The morning light in the master bedroom was too bright, too revealing. It felt like an interrogation lamp. I stood before the ornate, gilded mirror, a piece that looked more like a museum exhibit than something for practical use. My reflection was a ghost dressed in someone else's silk robe.
I leaned in, searching the pale face, the wide, uncertain eyes. *Who are you?* I thought, the question a silent scream. *What did you know that I don't?*
My fingertips brushed the cool glass. And then, it wasn't my reflection I saw.
It was a flash—vivid, visceral, and gone in a heartbeat. A different version of me, hair disheveled, tears carving tracks through mascara, her face a mask of sheer, shattered anguish. She was staring into this same mirror, her hands pressed against the glass as if trying to push through it, or hold herself up. The soundless sob that shook her shoulders echoed in the hollow of my own chest.
I gasped, stumbling back from the mirror as if it had burned me. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drum solo of panic. The room swayed.
"Aria?"
Damian's voice was close. I hadn't heard him enter. He stood in the doorway to the adjoining dressing room, his posture unnaturally still. He was watching me, his expression carefully blank, but his eyes were sharp, missing nothing.
"You shouldn't stand there like that," he said, his voice low and measured. "It's not good for you."
"I saw…" I began, my voice trembling. "I was crying. Here. I was… devastated."
The words hung in the air, an accusation without a clear target.
He didn't deny it. He didn't look surprised. He simply stepped fully into the room, his gaze flickering from my face to the mirror and back. "The mind plays tricks when it's healing. It shows you shadows, not the whole picture."
"That wasn't a shadow," I insisted, wrapping my arms around myself. "It was a memory. It was real. What happened here?"
He closed the distance between us, not touching me, but his presence was a wall. "This house holds many memories, Aria. Some happy, some… less so. You're fixating on a moment of pain because your mind is trying to fill the voids. It's grabbing at the strongest emotions first." He spoke with the calm, logical authority of a doctor, but his eyes were dark, unreadable pools. "Dwelling on it will only cause you distress."
"Maybe I need the distress!" The words burst out of me, fueled by a sudden, fierce frustration. "Maybe the 'whole picture' is made of those moments! You can't just… curate my memories for me, Damian! You can't decide which shadows I'm allowed to see!"
For a fraction of a second, his control slipped. I saw it—a flicker of raw, pained anger in his eyes, quickly banked. His jaw tightened. "I am trying," he said, each word deliberate and hard, "to keep you from drowning in a past you are not yet strong enough to swim in. Is that a crime?"
We stood there, locked in a silent battle across the foot of the enormous bed. The ghost of my weeping self lingered in the air between us.
My defiance crumbled into confusion. He looked… tired. Not just physically, but in his soul. The weight of whatever had happened here, of whatever he was carrying for both of us, seemed to bow his shoulders for just an instant.
"Why was I so sad?" I whispered, the fight gone from my voice.
He looked away, out the window to the immaculate grounds. "Because you felt trapped," he said finally, the admission so quiet I almost didn't hear it. "And because I was too blind, or too stubborn, to see it."
The honesty was more shocking than any evasion. It was a crack in his polished armor, and through it, I glimpsed a vulnerability that was far more terrifying than his control. A man who admitted fault was a thousand times more complex than a man who claimed perfection.
He turned back to me, the mask firmly back in place, but the crack had been seen. "Get dressed. Mrs. Finch will bring breakfast to the morning room. The doctor is coming this afternoon for a check-up."
He left, closing the door softly behind him. The room felt emptier and more charged than before.
I didn't get dressed immediately. I approached the mirror again, cautiously. My own face—pale, confused—stared back. But now, superimposed over it, I could almost feel the echo of that other woman's despair. It wasn't just sadness. It was a specific, directed anguish. A heartbreak that had a source.
*Because you felt trapped.*
Had he been the trap? Or had it been this life? This beautiful, suffocating mansion?
The scheduled monotony of the day felt like a leash. Breakfast alone. The doctor's visit—a bland man who asked about headaches and sleep patterns, his eyes avoiding mine whenever I asked about memory recovery timelines. "Patience, Mrs. Hart. The brain is a delicate organ."
Patience. Everyone's favorite word for me.
In the late afternoon, seeking air that didn't feel filtered and controlled, I slipped out a side door into the walled garden. The air was cool and damp, smelling of turned earth and late roses. For the first time since waking, I felt a sliver of peace. Here, things grew. They changed. They weren't frozen in perfect, dusty silence.
I found a stone bench beneath a birch tree, its leaves beginning to turn gold. I closed my eyes, tilting my face to the weak sun.
"You always loved this spot."
My eyes flew open. A man stood a few feet away, partially obscured by a trellis of climbing ivy. He wasn't a gardener; he wore a simple, dark jacket and jeans. He was handsome in a quieter way than Damian, with kind eyes that held a world of concern.
My heart leapt into my throat. I didn't know him. And yet, a jolt of recognition, warm and immediate, shot through me. It was different from the cold, complicated pull I felt with Damian. This felt like… safety.
"Who are you?" I asked, but my voice lacked the fear it should have held.
"Ethan," he said softly, taking a half-step closer but keeping a respectful distance. "Ethan Carter. We're friends, Aria."
*Ethan.* The name settled into a vacant space in my mind, clicking into place with a soft, sure sound. *Friend.*
"You know me," I breathed.
"I do." His smile was sad. "I've been so worried. I tried to visit you at the hospital, but…" He glanced back toward the mansion, his expression tightening. "Access was restricted."
"By Damian."
It wasn't a question. Ethan's silence confirmed it.
"He says he's protecting me," I said, the words tumbling out in a rush to this stranger who felt like a lifeline. "From my own memories. From… everything."
Ethan crouched down, bringing himself to my eye level. His gaze was earnest, urgent. "Aria, listen to me. You need to be careful. Things before the accident… they weren't simple. You weren't happy. You were planning to—"
A sharp voice cut through the garden. "Aria."
Damian stood at the French doors, his figure rigid. The air temperature seemed to drop ten degrees. His eyes were fixed on Ethan, a look of cold, lethal fury on his face I hadn't seen before.
Ethan straightened slowly, squaring his shoulders. "Hart."
"You are trespassing," Damian said, his voice like chips of ice. He didn't raise it. He didn't need to.
"I came to see a friend."
"She is not receiving visitors. Especially not ones who bring chaos with them." Damian's gaze shifted to me. "Aria. Come inside. Now."
The command was absolute. The fragile peace of the garden shattered. I looked from Damian's stormy face to Ethan's worried one. The friend I couldn't remember, offering a hand from the void. The husband who was my entire, confusing world.
"Aria," Ethan whispered, his eyes pleading. "Just think. Please."
"That's enough." Damian was moving across the lawn, his stride quick and angry. "Leave, Carter. Before I have you removed."
Ethan held his ground for one more second, his eyes locked on mine. "Remember the blue journal," he hissed, too low for Damian to hear. Then he turned and melted back through the garden gate, disappearing as quickly as he'd come.
Damian reached my side, his hand closing around my elbow. His grip was firm, not painful, but inescapable. "What did he say to you?"
"He said he was my friend," I said, my voice shaking.
"He is a complication you do not need," Damian bit out, steering me forcefully back toward the house. "He will fill your head with half-truths and poison. You are not to speak to him. Do you understand?"
We were inside now, in the dark-paneled hallway. He released my arm, but the impression of his grip remained. He was breathing hard, a barely contained tempress swirling in his eyes.
"Why?" I challenged, fear giving way to a spark of my own anger. "Because he might tell me something you won't?"
He leaned in close, his face inches from mine. I could see the flecks of grey in his irises, the faint scar by his brow I'd never noticed. "Because," he said, his voice a low, dangerous vibration, "the last time you listened to him, you ended up in a car wreck with no memory. I will not let that happen again. You are *mine* to protect. Even from your own poor judgment."
He turned and strode away, leaving me trembling in the hallway.
*Mine.*
The word echoed, possessive and absolute. It wasn't a term of endearment. It was a brand.
I stumbled to my room, my mind reeling. The weeping woman in the mirror. Ethan's warning. Damian's fury. The blue journal.
*Remember the blue journal.*
I went to the shelf where I'd found it yesterday and pulled it out again. This time, I didn't just look at the last written page. I flipped to the very beginning, to the inside cover.
There, in small, neat print, was an email address and a password.
**[email protected] // Persephone72**
It wasn't just a diary. It was a key.
I looked at the closed door of my room, listening for Damian's footsteps. The house was silent. But the silence was different now. It wasn't just the quiet of a forgotten life.
It was the quiet before the storm. And for the first time, I wasn't just afraid of the past I couldn't remember.
I was afraid of the husband who was so determined to keep it from me.