Chapter 10: The Past, Uninvited
The doorman looked uneasy as he handed Ella the note.
"He didn't want to come up," he said, like it mattered. "Said you'd know who it was from."
Ella turned the paper over. Her name — handwritten. Slanted. Familiar.
Her chest tightened.
She hadn't seen that handwriting in over two years.
---
She sat down on the velvet settee in the hallway, envelope trembling between her fingers.
The seal was cheap. Paper thin.
Unlike everything else in her life now.
But the moment she slid it open, the old world swallowed her.
> Ella,
I know you probably hate me. But I need five minutes. Please. I'm in the café across the street. I won't stay longer than you want me to.
— Noah.
She stared at the name until her eyes blurred.
Noah.
The boy with the broken smile and the promises he never kept. The man who left when her life collapsed under hospital bills and hopelessness.
She had buried that chapter.
Burned it.
But somehow, it had clawed its way back.
---
Ella didn't tell Ava.
Didn't tell Xavier.
She just slipped out the side entrance, coat wrapped tight, hair tucked behind her ears like it might shield her from recognition.
She crossed the street.
The café was almost empty.
Noah sat by the window, same crooked posture, same storm-colored eyes.
Only now he looked older.
Thinner.
Like regret had finally found a home in his body.
He stood when he saw her.
"Hey."
Ella remained still. "Five minutes."
He nodded.
They sat.
---
"I didn't know you'd—" he began.
"Be married to a billionaire?" she interrupted, voice low. "Me neither."
He gave a half-smile. "I didn't come to judge."
"No," she said coldly. "You came because you saw the wedding photo in the news and remembered my name."
He winced. "It wasn't like that."
She said nothing.
Because it was like that.
Of course it was.
"You look good," he added. "Different."
"I am."
He nodded again, swallowing hard. "I messed up."
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry."
Ella's jaw tightened. "Is that why you came? For closure?"
"No," he said, eyes desperate now. "I came because I didn't know how to leave things the way we left them. You were… everything. And I got scared."
Her throat closed.
"Scared of what?" she whispered. "Of a girl who was drowning and still trying to save herself?"
He looked down.
"I didn't know how to help."
"You didn't have to help," she snapped, louder than she meant to. "You just had to stay."
---
They sat in silence.
Old pain. Bitter memories. Words too late to fix anything.
"I'm not asking for another chance," Noah said finally. "I just… I wanted you to know that I never stopped thinking about you. Even when I didn't deserve to."
Ella stood.
"That's the one thing we agree on."
She left before he could say anything else.
And didn't look back.
---
She returned to the penthouse barely twenty minutes later.
Xavier was in the living room, blazer tossed over a chair, shirt sleeves rolled up as he scrolled through something on his tablet.
He looked up the second she stepped in.
"You went out?"
"I needed air."
He stood slowly, eyes narrowing slightly. "You look like you saw a ghost."
Ella tried to steady her voice. "No. Just someone I thought I buried."
He studied her carefully.
"Who was it?"
She hesitated.
"An old mistake."
Xavier's jaw tensed.
"Did he follow you?"
"No."
"Touch you?"
The edge in his voice surprised her.
"No," she repeated. "He just… talked."
Xavier didn't move.
But something about the air in the room changed.
"You're shaking," he said quietly.
She hadn't noticed.
Ella looked down at her hands.
Sure enough — they trembled.
Just enough to give her away.
Without thinking, Xavier stepped forward and reached for her.
Not to pull her in.
Just… to offer.
And Ella, caught between the weight of the past and the confusion of the present, stepped into his arms.
She felt him exhale, slow and deep, as his arms folded around her.
Firm.
Grounding.
And not at all romantic.
Not yet.
But real.
God, it felt real.
---
They didn't speak for a while.
He held her until her breathing leveled.
Then, quietly, he said, "Tell me if he shows up again."
She nodded into his chest.
"I will."
---
That night, they didn't go to separate bedrooms.
Xavier didn't touch her.
But he didn't leave her alone either.
He sat on the couch outside her door, reading by the soft glow of a floor lamp.
Ella cracked her bedroom door open at 1 a.m. and saw him still there — one leg stretched out, coat draped over his shoulder, eyes moving over the pages of a book she didn't recognize.
"You don't have to stay," she said.
"I know."
He didn't move.
And she didn't ask again.
---
In the morning, he was gone.
But the book was still on the side table.
Inside was a note — handwritten again, just like before.
> If he ever comes near you again, I won't be as calm. — X.
Ella stared at it for a long time.
It wasn't sweet.
It wasn't poetic.
But it was the first time he wrote like she was his.
And that… shook something loose inside her chest.
Something dangerous.
Something hopeful.