The Woman Before Me

M.L. Delune 1 story

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Summary

Saya Merritt has spent three years building a life that feels entirely her own. Then she escapes from a locked house with bruised wrists, fractured memories, and one certainty: the man who kept her there knows her better than anyone should. He knows what makes her angry. What makes her afraid. What she orders when she can't sleep. The places she's traveled, the things she's lost, the way she takes her coffee. He remembers a version of her she refuses to talk about and insists there were parts of their story she doesn't remember correctly. Saya knows what he is. Possessive. Obsessive. Dangerous. So when he finally stops chasing her, she should feel relieved. Instead, his silence gets beneath her skin. The less he demands, the more she wants to know. The more distance he gives her, the closer she finds herself stepping. And when memories begin returning—jealous fights, tangled sheets, whispered promises, broken doors, and a love so consuming it once felt impossible to survive—Saya is forced to confront the question she's spent three years avoiding: What if escaping him was never the same as stopping loving him? Emilio Bellandi says he won't force her to come back. He won't have to.