Elanor woke earlier than usual, long before dawn had fully claimed London's slate-colored horizon. The city outside his penthouse window glowed faintly, muted by the lingering fog that had rolled in overnight. It reminded him of a curtain
one meant to conceal, soften, or even forgive whatever hid behind it. He stood in the dim room, one hand on the cold glass, the breath he exhaled gathering faintly as mist. He felt strangely unsettled, as if his chest carried an echo of something he had not yet named.
Behind him, the penthouse remained untouched and silent, but not empty. He could feel her presence even when she wasn't there. Isabella had not left her room all night, and he knew because he had walked past her door more times than any reasonable man would. He couldn't explain why he did it. Only that his feet moved on their own, drawn to that wooden boundary he had placed between them. A boundary he had insisted on.
A boundary that no longer felt like protection only punishment.
He tightened his jaw and turned away from the window. He needed clarity. Distance. Control. Things that used to come to him easily but now slipped every time Isabella lifted her eyes, every time she breathed in his direction, every time her voice trembled with something she tried too hard to hide.
He left the room to make coffee, expecting silence. Instead, he found her standing at the counter.
Isabella.
She wore a simple gray sweater, sleeves pushed to her elbows, hair falling in quiet waves over her shoulders. She looked softer in the early hour, almost fragile, but the way she held herself straight spine, chin slightly lifted refused to be small. She hadn't noticed him yet, and for a moment he allowed himself to watch her. Not as the enemy he'd married. Not as the woman who reminded him of every ghost he couldn't bury.
But as the girl he had once loved.
Then she turned, and their eyes locked.
The moment snapped.
"Oh," she breathed. "I didn't hear you."
"You're up early," he said, voice calmer than he felt.
"I couldn't sleep." She hesitated. "I didn't think you'd be awake."
"I'm always awake," he replied, and instantly regretted the sharpness of it.
She nodded, accepting the cold edge without protest, which somehow made it worse. She returned to her coffee mug and lifted it with both hands, warming her fingers against the ceramic. Her knuckles were slightly pink from the cold. He shouldn't have noticed that. He shouldn't have cared.
But he did.
"We need to leave in an hour," he said. "The meeting with the Moreau board is at nine."
Her grip on the mug tightened. "I know."
"You don't have to speak," he added, studying her expression. "Your presence is enough."
"That's good," she murmured. "Because I doubt anything I say would matter."
He crossed his arms. "Isabella"
"It's fine." She offered a small, flat smile. "I know my role."
He frowned. "Don't twist my words."
"Then don't give me words that can be twisted." She turned toward him fully, her voice low but steady. "I agreed to this marriage, Elanor, but I didn't surrender my spine."
He felt that like a spark, jolting, unwanted, impossible to ignore. Her strength had always undone him. Even now, when he wanted to stay angry, when he wanted to treat her like the pawn he had promised himself she would be she stood in front of him like a fire he couldn't smother.
"Good," he said quietly. "Spine makes negotiations easier."
The corner of her lip twitched something almost like amusement, almost like disbelief. She moved past him to set her mug in the sink. As she did, her shoulder brushed his lightly. Too lightly. Yet the contact hit him with more force than any confrontation.
He closed his eyes briefly, steadying himself. It shouldn't be like this. She shouldn't still affect him. Love should have died a long time ago burned, buried, crushed beneath the wreckage of the past. He had intended it to die.
But intentions meant nothing when the heart refused to cooperate.
An hour later, they stood side by side in the backseat of the car as it drove through London's morning streets. The sky was opening slowly, pale gold pushing through lingering fog. Isabella sat with her hands folded neatly in her lap, eyes fixed outside the window. She looked calm, but Elanor could see the tension in her shoulders, the way her fingers pressed too tightly together.
He wanted to reach out. Tell her she wasn't alone. Tell her she didn't have to face her father's world with that quiet fear restraining her breath.
But those words belonged to another version of him one he had buried years ago.
"You don't need to be nervous," he said.
"I'm not nervous." She paused. "Just… preparing myself."
"For what?"
"For how they'll look at us. At me. At you. At this marriage." She inhaled slowly, as if bracing herself. "They'll see a threat."
"They should."
She blinked at him, startled.
He met her gaze. "You're not their puppet anymore."
Isabella stared at him for a long moment searching, uncertain, almost vulnerable. Then she looked away again.
The meeting went as he expected. Accusations hidden behind polite smiles. Thinly veiled hostility masked as corporate concern. Isabella remained silent at first, standing slightly behind him. Her father avoided meeting her eyes. Her uncle spoke in cutting tones. The board whispered behind their papers, judging her like she owed them her dignity.
And Elanor who had sworn to stay detached, to treat her like strategy found the anger rising in him like a storm the longer they spoke to her.
It wasn't until one member implied Isabella's presence was "a liability" that she finally stepped forward.
"With all due respect," she said, her voice steady and beautifully sharp, "I think the real liability is a board that treats facts like rumors and women like ornaments."
The room froze.
Elanor's pulse spiked.
Her father stiffened, clearly unprepared for her defiance.
But Isabella didn't flinch, didn't waver, didn't hide. She held her ground with the same steady flame she had once used to face every obstacle in their youth.
And something inside him cracked at the sight.
When they finally exited the building, the cold wind cut across the street sharply. Isabella wrapped her arms around herself as she exhaled, the tension leaving her shoulders all at once now that she was no longer being watched.
Elanor removed his coat before he could think better of it.
"Here," he said.
She hesitated. "I'm fine."
"You're cold."
"So are you."
"It doesn't matter."
He draped the coat around her shoulders before she could protest again. She stared up at him, eyes wide and unreadable, lips parted slightly as if caught between refusing him and thanking him.
"Elanor…" she whispered.
He stepped back. "Don't misunderstand. You fainting would inconvenience today's schedule."
Her expression hardened, but her cheeks were still faintly pink from the gesture he refused to acknowledge.
They walked toward the car in silence. But the silence was different this time. Not sharp. Not defensive. Something heavier. Warmer. Charged with the weight of everything they weren't saying.
Halfway to the car, Isabella stopped walking.
"Elanor," she said again, more firmly now.
He turned.
And before he could speak, she asked quietly:
"Why did you defend me back there?"
His breath caught.
Not because he lacked the words.
But because the truth was dangerous.
Too dangerous.
He moved closer, stopping just a step in front of her. Her eyes lifted to meet his, searching again searching for the version of him she once knew.
He didn't let her find him.
"You're my wife," he said instead, voice even. "And no one disrespects what belongs to me."
The words were cold.
But the way he said them wasn't.
Isabella's pulse fluttered in her throat. She opened her mouth, closed it again, then looked away as if the weight of his presence was too much to bear.
He noticed everything.
The tremble in her breath.
The conflict in her eyes.
The emotion she was trying desperately to hide.
Something inside him shifted pulled tight, painful, electric.
He shouldn't feel this way.
He shouldn't want to reach out. Touch her. Pull her close. Bury his face in her hair like he used to, before everything fell apart.
But as she stood there, wrapped in his coat, looking like the memory he had tried for years to erase…
He wanted.
He wanted more than he should.
"Elanor," she whispered again, "this… whatever we're doing… we can't keep pretending"
"We're not pretending," he said, stepping closer, lowering his voice. "You're my wife, Isabella. And whether you want to admit it or not…"
He reached out, brushing a strand of hair away from her cheek a touch so gentle it startled both of them.
"…you still look at me like you remember everything we tried to forget."
She froze.
And for the first time since the marriage contract began, Isabella didn't hide.
She trembled.
Just enough for him to feel.
She looked up at him fully now eyes wide, breath uneven, heart in her throat.
"Elanor…" she whispered, softer than a confession, sharper than a wound.
That was the moment he lost control.
Not of his actions he didn't move.
But of his resolve.
Because in her eyes, he saw the truth.
She wasn't the enemy.
She never had been.
And he.
He was the one who had turned love into a battlefield.
He stepped back abruptly, tearing himself away from the gravity between them.
"This conversation is over," he said, voice too tight.
He turned, heading for the car.
But behind him, Isabella stood completely still, her fingers curling around the lapel of the coat he had placed on her shoulders
as if holding onto the single promise he never meant to give her.
The promise in his touch.
The promise in his eyes.
The promise he would eventually have to face.
Whether he was ready or not.
Because some truths didn't disappear.
They waited.And this one had finally woken.