Chapter One Hundred Six: The Dream That Felt Like Home
She didn't remember the walk back to the chalet.
Didn't remember Stefan's concerned questions, or the way she'd brushed past him without a word. Didn't remember climbing the stairs, locking her door, or standing in the shower until the hot water ran cold.
She only remembered the feeling of his hands on her bare foot. The impossible warmth of his palms against her frozen skin. The way he'd knelt in the snow like a supplicant before a queen, looking up at her with those devastating eyes that held eight months of grief and a lifetime of love.
I'm nothing but a man yearning for his wife.
The words echoed in the hollow space where her memories should have been.
She crawled into bed still damp, still shaking, her hair wet against the pillow. The luxury of the chalet—the soft sheets, the down duvet, the heated mattress—meant nothing. She was cold to her bones, and no amount of Swiss engineering could warm her.
I'll spend the rest of my life making you fall in love with me again.
Sleep came not as a surrender but as a drowning. The darkness pulled her under, and in that darkness, the dream began.
---
She was in a bed.
Not this bed—not the cold, elegant one in the chalet. A different bed. Larger. Softer. Surrounded by windows that looked out on a city of lights, glittering like scattered diamonds far below.
She was warm. So warm. Wrapped in sheets that smelled of him—that clean, sharp scent she couldn't name but somehow recognized with every fiber of her being.
And he was there.
All over her.
His body curved around hers from behind, one arm draped heavy over her waist, his breath warm against the back of her neck. His lips moved against her skin—not urgent, not demanding, but reverent. Worshipful. As if she were something sacred and he'd been granted the miracle of touching her.
"Rowan," she heard herself whisper, the name rising from somewhere deeper than conscious thought.
His arms tightened around her. His mouth found the curve of her shoulder, pressing a kiss there that seemed to last forever.
"I'm here, little star. I'm always here."
Little star.
The name sent a cascade of warmth through her chest, a sensation so powerful it felt like remembering something she'd never known she'd forgotten.
She turned in his arms, facing him at last. His face was blurry—the way faces always are in dreams—but his eyes... his eyes were clear. Golden-flecked and intense, the same eyes that had looked up at her from the snow just hours ago.
The same eyes.
Noah.
Rowan.
Were they the same man?
His hand came up, tracing the line of her jaw with a tenderness that made her heart clench. His fingers drifted lower, following the curve of her neck, pausing at the small mole just below her ear.
"I love this one," he murmured, his thumb brushing over it. "Right here. I've kissed it a thousand times."
She felt it. Actually felt the ghost of those kisses, a phantom sensation that made her shiver.
His hand continued its journey, trailing down her collarbone, finding another mole—smaller, fainter—nestled in the hollow at its base.
"And this one. You used to be shy about it. Thought it was ugly." He pressed his lips there, soft and lingering. "I spent hours convincing you otherwise."
Hours. Years. A lifetime of worship condensed into a single dream.
His hand drifted lower, following the path between her breasts, and she felt her body respond—not with the shyness of a stranger, but with the ease of familiarity. As if this touch had been hers a thousand times before.
He found another mole. Just above the swell of her stomach.
A stomach that was round. Full. Pregnant.
She looked down at herself in the dream, and yes—there it was. The beautiful, impossible curve of new life. Her hand joined his, both of them resting on the swell, and she felt something move beneath their palms. A flutter. A kick. A tiny life saying hello.
"Our little star," he whispered against her skin. "Growing right here. Right where you're meant to be."
Tears slipped from her eyes—in the dream, or in the bed, she couldn't tell anymore.
"Why are you worshipping me like this?" she heard herself ask. Her voice was small, wondering, filled with the same confusion that haunted her waking hours.
He pulled back just enough to look at her, and even through the blur of dream-face, she could see the answer blazing in his eyes.
"Because you're my flower." His hand cupped her face with devastating gentleness. "My fragile, beautiful, delicate flower. The only thing in this world that ever made me want to be soft. The only thing that ever made me believe I could be good."
Flower.
He called her his flower.
"I love you, Aira." The words were a vow, a prayer, a promise carved into the fabric of the universe. "I loved you the moment you fell in the courtyard and looked at me like I was worth seeing. I loved you through every mistake, every cruelty, every moment I pushed you away because I was too broken to know what to do with you."
His forehead pressed against hers.
"I love you now. I'll love you forever. Even if you never remember. Even if you spend the rest of your life looking at me like a stranger. I'll still love you. I'll still be here. Waiting. Always waiting."
The kiss that followed was everything—gentle and desperate, tender and consuming, a homecoming and a goodbye all at once
And then—
She woke.
---
Her eyes flew open.
The chalet ceiling. Gray morning light through the curtains. The cold space beside her in the bed.
She was gasping, her hand pressed to her chest, her heart slamming against her ribs. Her skin tingled where his dream-lips had touched her—her neck, her collarbone, the space between her breasts. She could still feel the phantom weight of his hand on her stomach, still feel the flutter of life beneath their palms.
Our little star.
She sat up slowly, her body trembling, her mind reeling.
The moles.
She knew about those moles—had known them her whole remembered life. The one below her ear, the one at the hollow of her collarbone, the one between her breasts. She'd never thought much of them, never considered them beautiful. Just small marks on a body that felt like it belonged to someone else.
But in the dream, he'd called them beautiful. He'd kissed them like they were sacred. He'd known about them—known exactly where they were, known her shame about them, known how to love them into acceptance.
How could a stranger know that?
How could a man she'd met weeks ago know the placement of moles she'd had since birth?
And her stomach.
In the dream, it had been round with pregnancy. Swollen with life. And there had been a mole there too—just above her navel, small and brown, exactly where she had one in real life.
She lifted her shirt now, staring at her flat stomach, at that tiny mark. Her fingers traced it, remembering the weight of his hand, the warmth of his palm, the impossible reality of a child that apparently never existed.
He said they took our child.
The words surfaced from the chaos of yesterday, cutting through the confusion with brutal clarity.
They took our child from you. They made you forget.
She pressed her hand to her stomach, and for one dizzying moment, she could almost feel it—the roundness, the weight, the flutter of life. A ghost of a memory, or just her desperate imagination reaching for something solid in the quicksand of her mind.
And the names.
Little star.
My flower.
In the dream, he'd called her those names. Over and over, woven into every touch, every kiss, every whispered vow. They weren't random endearments—they were specific, personal, as unique as the moles he'd kissed.
She had dreamed of nicknames.
Nicknames only a husband would know.
She stumbled out of bed, her legs weak, her head spinning. The bathroom mirror reflected a stranger—pale, wide-eyed, haunted. She traced the mole below her ear, the one at her collarbone. Her fingers lingered on each spot, remembering the ghost of his lips.
Rowan.
The name echoed in her mind, a bell that wouldn't stop ringing.
Was it true?
Was any of it true?
She gripped the edge of the sink, staring at her reflection, and for the first time since waking in that clinic eight months ago, she allowed herself to ask the question she'd been trained not to think:
What if Julian is lying?
What if my father is lying?
What if the man in the snow—Noah, Rowan, whoever he is—is telling the truth?
The question was a door cracking open in a room that had been sealed for months. Beyond it lay chaos. Pain. The possibility of a loss so profound she couldn't even comprehend it.
But beyond it also lay him.
His hands warming her frozen feet. His voice, rough with unshed tears, telling her he'd wait forever. His eyes, looking at her like she was the only light in a dead universe.
And the dream—the dream that felt more real than any memory she actually possessed. The dream where he worshipped her body, named her moles, called her his flower, and loved her with a devotion so absolute it transcended death and forgetting.
She pressed her forehead to the cold mirror and wept.
Not from sadness.
From the terrifying, exhilarating possibility that somewhere beneath the lies, beneath the forgetting, beneath the carefully constructed prison of her second life—the truth was waiting.
And his name was Rowan.
---
She didn't go to the bench that day.
Or the next.
But she thought about him constantly. Every time she touched her neck, she felt the ghost of his lips. Every time she looked at her reflection, she traced the moles and wondered. Every time Julian reached for her hand, she pulled away without meaning to, her skin crawling at the wrongness of his touch.
On the third day, she woke from another dream—this one of dancing. Him spinning her through a room full of lights, his hand on her back, his eyes never leaving hers. The music was soft, the movement effortless, and when he leaned down to whisper in her ear, she heard the words as clearly as if he were beside her:
You hunt me, Aira. You have from the beginning.
She sat up in bed, gasping, the words echoing in the empty room.
You hunt me.
What kind of thing did you say to a stranger?