Eve stood frozen on the terrace, her body trembling, hands clamped over her mouth as she fought to suppress the sobs rising in her throat.
The cold wind whipped through her hair, but the chill was nothing compared to the storm raging inside her.
Every piece of truth Nathan had thrown at her was tearing through her very soul. Her chest tightened, and she felt the familiar constriction of a panic attack building—her breaths shallow. Every breath felt like a battle she was losing.
The night sky, vast and indifferent, loomed above her. She thought she might faint. Or die. Perhaps that would be a good escape from her reality.
Her father—Richard Windsor. The man behind Windsor Enterprises, a giant of an empire built on ruthless ambition and innocent blood. Was this how he had constructed his fortune? Not through hard work, but by trading lives, manipulating everyone around him, even his own daughter? The man who had sold her—sold her—to Nathan to cover up his sins.
My father is a murderer. The words repeated in her head, over and over again, until they became an unbearable chant. The world around her started to blur.
She couldn't breathe, she couldn't think. Her lungs begged for air, but she was suffocating under the weight of betrayal.
And Nathan… how she had surrendered three years of her life to him. She had loved him in the beginning— despite the walls he had built around himself. She had tried, over and over, to be the wife he needed, the woman he could love. And all the while, he had used her. She was nothing but a pawn, a tool to him, a convenient shield for his business dealings.
Tears streamed down her face, but they weren't enough to ease the searing pain in her heart. It was too much. Too much to process.
Eve wanted to scream, but no sound would come. She wanted to run, but her legs refused to move.
Suddenly, a voice broke through the heavy fog clouding her mind.
"Beautiful night, isn't it?" The voice was deep, steady, and unfamiliar.
Eve blinked, startled, her tear-filled eyes snapping toward the sound. There, standing a few feet away from her, was Vincent Marotti. His gaze lifted to the sky, a serene smile tugging at his lips as if the entire universe hadn't just crumbled around her.
He took a step closer, his hands casually in his pockets, and tilted his head as he looked at the stars. "Do you have a favorite star?"
Eve furrowed her brow, confused by the question. It seemed so out of place in her current state.
Her mouth opened, but no words came out. She was too stunned, too caught off guard by his sudden presence. Her heart was still racing, her mind a tangled mess. He wasn't supposed to be here.
Her hands still trembled, and she tried to wipe away the tears clinging to her lashes. Her voice was weak, barely above a whisper. "I… I've never really thought about it."
Vincent leaned against the railing, keeping his distance but positioning himself as if this were just a casual conversation between two strangers on a quiet night. "It's interesting, isn't it? How they shine so brightly, far away. Like they're untouchable. I suppose we all want to be like that at some point. Out of reach. Free from… everything."
His words floated between them, laced with an undertone that resonated with Eve's turmoil. He spoke as if he knew. But how could he? He didn't know her. He couldn't possibly understand what she was going through.
Her fingers were white-knuckled, gripping the cold iron railings as if she needed the cold metal under her fingers to ground her. "I don't know about being free," she muttered, her voice barely holding steady. "It seems impossible when you're trapped."
His dark eyes scanned her tear-streaked face. "Trapped?" he echoed, his tone curious but not prying. "Isn't everything just temporary though? Even the worst prisons, eventually… you find a way out."
Eve swallowed hard, her throat burning from the earlier cry. She wasn't sure if she wanted to engage with this stranger or if she wanted to scream at him for daring to speak when her world had just shattered. But the way he said it, the calm certainty in his voice, it made her pause.
"I don't know if I believe that anymore," she admitted, her voice shaky but honest. "Sometimes it feels like… like there's no way out."
Vincent tilted his head slightly, his gaze sharp. "There's always a way out. Sometimes it's just not the one we imagined."
Eve turned away from him, looking back at the dark expanse of the night sky. Her tears had stopped, but the weight in her chest remained. "It's easier to say when you're not the one living it," she whispered, almost to herself.
Vincent straightened. He was far enough not to impose, but his words carried some familiarity she wasn't expecting. "Maybe. Or maybe we all have different cages." His voice softened, though it still carried that hint of something darker beneath. "But pretending they don't exist, that's when they tighten around us. Sometimes… facing them head-on is the only way."
Eve's hands were trembling again, her grip tightening around the railings so hard she thought they might break. She didn't want to talk about this. Not with him. Not with a stranger who could so casually strip away her defenses with a few well-placed words.
Eve forced herself to speak, her voice strained but determined. "And what about you? What are you running from?" Her gaze finally shifted to meet his, and for the first time, she really looked at him. His dark eyes bore into hers, and there was something there—something familiar yet unsettling in a way she couldn't explain.
His gaze wasn't like the others. No, his eyes seemed to strip away the mask she wore, seeing beyond her facade. It was as if he could see her soul—every bruise, every scar, every shadow that she kept hidden from the world. She felt exposed, vulnerable, as though he had reached deep inside her and touched the parts of her she had long since buried.
Eve felt a rush of heat rise to her cheeks, her heartbeat quickening. She broke the eye contact abruptly. How could a stranger make her feel so bare, so utterly seen?
"I should go," she said, her voice barely audible as she began to step away.
But Vincent had already noticed, her every movement, every flicker of emotion that crossed her face. He felt something, too—something raw.
His voice stopped her, calm but firm. "Sometimes, running just brings you back to the same place, Eve."
Her head whipped around at the sound of her name. She hadn't told him her name. But there he stood, watching her with that same familiar expression, as if he had known all along.
Eve couldn't figure him out—this stranger who had entered her life at the worst possible moment, speaking words that hit too close to home.
And as she turned to leave, she realized she wasn't sure if she was running from Vincent, Nathan, or from herself.