(Amelia's POV)
Memory doesn't ask permission.
It rises when you least expect it, when you've almost convinced yourself that the past is buried deep enough not to breathe. One smell, one sound, one look—and suddenly the walls inside you remember everything you tried to forget.
I thought I'd handled it, the moment Ethan looked at Lucas. I told myself his recognition had been brief, a flicker that would fade once he turned back to his empire and his rules. But memory isn't a guest you dismiss. It lingers. It waits.
The next morning, the quiet inside the west wing felt alive.
Everything was precise—chairs perfectly aligned, blinds drawn halfway, the faint hum of air conditioning balancing the silence. Ethan's brand of control was everywhere. It reminded you that every breath was permitted, not given.
I dropped my bag on the desk, powered up my laptop, and focused on the screen. Work was safer than emotion. Numbers didn't look at you. Documents didn't remember. Kingston's zoning issues demanded attention, and I clung to that logic like oxygen.
But still, my mind betrayed me. I could see Ethan's face when he first saw Lucas—his expression too controlled, the way his eyes shifted from disbelief to certainty. Recognition had always been his weapon. He saw what others missed. This time, he saw me.
The knock on the door broke through my thoughts.
"Come in," I said, already bracing.
Ethan entered. He filled space the way he always had—without effort, without apology. The crisp lines of his shirt sleeves were rolled just enough to make him look disarmed, but nothing about him ever truly was.
"I reviewed your memo," he said, standing by the edge of my desk.
"You're right."
"I know."
Something passed between us—pause, breath, weight. He stayed silent for a moment too long.
"About yesterday—"
"No." I cut him off, sharper than I meant to. "If this isn't about work, don't continue."
His eyes narrowed slightly. I could see the flicker of irritation, quickly buried under control. "You used to lean forward when you worked," he said. "Like the rest of the world disappeared."
I closed the folder in front of me. "Why are you here, Ethan?"
He hesitated. The pause unsettled me more than anger ever could. Ethan Blackwood didn't hesitate.
"I can't stop thinking about your son," he said.
The words landed heavy, like a door slamming somewhere inside me.
"You don't get to," I said, my voice steady out of sheer will. "Not now. Not ever."
"I deserve the truth."
"No," I replied. "You deserve what you built. The consequences, not the closure."
Silence tightened the air. I could hear the distant hum of the city through the glass, the rhythm of my pulse in my throat.
"I didn't know how to stay back then," he said. "I thought building something permanent would make it worth it."
"It did," I said quietly. "Just not for me."
His jaw tensed. "You could've told me."
"I tried," I said. "You didn't listen. And I was done shrinking to fit into someone else's priorities."
The truth tasted sharp. I didn't want to say it, but some things refused to stay unspoken once they found a crack.
Ethan stepped closer. "You're still angry."
"I'm still standing," I said. "There's a difference."
For a moment, the room seemed to tilt, caught between past and present. He looked at me—not like a CEO, not even like a man seeking answers, but like someone trying to remember the version of himself who once knew what love cost.
I stepped back, needing space to breathe. "This conversation is over."
When I brushed past him, my arm grazed his. The contact was accidental and yet deliberate all the same. Heat sparked, immediate and unwanted.
Then my phone rang.
Mrs. Patel's name flashed across the screen. I answered before the second ring.
"Amelia," she said, voice strained, "Lucas fainted. He's awake now, but I'm taking him to the clinic."
My stomach dropped. "I'm on my way."
I grabbed my bag. Ethan's voice followed me. "What happened?"
"My son," I said. "He's unwell."
"I'll drive."
"No."
"This isn't about control," he said, eyes steady. "Let me help."
There was no time to argue. I nodded once.
The drive blurred. Rain streaked the windshield, a gray rhythm against glass. My hands wouldn't stop shaking.
Every intersection felt longer than it should have. Ethan didn't speak. He just drove, his focus sharp and absolute.
When we reached the clinic, I didn't wait for him. I was out of the car and through the door before it fully stopped.
Lucas sat on the examination table, pale but smiling. His legs swung, too tired to hold still. The doctor was calm. Dehydration, mild exhaustion. Nothing lasting. Everything fragile.
He looked up when he saw me. "I'm okay," he whispered.
My knees almost gave.
I smoothed his hair back, my voice soft. "You scared me."
"Sorry."
He didn't mean the apology. He didn't need to.
Ethan waited in the hall. When I came out, he straightened. "He's alright?"
"He will be."
He nodded, relief tightening and then softening his shoulders. "You should stay in Toronto. With him."
"No."
"He needs consistency."
"So do I," I said. "And I won't mistake proximity for stability again."
His phone buzzed. He frowned, reading the screen.
"What is it?" I asked.
He hesitated. "Legal found something. An amendment to the Kingston acquisition."
I blinked. "What amendment?"
"Eight years old," he said slowly. "Filed under your name."
"That's not possible. I wasn't even part of the project then."
He held my gaze. "It changes the entire ownership structure. And it ties you to the contract in ways that shouldn't exist."
Cold slipped down my spine. "Show me."
He handed me the tablet. My name was there, sharp and undeniable at the bottom of the page. The date was impossible. The signature was mine.
I stared at it until the letters blurred. "This can't be real."
"Someone wanted it to be," he said.
The words hit like a second fall.
Eight years. The same stretch of time since I left him. Since I rebuilt my life.
I looked up, my voice thin. "What are you saying?"
"I don't know yet," Ethan said. "But whatever this is, it started long before either of us noticed."
Outside, rain began again—softer now, almost like a whisper against the windows.
I looked down at the screen, my own name looking back at me from a time I couldn't remember.
If he was right, then the past hadn't just returned. It had been waiting underneath everything, reshaping what came next before I even knew there was a choice to make.
And as I stood there, my reflection faint in the glass, one thought refused to leave me:
Maybe I hadn't escaped him at all.
Maybe I'd only been circling back to the beginning—one contract, one secret, one signature at a time.