He didn't know why he was following her.
It was instinct pure, magnetic instinct. A flicker of a shadow. A silhouette that brushed something raw inside him. That scent again, warm and haunting. Like home. Like loss.
He turned down the corridor where she'd disappeared, the gallery growing quiet behind him, footsteps muffled by plush carpets and low lighting.
And then,nothing.
Just silence. A row of paintings. A flickering bulb overhead. An emergency exit sign casting faint red light across the marble walls.
She was gone.
He ran a hand through his hair, frustration bubbling beneath the surface. Was he imagining this? Was she even real?
His mind had been spiraling for weeks, caught between the club incident and the memory of lips he couldn't forget. Maybe he'd finally cracked.
"Eliana," he murmured to the air.
No answer.
No face.
Just that unshakable feeling in his chest,that she was here. Somewhere.
Watching him.
She pressed her back against the gallery wall, heart pounding against her ribcage.
He was here. She felt him move past,just inches away, his presence heavy, electric, burning through her like fire under the skin. She didn't look. She couldn't.
If she turned her head, if she saw him up close, she wouldn't survive it.
He asked for my name. I gave it to him. He left.
And now he was close again. Closer than he should be.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
This was a mistake. Coming here. Thinking she could handle it. Thinking she could see him without every wound splitting wide open.
She waited until his footsteps faded again, then slipped out the back exit, into the night air, shivering despite the heat of the city.
He stayed in the hallway a while longer, unsettled. Haunted.
Then someone tapped his shoulder. His agent.
"Media's asking for another photo, and the auction's starting soon."
He followed without complaint, but his heart wasn't in it.
All he could think about was a woman he might've imagined.
All he could feel was her absence—like a ghost pressing fingers to his chest.
She didn't go home.
She walked Milan's streets until dawn, each step unraveling the knot inside her chest. She hated how easily he could undo her—how a glance, a memory, a brush of air near her skin brought back everything she'd fought to bury.
He didn't remember your name.
So why had his body moved toward hers like gravity?
Why had his eyes searched the crowd like he'd lost something vital?
She didn't know what hurt more: that he forgot… or that maybe, just maybe, he hadn't.
That night, sleep never came.
He sat on the edge of his hotel bed, shirtless, restless, replaying the hallway again and again. The sound of her heels. The trace of her perfume.
Something lived in that moment.
A thread.
A warning.
A promise.
He opened his phone. Typed in the name,Eliana ,again, hoping something new might appear.
But the results were all wrong.
And yet… that name felt like it belonged to someone he'd once known, someone he'd been meant to find.
He gritted his teeth and set the phone aside.
He would find her.
He had to.