Cassie had always believed that time healed all wounds. But two months away from Grant, and her heart still beat traitorously at the thought of him.

Her mornings in New York started with peppermint tea and ended with deadlines and design meetings. She had been hired by a prestigious art gallery in SoHo. It was everything she had worked for; freedom, opportunity, her own name on the door. And yet, every brushstroke she painted in her mind still somehow curved toward his shadow.

She told herself it was just the memory of the whirlwind. The man who had shown her a world so fast, so intense, it left her breathless.

But she also remembered the silence. How quickly things had shifted when priorities changed.

How quickly he had changed.

Grant Kingston was a man who didn’t chase ghosts. That was his rule.

Until Cassie became one.

He buried himself in work after she left, telling his board it was for the upcoming merger. Telling Elle, his ever-watchful assistant, that her absence was irrelevant. But at night, when the penthouse felt like a mausoleum of moments, he knew better.

He watched the city from the glass walls of his office, as if expecting her to walk out of the shadows and forgive him for choosing business over their beginnings.

And now...she was back.

He heard it from Elle, who had been keeping tabs on Cassie’s gallery shows. "She’s in town again," she’d said, casually, like it didn’t make his stomach drop. "There’s a gallery fundraiser tonight. She’s speaking."

Grant didn’t ask for details.

He just showed up.

------–------------–-----------–----------–-------–

Cassie didn’t expect the air to be so thin when he walked into the room.

The gala had been going well; networking, small talk, even a few curious investors. But when she saw the tall figure in the midnight black suit standing near the sculpture in the center of the room, the rest of the world blurred.

He looked like he has been carved from purpose and regret. And when their eyes met across the clink of champagne glasses and murmurs of donors, the only thing she could do was breathe.

“Cassie.”

“Grant.”

His voice hadn’t changed. Deep, deliberate, still with that slightly amused edge like he saw more than he let on.

“You’re doing well,” he said after a pause, his eyes scanning the canvas behind her like it held answers. “I’ve been following your work.”

Cassie smiled tightly. “I’ve been… doing.”

“I should’ve...”

“Don’t,” she cut in, her tone firmer than she felt. “Don’t explain. We both made choices.”

There it was; the wall. But he had always been good at tearing those down.

“I never stopped thinking about you,” Grant said quietly. “I tried. God, I tried.”

Cassie swallowed. The worst part of heartbreak wasn’t the leaving. It was the way memories clung to the edges of silence.

“I came here to build something for myself,” she replied. “I’m not here to revisit the past.”

Grant stepped closer, just enough for her to catch the scent of his cologne. The same one she once teased him about; clean, expensive, dangerous.

“What if it’s not the past I want?”

------–---------------–--------------–-----------–-

Later that night, Cassie sat on her fire escape, legs tucked beneath her, phone buzzing with missed calls she didn’t return.

From Grant.

From Elle.

From her father, who had started calling more frequently since her mother’s health declined again.

The world was pressing in from all angles.

And yet, in the quiet lullaby between city sirens and the whisper of wind through the alley, she heard her heart ask the question she wasn’t ready to answer.

'What if you’re still in love with him?'

---–--------------–-------------–----------------–-

Grant on the otherside sat in the back of his car, jaw clenched, phone silent.

Elle looked at him from the passenger seat, expression unreadable.

“She still loves you,” she said softly.

He didn’t respond.

“She just doesn’t trust that you love her more than your world.”

That was the truth that burned.

And as the car disappeared into the night, Grant knew he had two choices: go back to the empire that never loved him or... fight for the girl who did.