(Amelia's POV)
I didn't leave Ethan Blackwood because I stopped loving him.
I left because loving him was starting to cost me myself.
There hadn't been a fight. No slamming doors. No final confrontation. Just one night where the silence between us finally said everything it needed to. I folded clothes quietly, careful not to wake him.
The sound of the zipper on my suitcase was the loudest thing in the room. When I left, I didn't look back.
People like to imagine leaving as an explosion. For me, it was the opposite. A slow fading until I wasn't visible anymore.
Eight years later, I had learned how to survive in the quiet I'd chosen.
Morning sunlight slid through the kitchen window, pale and soft, touching the chipped edge of the counter and the drawings taped to the fridge.
The air smelled faintly of oatmeal and dish soap. It was an ordinary morning, and ordinary was sacred.
Lucas sat at the table, legs swinging under the chair. His hair stuck up on one side, and there was a streak of oatmeal across his cheek that he hadn't noticed yet.
He hummed to himself, some tuneless little rhythm that had followed him since he learned how to talk.
These small sounds made up my peace.
"Mom," he said suddenly, spoon suspended midair. "You're doing the thinking face again."
I blinked. "Am I?"
He nodded seriously. "Your eyebrows get all... focused. Like when the toaster broke and you tried to fix it instead of buying a new one."
That earned a small laugh from me. "I remember that."
He smiled, satisfied. I reached over to smooth his hair and left my hand resting there for a second longer than necessary. His skin was warm, alive. He had Ethan's eyes. I hated that I could still see it.
"Finish up," I said gently. "You'll be late."
He turned back to his bowl. I turned to the counter where my phone sat facedown, vibrating every few minutes like it was reminding me of a debt. I didn't need to look. I already knew.
Blackwood Developments.
Mandatory consultation.
Executive level.
Ethan.
I had known this would happen one day. Cities weren't as large as they pretended to be. Eventually, circles overlap. I'd built a life small enough to stay unseen, but fate didn't respect boundaries.
"Do I still go to Mrs. Patel's after school?" Lucas asked between bites.
"Yes," I said too quickly. "Just for a little while."
He tilted his head, studying me the way he sometimes did when he caught something I didn't mean to show. Then he nodded, trusting without hesitation.
That trust was a weight I carried every day.
After I dropped him off, I sat in the car for a long moment, hands motionless on the steering wheel. The city moved around me—horns, footsteps, the murmur of people with easier mornings. I started the engine before I could think too long about turning around.
The closer I drove toward the financial district, the more the streets changed. The buildings grew taller, sharper, like ambition could be built into architecture.
When I reached Blackwood Tower, I parked and stared up at it for a moment. It pierced the sky cleanly, as if it had been designed to.
Inside, everything gleamed. Chrome. Glass. Efficiency in physical form. I gave my name at the front desk and received a visitor badge. My voice didn't tremble. Neither did my hands. Years of practice had taught me that composure could be armor if you wore it tightly enough.
The elevator ride was long. Too long. I could feel my pulse in my throat by the time the doors opened.
And then there he was.
Ethan stood near the windows, back to me at first. Even in stillness, he looked like someone who took up more space than he was given. The light caught on the edges of his suit, precise, deliberate.
When he turned, something low in my stomach pulled taut. Time hadn't softened him. It had refined him into something colder.
"Ethan," I said.
"Ms. Cross."
Two words, polite and bloodless.
The meeting started. Numbers. Terms. Corporate choreography. We spoke with the measured tone of people who knew exactly what they couldn't afford to feel. I had learned long ago how to keep emotion out of business, but the sound of his voice still pressed against places I'd thought had healed.
At one point, his hand stilled over the table. "You left."
I didn't look up. "And you never asked."
That stopped him. The air between us held a pulse of old heat, old hurt. Then it cooled again, like nothing had happened.
When the meeting ended, I gathered my papers. "This contract is short-term," I said. "After it's done, we go back to separate worlds."
He studied me like he was measuring the lie behind my calm. "That's not an answer."
"It's the only one you're getting."
I left before the silence between us could turn into something else.
In the elevator, I pressed my thumb into my palm until the sting grounded me. By the time I reached the lobby, I had rebuilt my expression.
That night, Lucas climbed into my bed after a nightmare. He curled against me, small and warm, his breath even again within minutes. I watched the ceiling and tried not to think about how easily peace could be broken.
He looked so much like Ethan when he slept. The same furrow between his brows, the same quiet intensity even in rest. I closed my eyes.
Love, once cracked by neglect, never comes back the same way. You can't glue the shape of it together without cutting your hands on the edges.
Two days later, the illusion of distance shattered.
I was at my office reviewing a contract when the door opened without a knock. Ethan stepped in as if the space already belonged to him.
"This isn't about Kingston," he said.
My pulse jumped. "Then what is it about?"
His expression didn't change. "Control, you'd say."
"Wouldn't I be right?"
He took another step forward. "No. It's about honesty."
That word landed heavier than I expected. "You don't get to ask me for that," I said.
He leaned on the edge of my desk, too close. "Then tell me why there's a child who looks like me."
The air went out of my lungs. My throat closed around the first dozen lies that wanted to come out.
"That's not your concern," I said, sharper than intended.
"If he's mine—"
"He's not."
The words came fast, automatic, desperate. A reflex.
Ethan's eyes searched my face, not for softness but for confirmation. He'd always been frighteningly good at detecting weakness. The silence that followed made it worse.
He straightened slowly. "You're lying," he said, almost gently.
"I'm protecting him."
That stopped him again. His jaw tightened. For the first time since I'd known him, I saw something that looked like uncertainty.
"From what?" he asked.
"From becoming you."
The room fell quiet.
Neither of us moved for a long time. He didn't argue, and I didn't explain. There was no way to.
When he finally left, I sank into my chair and stared at the closed door until my vision blurred. My hand shook when I reached for the pen I'd dropped.
The truth was a living thing. Once you saw it, it didn't die just because you told it to.
And for the first time since I'd left Ethan Blackwood, I realized silence might not be enough to keep it buried.