Maya didn't like the way Adrian looked at her.
It wasn't the starstruck awe she'd sometimes seen from strangers who remembered her as the prodigy girl who once played Chopin blindfolded on stage. Nor was it pity, the heavy, suffocating gaze she had grown used to since the accident.
No, Adrian's gaze was sharper. Cutting. As though he were peeling back her excuses, her defenses, and exposing the raw truth underneath.
And she hated it.
"Look," she said, adjusting the grocery bag in her arms. "I don't know what you think you saw that night, but I'm not—"
"A pianist?" Adrian finished for her, his mouth curling slightly.
Maya's jaw tightened. "Exactly. Not anymore."
"Then why do you still sit at the piano every night?" His voice was soft, but the question hit her like a blow.
She faltered, her lips parting before she could stop herself. "How—how do you know that?"
Adrian shrugged, calm as ever. "You're the kind of person who doesn't let go, no matter how loudly you claim to. I saw it in your hands. They're restless. Hungry. They don't know how to be still."
Maya swallowed hard, throat dry. His words cut too close, too easily.
"You're wrong," she muttered.
"Am I?" Adrian tilted his head, the rain-washed sunlight glinting off his dark hair. "Then prove it. Don't touch the piano for a week. A month. See how long before you break."
Maya's chest tightened. She hated how he could read her so effortlessly, as though he'd known her for years instead of two fleeting encounters.
She shifted the bag again, desperate to end the conversation. "I don't owe you anything. So stop following me."
Adrian's expression didn't change, but his next words froze her in place.
"I can help you, Maya."
Her name on his lips startled her. She hadn't told him. Not once.
Her heart raced. "How do you—"
"I know who you are," Adrian interrupted. "Maya Cole. Once called the 'future of the piano.' You vanished after the accident. Everyone thought you'd never play again." His gaze softened, almost imperceptibly. "But I don't believe that."
Maya's grip on the grocery bag trembled. Memories she had buried clawed their way up — the flashing headlights, the shattering glass, the ringing silence that followed. The doctors' grim faces. Her mother's disappointment.
And the unbearable, endless quiet.
"Don't," she whispered harshly, her voice breaking. "Don't talk like you understand me."
For the first time, Adrian's façade cracked. Pain flickered across his features, brief but undeniable. "You're right. I don't. But I know what it's like to lose the one thing that gave your life meaning. To wake up and find it gone."
Maya froze.
There it was again — that strange echo, as though their silences were intertwined.
Before she could respond, Adrian stepped closer, his tone firm but not unkind. "I'm not asking you to perform on stage. I'm asking you to let music exist again — in a way that only you can bring it back."
Maya's lips trembled. "Why me?"
Adrian hesitated. For a heartbeat, his eyes darkened, haunted. Then he masked it with calm certainty.
"Because I heard something in you I thought was lost forever. And I need it."
Maya's pulse quickened. She wanted to run, to put oceans between herself and this man who saw too much. But at the same time, a dangerous spark of curiosity burned inside her.
"What exactly are you asking?" she demanded.
Adrian's answer was simple. "Be my pianist."
The words knocked the air from her lungs. She nearly dropped the bag. "Excuse me?"
"I've been trying to finish a piece for years," he said, his gaze steady. "But I can't. Not alone. I need someone who plays with rawness, not perfection. Someone who reminds me what music feels like. That's you."
Maya laughed bitterly, the sound hollow. "You're insane. I can't even hear what I'm playing."
"Exactly," Adrian said, stepping closer. "You don't rely on sound. You rely on feeling. And that's what makes your music real."
Maya's heart thundered. Her mind screamed no. This was impossible, ridiculous.
And yet…
The last time she had touched the keys, she had felt something she couldn't explain. A flicker of the girl she used to be.
Her defenses crumbled for half a second. And Adrian saw it.
"Give me one month," he pressed gently. "One month to prove that you still have it. If, after that, you still want to walk away, I won't stop you."
Maya's hands tightened around the grocery bag. She felt cornered, trapped between fear and temptation.
"Why should I trust you?" she whispered.
Adrian's eyes darkened again, shadows flickering in their depths. "You shouldn't," he said honestly. "But sometimes the only way forward is to take the risk anyway."
Maya's chest ached. The rain had started again, soft droplets falling like whispers around them.
And against every ounce of reason, she heard herself say, "One month."
Adrian's lips curved, not quite a smile, but close. "Good."
As he turned to leave, slipping into the black car, Maya felt her stomach twist with dread.
Because for the first time since the accident, her silence didn't feel safe anymore.
It felt fragile. Breakable.
And she wasn't sure she wanted to stop it from shattering.
That night, Maya sat at the piano again, staring at the keys as though they were strangers. Her hands hovered, trembling. She hated that his words lingered in her mind.
Be my pianist.
She pressed a note. The vibration buzzed faintly through her fingertips. Then another. Then another.
Before she realized it, tears blurred her vision as her hands stumbled into a melody she hadn't touched in years.
And somewhere, in another part of the city, Adrian Vale sat at his desk, the beginnings of his long-lost composition taking shape at last.
Both of them unaware that their fragile bargain had just set into motion a truth neither was ready to face.