He couldn't stop thinking about her.
It was maddening.
Every face blurred into one. Every woman who walked past him was almost her. Same hair. Same height. Same eyes,until they weren't. Until the memory failed him again, slipping through his fingers like smoke.
Sleep came in shallow bursts now, and even then, it wasn't peace. His dreams were soaked with the echo of her voice.
"You're safe. Just stay with me. I won't let them find you."
She'd said it like a vow. Like she meant it.
But who the hell was she?
He only know her name. Not a single thread to pull,just a body that had clung to his, a soul he'd almost known in the dark.
He pressed his fingers to his temple. The bruises were fading. The scandal hadn't.
His name still ran wild on the tabloids. Speculations twisted by the hour. No footage. No evidence of what happened inside the club. No explanation for the blood or the blackout.
No woman identified.
His lawyers were baffled. His manager was furious. The league had called in for a quiet meeting.
"Lay low," they said. "Be seen with someone clean. Smile. Distract them."
He couldn't.
How could he think about appearances when the real question kept slicing through him like glass?
Who the hell set him up?
And why couldn't he stop thinking about her?
Her hands shook as she lowered her brush.
The painting wasn't finished.
It never was anymore.
But the color on the canvas today… it bled deeper. Darker. A storm of bruised violets and cold reds.
She hadn't left the apartment in days. Not even when her aunt had stopped by and knocked, gently at first, then harder. She'd pretended to be asleep. Pretended not to exist.
The world outside was louder than ever. Kai's scandal wasn't fading like they all thought it would. New threads appeared every day. Conspiracies. Speculations. Whispers of deeper sabotage.
But her name never came up.
No one knew it was her.
And yet, that made it worse somehow. Like what happened didn't matter. Like she didn't matter.
He doesn't remember me.
The truth sat in her chest like a lead weight. Her body still remembered every touch, every sound of his voice. Her skin still warmed at the phantom feel of him. But he had walked away from her without a second glance.
And still,she couldn't let him go.
She'd watched the interviews. Seen the way his eyes looked past the camera. He looked exhausted. Not just physically, but lost.
Something had changed in him.
And she feared it was something her touch had caused.
It was her voice that haunted him.
Not her face. Not even her body.
But that voice,the way it wrapped around his pulse, calmed the chaos, promised safety like a whisper from the past.
He felt like he'd known it before.
But how?
He dug through his own memories like a man searching a burning house. Somewhere,long ago, maybe even in childhood,something pulled at the edge of his mind.
Had he met her before?
Or was he just losing it?
He stared at his phone, thumb hovering over a contact.
Not a friend.
A favor.
A discreet private investigator. The kind you didn't ask questions around.
He hated that it had come to this. But the official investigation was getting nowhere.
And he couldn't live like this anymore,trapped between not knowing who'd tried to destroy him and being haunted by the one person who'd saved him.
Find her.
That was the only instruction he gave.
He hit send.
Then sat back in the chair, heart racing.
If he found her…
What would he say?
That night, she dreamed of him again.
Not the man in the headlines.
But the boy from long ago.
The one she'd seen sitting alone near the edge of a broken fountain in Toronto, eyes too tired for a child. A boy who'd given her his name and nothing else. A boy she'd sworn to protect in secret.
"My name's Kai."
Even now, her heart ached remembering that day.
She'd only ever spoken to him once.
And now she'd slept with him,held him in her arms when someone tried to kill him.
Fate was cruel.
Crueler still, because her heart still believed they were meant to collide.
But love wasn't enough.
He didn't remember her.
And the world he lived in was full of teeth.
A pair of black gloves tapped against a screen.
A different video this time. Not of the hotel.
But of Eliana.
A zoomed shot from her studio window, grainy but clear enough.
Found her.
A voice crackled on the other end of the line.
"She's not who we thought."
"Does he know?"
A pause.
"No. Not yet. But if he does,he'll remember everything."
The gloved hand moved to the keyboard.
One file deleted.
Another uploaded.
"Time to rewrite the story."