Dr. Zeller was a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, his expression solemn as he checked Hazel's pulse. Concentration tightened his features, his movements deliberate. After a moment, he exhaled faintly and released her wrist, his gaze drifting briefly to the incense burner set on a nearby table. The scent rising from it had been of his own preparation, the reason Hazel's sleep had been so deep.

Your body shows no major issues, he said, treading carefully, though theres clear deficiency in both heart and spleen. Emotionally some anxiety, restlessness perhaps.

Zeller weighed his words, acutely aware of Mr. Jennings' unrelenting gaze fixed on the prone figure in the bed. His usual air of severity softened perceptibly when directed at her, a gentleness rare enough to make Zeller glance twiceonly to be met with a warning glare swift enough to curdle his curiosity into regret.

By the time Zeller was gathering his things to leave, he paused at the door and added, almost as an afterthought, Be careful not to use the incense too often

Gabriel, who had made a habit of brushing off Zellers recommendations, acted on this one instantly, snuffing the burner on the spot. Hazel had fallen too quickly, too completely, under its influencea borderline clinical response Zeller found fascinating. For Gabriel, whose insomnia was famously unyielding even to the heaviest doses, the incense was practically worthless. For Hazel, it worked like a deep resting spell.

It was the first time Zeller had ever seen Gabriel so ready to cooperate, so exquisitely attuned. It left a strange itch in the doctors mind. He was not a man prone to gossip, but the quiet mystery of this womans origins gnawed at him unexpectedly as he exited the hotel suite.

Walking to his car, Zeller contemplated something he never wouldve dared say aloud: could this be the person to finally get through to Mr. Jennings, his most stubborn patient? Time might tell.

Back in the suite, Gabriel let himself exhale for the first time since Zellers arrival. Hazels health was confirmed stable. Relief washed over him, though not completely; he remained tethered to vigilance. He resumed watching the security footage from the previous night, following every shadow, every angle, every frame, as though certainty dangled somewhere within them.

Not a second skipped. No doors opened. No cleaners entered. Nothingnothing at allsuggested interference. And yet, his inner alarms refused to still.

Hazels return was too surreal to trust outright. Gabriels pulse whispered it could all be a ruse, a game as treacherous as the others before it. Over the years, more than a few had tried to play him, sending women chosen meticulously to resemble her. Time after time, they stoked his hope before shattering it. Each deception had been dealt with severely. Word had spread: Jennings men were not to be trifled withnot by imitations, not by illusions. Yet still, it itched, the thought that someone could be audacious enough to play at this again.

He knelt beside the bed, taking her hand in his. Her skin was warm, the texture unchanged from memory. Carefully, reverently, he pulled her fingers to his cheek, his gaze swallowing every feature of her face. Familiar, haunted, achingly longed for. For so many years, she had existed only in unreachable fragments. Now, she seemed perfectly, impossibly whole.

If this was an elaborate con? So be it. He would let himself be the fool, just this once. He needed it to be true. He needed his Hazel back.

*****

Hazel woke slowly, heaviness lingering over her consciousness. The unfamiliar warmth beside her led her gaze to Gabriels slumped figure, his arms wrapped protectively around her even in sleep, dark crescents shadowing his eyes. She lay there silently, watching him, guilt lodging itself deep within her chest as memories rushed back. Could she even begin to imagine what hewhat they allhad endured over the fifteen years of her absence?

Haz, good morning.

Gabriels voice held a bare quake as he woke, his eyes darting first to her in panic before softening in palpable relief when he found her still there. His smilea rare, faint thingtugged at her heart. The Gabriel she remembered had always been quick to laughter, so full of life it was contagious. This shadowed man before her, cautious and wounded, broke something inside her.

She pulled herself up slowly, flashes from the previous day returning to her too quickly for comfortGabriels cryptic confession about tensions with the children. "Children," he had said. Plural. Did that mean Caro and Victor, too, were estranged from their fathernot just their eldest, Andrew?

Hazel said nothing about it now. The time wasnt right. She resolved to see the children first, face-to-face, before asking for the stories behind these fractured bonds.

After a light breakfast, the two of them boarded the plane that would take them home. Gabriel, despite sensing Hazels troubled thoughts, kept his silence. The truth was, the rift between himself and the children wasnt the only one that haunted their family. Tensions among the siblings themselves ran equally deep, leaving him dreading what Hazel might soon uncover.

*****

During the crash, Andrew had been six years old. The twins, merely two. Hazels heart twisted as the plane ascended. All three of them had grown up without her. How could she explain everything now? Would they even believe her, or would this miraculous return feel like another unexplained absence waiting to happen? She had toyed with the idea of calling Andrew in advance but dismissed it in the endwhat could she say that wouldnt sound absurd or contrived?

And as Hazels heart ached, thousands of miles away, the subject of her torment, Brindlefords Andrew Jennings, was in a state of anger bordering on outrage.

The first thing Andrew noticed upon returning to the family villa was the roses blooming anew in the garden. Damascus roses. His mothers favoritea detail seared into memory. And now, they had been planted again, deliberately, mocking him.

How far was this new woman going to go? Recreate their mothers entire world?

Since their mothers death, the house had remained untouched for fifteen years by their fathers orders. The furniture, the placement of objectseverything preserved like a delicate museum. Yet now, the house had been gutted with audacity. New furnishings, new carpets, even a refinished stairwell. As if someone had brushed out every cherished thread of their mothers presence.

Andrews smoldering fury boiled over. Stop it! Leave everything as it was!

The staff, busy replacing curtains, froze in place. Their gaze turned collectively to the butler, silently pleading him to intervene.

Its the masters instructions, young master, the butler explained, his voice trembling faintly under Andrew's razor-wire glare.

And just what, exactly, were his instructions? Andrews voice iced the room.

Full deep clean of the villa, sir, the butler stammered. The garden replanted with his wifes roses. The third-floor master bedroom prepared for The sentence faltered as Andrew's storm-dark expression robbed him of courage.

Andrew stood seething. Everyone knew the unspoken rule of the house. The third-floor bedroom was sanctified, their mothers space, untouched but for Gabriel himself, who cleaned it with his own hands year after year. Now, strangers had tampered with it?

The butler had assumed Andrew would let it pass. He had not accounted for the eldest Jennings heirs capacity for war when it came to his mothers memory.

Did I stutter? No one touches this housedo you hear me? NO ONE!

Andrews rage trembled the very air. If his father had chosen to move on, that was his decision. But to erase every trace of a life once lived? To let another woman masquerade as the thrones former queen? Insufferable.

No one moved. No one dared. The butler stood, sweat forming like a dew of bad omens.

When the sound of tires crunching gravel resonated from outside, the butler's knees nearly buckled.

The master of the house had returned.

Gabriel stepped out of the car first, his commanding figure cutting through the tension like a blade. But Andrews attention narrowed the moment Hazel appeared, stepping down gracefully in a flowing green dress. She seemed impossibly alive, impossibly there. And real.

The butler, who had only ever seen old photographs of the late Madame Jennings, stood frozen. His lips parted uselessly, and one thought resounded with confounding clarity: the masters grief must run deeper than anyone had imagined.

Sir, the young masterinsidehes

Hazel stepped forward, oblivious, her features catching the light in ways that magnified her resemblance to the woman long-absent from this house. But then excitement sparked in her eyes, breaking the illusion with a vitality uniquely hers.

Andys home?! she exclaimed, her voice a sudden warmth cutting through the butler's haze. Without a second thought, she released Gabriels arm and brushed past them both, heading straight for the front doors.

Gabriel stood momentarily stunned, then followed her in, his expression darkening to a thundercloud.

The butler whispered faintly to himself: "This is not going to end well"