Author's Note
Author’s Note
Stories have a way of surprising the people who write them.
When I first began writing this one, the path seemed clear. Elena’s journey, the people who would shape it, and even the person she would ultimately choose all felt firmly set in place. One of the men in her life was meant to be the end of the road for her story.
But characters have a habit of becoming more real than their outlines.
As the pages unfolded, I found myself unexpectedly drawn to the other man as well. What started as a supporting role slowly grew into something deeper. His perspective, his history, and the quiet strength he brought into Elena’s life began to take on a life of their own. Before long, I realized that both men had become something important to me—and more importantly, to Elena.
They are very different men, but they share something essential: they are both good men. Each one offers Elena something steady, something genuine, and something she could build a future around. Neither path is wrong. Neither choice is easy.
That realization led me down an unexpected road as a writer.
At some point, I began wondering what would happen if Elena chose the other path.
Not instead of this story—but alongside it.
So another story began to grow in the background. One with the same characters, the same emotional foundation, but with deeper explorations of their pasts and the moments that shaped them. A story where Elena makes the other choice and follows a different future.
In many ways, these characters became too alive to exist in only one version of their lives.
This book is one of those possibilities.
Another version of their story exists somewhere beyond these pages—one where a different choice leads Elena down another road entirely.
And perhaps that’s the beauty of stories like this.
Sometimes love isn’t about the absence of other possibilities.
Sometimes it’s about choosing one path while knowing others could have been just as real.
Thank you for stepping into this version of Elena’s story with me.
— Bayley Smith
