It sat on the table for hours.
The sketchbook.
Unopened. Heavy with memory.
Returned like a ghost in a box.
Ana didn't touch it until the city went dark.
Until Christian was in the shower and she was alone with her breath.
She flipped past pages slowly.
Old drawings of fabrics.
Tattoo designs.
Leo's hand occasionally sketched into corners—his notes, his ideas, his jokes in the margins.
But halfway through—
She froze.
Because there it was.
A portrait.
Of her.
Drawn from memory.
Unfinished…
But achingly real.
Eyes half-sketched, lips slightly parted, the shape of her face haunting in its incompleteness.
And scrawled underneath in faint pencil:
"She was always someone I could draw but never keep."
– L.
Ana's fingers trembled.
She hadn't known he'd kept this. Hadn't known he'd drawn her like that.
Like he still didn't know how to let go.
🚿 After the Steam
Christian stepped out of the bathroom, towel around his neck, hair damp.
He saw her with the sketchbook open.
The look on her face.
He crossed the room slowly. "What is it?"
Wordlessly, she turned the book around.
Let him see.
He stared at it for a long time.
No reaction.
No anger.
No jealousy.
Just a pause.
And then—
"He loved you," Christian said finally.
Ana nodded once. "He did."
"And you?"
"I loved him too," she whispered.
Past tense.
Christian sat beside her.
Didn't ask for explanations.
Didn't accuse.
He just said the one thing she needed most.
"I'm not here to compete with your past.
I'm here to build something better than it."
Ana blinked at him.
He traced the edge of the sketch with one finger — then closed the book gently.
And pulled her into his chest.
Not because he needed to claim her.
But because he wanted to be chosen.
And she did.
📓 Ana's Journal Entry #9
I thought the sketch would ruin everything.
That he'd see the way Leo once loved me
—
see me frozen in someone else's memory
—
and walk away.
But Christian didn't flinch.
He looked at it the way a man looks at something he knows he can never erase—
And chooses to love anyway.
There was no yelling.
No accusations.
No "why didn't you tell me?"
Just a quiet truth:
"I'm not here to compete with your past. I'm here to build something better than it."
And maybe that's what real love looks like.
Not grand gestures.
But someone who doesn't need to be your only love story—
Just your last.
Leo captured a version of me with his pencil.
Christian holds the version I've become with his hands.
One saw me as a muse.
The other sees me as real.
And the truth is…
I'm finally choosing someone who sees the whole sketch—
And stays through the unfinished parts.
She closed the journal, breathing easier.
For the first time…
Her past didn't feel like a threat.
It felt like proof she survived long enough to be loved better.
🔁 Scene Shift – That Night, Alone in the Guest Room
The lights were low.
Ana had fallen asleep on the couch after they curled up together, her hand still loosely tucked into his.
Christian didn't move for a long time.
Just watched her breathe — chest rising and falling in soft, steady waves.
Then, without waking her, he gently untangled himself, stood, and walked toward the guest room.
He didn't turn on the overhead light.
Just the warm, amber glow of a desk lamp.
The silence stretched.
And for the first time in weeks—
He didn't feel like a CEO.
He felt like a man trying to understand love in a language he was never taught.
He opened a notebook Ana had left on the shelf.
Blank pages. Untouched.
And without thinking…
He picked up a pen.
📓 Christian's Journal Entry #1
She didn't yell.
She didn't cry.
Didn't accuse.
Didn't tell me how I failed.
She just looked at me like she knew.
Like she saw the way I panic when love feels close.
Like she heard the part of me I never say out loud:
"If I don't control it, I'll lose it."
I've built everything by keeping emotions out of the equation.
Boardrooms. Acquisitions. Contracts.
Even marriage.
But Ana… she doesn't fit into systems.
She exists outside logic.
She walks into a room and the rules change.
And for the first time, I don't want to fight it.
I want to learn it.
When she showed me that sketch of her — drawn by someone who loved her before me — it hit something I didn't know I still had:
Jealousy.
Fear.
Insecurity.
But mostly…
The ache of being the second man to touch something someone else saw first.
And yet—
I didn't walk away.
I sat beside her. I listened. I stayed.
Because her past didn't scare me more than the idea of not having a future with her.
I'm not writing this because I know what I'm doing.
I'm writing it because for the first time—
I want to be better.
Not richer. Not stronger. Just… better.
For her.
For us.
For the version of myself I've never met until now.
He closed the notebook.
No signature.
Just a quiet man learning how to love out loud.
One word at a time.
To be continued…