Chapter 1 – Six Years Later
The smell of toasted bread drifted through my tiny apartment, mixing with the faint scent of the ink-stained manuscripts scattered across my desk. My mornings were always a race against time, but today I was already behind.
“Liora!” The impatient little voice came from the kitchen. “I’m going to be late again!”
I glanced up from the email I was typing to my editor-in-chief and caught sight of her — my daughter, Aria, sitting at the table, legs swinging, schoolbag ready on the chair beside her. She had my hair, my smile… and eyes that didn’t belong to me at all. Deep crimson-brown, flecked with gold. The kind of eyes that could make a person stop breathing.
Those eyes had haunted me for years.
“I told you, you need to wake me up earlier,” I said, grabbing her lunchbox and slipping it into her bag. “Some people like to sleep in, you know.”
She rolled her eyes — six years old and already perfecting sarcasm. “Some people like to make me run to school.”
I leaned down to kiss her forehead. “Eat your toast, little drama queen.”
It had been six years since that night. Six years since the dream — no, I still called it that — that left me with a child and no explanation. There were nights when I almost convinced myself that I had imagined the man with wine-dark eyes. But then Aria would laugh, and something in that sound would drag me back to the memory of him, of the way my name had tasted in his mouth.
I shook the thought away, picking up my phone and keys. “Come on, let’s go.”
The school was just a fifteen-minute walk away, a bright building tucked between a small park and a coffee shop I never had time to visit. I kissed her goodbye at the gate, watching her run toward her friends. A part of me always stayed behind when I walked away from her.
I didn’t know that today was the beginning of everything unraveling.
---
The news came while I was at work. I was buried in a manuscript — yet another brooding vampire romance — when my phone buzzed.
[School Notification: Special Assembly – Today’s Chief Guest: Lucien Valtore, CEO of Valtore Enterprises.]
The name made my skin prickle. It was absurd. There was no reason for it to feel familiar, no reason for my pulse to trip. I deleted the message and forced my eyes back to the page.
Across town, Aria sat cross-legged in the front row of the assembly hall, chin in her hands as she watched the tall man take the stage. She didn’t know his name, but she couldn’t look away.
Lucien Valtore.
The applause died down, and he spoke — a deep, commanding voice that carried through the hall without effort. Aria tilted her head, a strange warmth curling in her chest.
At some point, his gaze swept across the room, sharp as a hawk’s, and landed on her. He froze. Just for a heartbeat. But in that heartbeat, something shifted.
After the program, he didn’t leave immediately. Instead, he found her in the courtyard, standing alone while the other kids played.
“You’re not playing with your friends?” he asked, crouching to meet her eyes.
“They’re not really my friends,” she said, trying to sound casual. “They say I don’t have a dad.”
Something dark flickered in his expression. Then he smiled, not the cold, polished smile he gave in boardrooms, but something warmer. “Well, I don’t have a little girl to play with. Maybe we can be friends instead.”
Aria considered this, then nodded. “Okay. But you have to buy me ice cream.”
He laughed — a sound that felt strange in his own ears — and nodded. “Deal.”
---
By the time I picked her up that afternoon, she was chattering about some “really tall man” who had promised to take her to the amusement park one day. I barely listened, too focused on the pile of edits waiting for me at home.
I didn’t see him watching us from across the street, a sleek black car idling at the curb.
Over the next week, he kept his promise. A driver began picking Aria up after school on certain days, taking her to parks, ice cream shops, and bookstores. She’d come home glowing with excitement, and though I asked questions, her answers were vague.
“He’s just a friend,” she’d say. “You’re always working, so he takes me out sometimes. It’s fun.”
Guilt twisted in my chest. I wanted to tell her no, to demand to meet this mysterious benefactor, but work deadlines kept me chained to my laptop. And deep down, I told myself, if she was happy, maybe I could let it go.
Then came the dinner invitation.
It arrived with her, tucked into the pocket of her schoolbag — a thick cream envelope with elegant black ink. Inside was a short note:
I would like to meet you. Both of you. Dinner tomorrow, 7 p.m. – L.
I almost didn’t go. Something in my bones told me it was a bad idea. But Aria was too excited, and part of me was… curious.
The restaurant was one of those places with soft lighting and tables so far apart you could almost believe you were alone. Aria bounced in her seat, swinging her legs, until a shadow fell across the table.
I looked up.
Wine-dark eyes.
The breath caught in my throat.
It wasn’t a dream.
