Chapter 16: The Girl Returns
The following days have been smooth as I had returned to my work.
For the first time in months, I felt a strange kind of peace — the kind that comes when you try to live again, piece by piece, after surviving a storm.
My nameplate on the office desk still read "Mrs. Vierrah Alvarez." I'd thought about changing it many times, but somehow… I never did. Maybe because a part of me knew that even if I wanted to erase him from my name, Lucas would always be stitched into my life — like a scar that would never fully fade.
I'd returned to my old position at Velisse Design Firm, the place where I started before Lucas had swept me into his golden cage. The smell of fresh blueprints and coffee-filled mornings felt familiar, almost nostalgic. The tapping of keyboards, the soft hum of conversation, the rustle of papers — it all reminded me that this was where I used to belong.
Everyone was kind, but I could feel the cautious glances. They knew. News about Lucas Alvarez traveled fast — the billionaire CEO who disappeared from the headlines after marrying a simple designer. The man whose temper was as infamous as his empire.
"Mrs. Alvarez, the client is waiting in the conference room," my co-worker Mira said softly, snapping me out of thought.
I smiled, grateful she didn't avoid me like the others. "Thanks, I'll be there."
Work filled my days. Meetings, drafts, revisions. It was easier that way — to lose myself in colors, lines, and concepts instead of memories of dark eyes and desperate apologies.
Yet, there were moments… fleeting ones, when I'd glance at my phone and half expect a message. When I walked past black cars in the parking lot and my chest would tighten, wondering if he was inside one of them.
And sometimes — when I least expected it — I could feel him.
A silent stare that made the back of my neck prickle.
A gaze heavy enough to reach my skin.
Once, as I was presenting a design proposal to a client, I caught a glimpse of a familiar silhouette outside the glass wall — tall, poised, dressed in black. Lucas.
He didn't come in. He didn't even call.
He just stood there, hands in his pockets, watching.
And for a split second, our eyes met.
My voice faltered mid-sentence, and my fingers froze against the papers. There it was again — that quiet intensity in his gaze. But it wasn't like before. There was no rage, no possessive madness. Just… restraint. Sadness. A man watching the woman he loved from a distance he forced himself to keep.
When I blinked, he was gone.
As if he'd never been there.
I finished the meeting, smiling like nothing happened. But my heart pounded so fast I could barely breathe.
That night, as I sat in my car ready to drive home, I caught sight of something on my dashboard — a single white tulip. My breath hitched. I didn't need a note to know who it came from.
Lucas once told me tulips reminded him of me — pure, soft, but always blooming even after the storm.
I stared at it for a long while, emotions swirling inside me — anger, confusion, longing.
He was still there. Somewhere in the shadows, watching.
And yet, he never crossed the line again.
Days passed like that — quiet, oddly peaceful, until that evening.
I had just finished another long day at the office. The city lights twinkled against the windows as I started my car, humming softly to the radio. My hands gripped the steering wheel, mind half-lost in thoughts of deadlines and… him.
It was past 9 PM. The roads were nearly empty as I drove toward the hill leading to our house — my house, though part of me still thought of it as ours.
The sky was dark and heavy, the rain starting to pour in thin sheets. I turned up the wipers, squinting through the downpour.
Then — a sudden flash of light. Headlights.
A car came speeding from the intersection, blindingly fast.
"God!" I gasped, swerving instinctively. Tires screeched, metal groaned — the car spun once, twice — before crashing into the guardrail.
The world tilted. My chest slammed against the seatbelt, air knocked from my lungs.
Rain splattered across the windshield, the sound mixing with the ringing in my ears.
---