stand out here and freeze?"
Eleanor stepped aside.
She walked past him, setting her gloves on the marble counter. No tension in her stride only the controlled grace of someone entering a place she had once known very well, in another life neither of them discussed.
She didn't wait for him to speak.
"I came here for clarity," she said.
He folded his arms. "About what?"
She looked at him directly.
"You didn't ask for this marriage out of pure business, Eleanor. That's the first lie you keep telling yourself."
His jaw tightened.
"You think you understand my motives?"
"I do," she said. "Because the man who looked at me today is not the same man who abandoned me years ago."
A pulse tightened in his throat.
"Isabella"
"No," she interrupted softly. "Let me finish."
She stepped closer not close enough to touch, but close enough that he could feel the tension threading between them like a wire pulled too tight.
"You're angry at me," she said. "But what you are truly angry at… is that I still affect you."
His breath caught, just slightly.
Isabella continued, her voice steady.
"You want revenge, but you also want answers. You despise that both desires involve me."
Silence.
Heavy. Charged. Undeniable.
She waited for him to speak. But no words came, because she had just torn open the truth he'd buried under ambition and pride.
He forced himself to respond.
"You flatter yourself."
"No," Isabella said quietly. "I terrify you."
His hands curled into fists.
She turned away, walking toward the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring out at the fog-laced city below.
"I didn't come here to fight," she said. "I came because if this marriage is going to destroy us or save us, it won't happen by lying about who we are."
He exhaled slowly, tension draining from his shoulders.
"Then what do you want from me?" he asked.
She hesitated.
"When you look at me," she said, "I need to know if you see a threat… or the woman you once loved."
His breath stilled.
London's lights blurred behind her reflection like distant constellations.
Eleanor stepped closer.
Not touching her. Not yet. But near enough that their shadows merged on the glass.
"I don't know what I see," he admitted. "But I feel it. Every time you're near."
Her eyes softened, barely.
"That's enough," she whispered. "For now."
A silence settled between them not cold, not hostile.
Just fragile.
Careful.
Human.
Then Isabella stepped back.
"Goodnight, Eleanor," she said. "Tomorrow, we have to face the press. Try not to look like you want to kill me."
A corner of his mouth lifted a ghost of a smile neither of them acknowledged.
"I'll try," he replied.
She grabbed her gloves, opened the door, and stepped into the hallway.
Just before it closed, she said softly:
"Remember… you're not the only one who lost something back then."
The door clicked.
Eleanor stood there long after she was gone.
The echo of her words didn't fade.
It pulsed through him dangerous, intimate, alive refusing to die.
Isabella stared out the window as the car stopped at a red light. A thin drizzle brushed the glass, turning the city lights into blurred streaks like memories refusing to die. For a moment, she saw her own reflection trying to look strong, but the cracks were too obvious to hide.
Elanor glanced at her, his eyes sharp, though a brief flicker of fragility crossed them before he buried it again.
"You're thinking about something," he said. Not a question an accusation.
Isabella drew a slow breath.
"If I say no, you'll still try to read the meaning."
"Because you lie more often than you breathe."
Isabella gave a faint smile, the kind that never reached her eyes.
"Then why keep me around? If I disgust you that much?"
Elanor turned, studying her as if debating whether honesty was worth it.
"I don't trust you. But I don't trust anyone else more than I don't trust you."
Cold. Yet painfully honest.
The car moved again.
Silence stretched between them, not the comfortable kind more like a tightening rope, waiting for the wrong breath to snap it.
When they arrived at Elanor's building, Isabella stepped out before he could open her door. The London night bit at her skin, but she welcomed the cold like a punishment she deserved. Elanor followed, his steps steady, almost proud, though something about his posture looked weighed down by what, he'd never admit.
The elevator felt like a small box where secrets were forced to grow.
"You didn't answer my question earlier," Isabella spoke softly. "Why you keep me close."
Elanor watched the numbers above the door climb.
"Because I want to see you fall apart from the closest distance."
Isabella lowered her gaze not out of fear, but because the answer didn't surprise her anymore.
"If that's what you want… then you should be happy by now."
The elevator dinged.
Elanor stepped out first. "Not yet. Not enough."
Isabella followed, something shifting inside her not a new wound, but an old one forced to bleed. The penthouse was spacious, elegant, cold. A house built for everything except warmth. Isabella stood in the living room, listening to the echo of her own footsteps.
Elanor removed his coat, placing it on the sofa's back.
"Don't stand like that. You look like someone who's lost."
"Someone is lost," she replied quietly. "Me."
Elanor looked at her long enough to be noticeable, short enough to deny any weakness.
"You're here because you chose to be."
"No," Isabella said. "I'm here because you chose it."
That hit him exactly where he didn't want it to. He turned away, choosing silence over honesty. Yet the silence spoke louder than anything.
Isabella walked to the balcony, sliding the door open and letting the cold wind hit her face. London spread beneath them like an ocean of lights beautiful, yet distant. So distant.
Elanor appeared at the doorway, hands in his pockets.
"Don't stand too close to the edge," he said calmly. "If you fall, I'm not in the mood to explain anything to the police."
Isabella looked over her shoulder, releasing a short, bitter laugh.
"You always hide behind cold excuses… even when the truth is more complicated."
Elanor stepped closer.
"I'm not complicated, Isabella. I simply stopped believing in things that never last."
"Like love?"
The word slipped from her mouth before she could stop it.
Elanor froze.
That was how much the word "love" hit him.
Silence fell. A deep one.
Finally, Elanor said, "Love belongs to the past. And I don't look back."
His voice sounded like rubble collapsing.
Isabella turned back to the city lights, her eyes soft but no longer trembling.
"Unfortunately, the past is never that kind. It always knows how to find us, even when we don't want to be found."
Elanor didn't reply.
Because for the first time that night Isabella was right.