Chapter 4

LUCIEN’S POV

I didn’t remember the drive back from the gallery. I remembered the rain, the way it clung to my suit like a punishment I couldn’t take off, the way Seraphina’s eyes didn’t soften even once while she spoke, and then the sound of the lock turning after she went inside, a small, final click that felt louder than anything she had said.

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Everything after that was motion without awareness, my driver opening the car door, the city sliding past the windows, the penthouse elevator rising in silence, and my body moving through rooms that looked exactly the same as they always had, expensive and controlled and immaculate, except now the space felt like an accusation.

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It wasn’t that I missed her in a sentimental way, not in the way men like me were taught to miss women, as if longing was a performance; it was that the absence sharpened into something physical, like the air had been scraped thinner and every breath required effort.

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Ethan was waiting in my office because Ethan always waited when something mattered, not with drama, not with confrontation, just with that steady stillness that made it impossible to pretend nothing was wrong.

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“Your assistant said you canceled everything,” he said, voice calm, but his eyes already scanning my face like he was taking inventory of the damage. “That only happens when you’re either bleeding or breaking.”

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“I’m fine,”

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I said automatically, because I had said those words my entire life whenever emotions tried to exist where they weren’t supposed to, and I moved past him toward the glass wall that overlooked Manhattan, the city glittering like a reward for discipline. The skyline had always steadied me. Tonight it didn’t. Tonight it looked indifferent.

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Ethan didn’t accept the lie. He stepped further into the room, closed the door behind him, and spoke again without raising his voice.

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“You saw her.”

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I didn’t answer because if I did, the truth would have to be spoken out loud, and the truth still felt too sharp to hold. I poured a glass of water instead of whiskey, not because I was being healthy but because I knew if I drank, I would lose control, and control was the only language I’d ever been fluent in.

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“She’s changed,” I said finally, staring at the water as if it could hide what my hands were doing, the faint tremor I couldn’t stop. “She’s… not the woman I left.”

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Ethan’s expression tightened in that quiet way it always did when something confirmed what he’d suspected for a long time. “Good,” he said. “She shouldn’t be.”

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The words hit harder than I expected, because they carried judgment without cruelty, and that was worse than anger. “She looked at me like I was nothing,” I said, my voice low. “Like I was a stranger who had wandered too close to her life.”

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Ethan’s gaze held mine. “Lucien, you were nothing to her when it mattered. You trained her to live without you.”

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I should have snapped back. I should have defended myself. Instead, I felt something inside my chest tighten and then split, because he wasn’t wrong, and the worst part was that I hadn’t understood the weight of what I’d done until I saw her standing in that gallery, radiant and untouchable, looking like a woman who had finally remembered her worth.

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Two years. Two years since the divorce papers. Two years since I had signed them, like I was initialing a contract, and told myself it was practical, efficient, and necessary. I hadn’t realized the day she left that she wasn’t just exiting my penthouse, she was exiting the version of me that could still pretend I was intact.

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“She told me everything,” I said, and my throat tightened around the words because hearing them in my head again made my stomach twist.

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“She told me what it was like. Living with me. Waiting for me. Being humiliated in my name while I stood there and did nothing.” I swallowed hard, staring past Ethan, past the city, past everything.

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“And the worst part is, I don’t even have excuses that sound convincing, because I wasn’t ignorant. I wasn’t unaware. I was just… absent by choice.”

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Ethan exhaled slowly, like he was containing his own frustration. “What are you going to do now?”

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I laughed once, sharp and humorless. “I don’t know.”

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“That’s not true,” he said. “You always know what you’re going to do. You just don’t always admit it.”

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I didn’t answer because the truth was already forming, heavy and undeniable, and I hated it for how desperate it felt. I wanted her back. Not as an idea. Not as a victory. I wanted her back in the way a man wants oxygen after he realizes he’s been suffocating for years and calling it strength. But wanting her back wasn’t the same as deserving her, and Seraphina had made that very clear with every cold, precise word.

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Ethan watched me for a long moment and then said, “Have you told Dr. Adler you went to see her?”

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The mention of Naomi Adler made my jaw tighten, because therapy was the one place my control didn’t automatically win, and I resented that truth even as I depended on it. “Not yet,” I admitted.

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Ethan’s voice stayed even. “Then you should.”

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I should have ignored him. I should have dismissed it as unnecessary. Instead, thirty minutes later, I was sitting in Naomi Adler’s office, the soft lighting and neutral décor designed to disarm defenses, and it worked, because in that space I always felt like a man without armor.

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Naomi regarded me with the same calm professionalism she always carried, composed and unreadable, and waited for me to speak first, the silence stretching until it forced honesty out of me whether I wanted it or not.

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“I saw her,” I said.

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Naomi didn’t react dramatically. She simply nodded, as if she’d known this day would come. “And what happened?”

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“She didn’t forgive me,” I said, and something bitter rose in my chest because part of me had wanted the impossible, a miracle, a rewrite. “She didn’t even pretend to.”

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Naomi’s eyes stayed steady. “Why would she?”

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The question should have irritated me. Instead, it made my stomach twist, because it was the truth laid bare. “She told me what my marriage felt like,” I said, my voice lower now, as if speaking softly could make it less real. “She said love without presence is cruelty.”

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Naomi’s expression softened slightly, not in pity, but in that clinical empathy that made her dangerous because it saw straight through my defenses. “And do you disagree?”

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“No,” I admitted. “I don’t.”

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Naomi leaned back slightly, hands folded. “Then tell me what you want now, Lucien, and don’t dress it up. Don’t intellectualize it. Don’t rationalize it. Say it.”

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My throat tightened. “I want her back,” I said finally, and the words felt both humiliating and inevitable. “I want another chance.”

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Naomi’s gaze didn’t waver. “Do you want her back, or do you want to undo the damage to your ego?”

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The question landed like a slap because it cut too close to the fear I didn’t want to name. I had spent my entire life believing control was safety, that if I could manage outcomes, I could avoid pain, and Seraphina was the one outcome I had failed to control.

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Losing her had been the first real proof that power couldn’t guarantee permanence, and that terrified me more than any hostile takeover ever could.

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“I don’t know,” I said, voice strained.

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Naomi nodded slowly. “Good. That’s honest. Now we work from there.”

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I left her office with no comfort and no clear path forward, just a heavier awareness of how dangerous this could become if I didn’t confront my patterns. But awareness didn’t soften the obsession; it sharpened it.

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On the way back to the penthouse, I kept seeing Seraphina’s face, the way she stood tall, the way she didn’t flinch, the way she told me without hesitation that she was done being my redemption story. It should have been a door closing. Instead, it became a challenge my mind couldn’t stop circling, not because

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I wanted to conquer her resistance, but because I couldn’t accept the idea that the best thing I’d ever had would remain forever out of reach because I’d been too emotionally incompetent to hold it when it was mine.

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The next morning, Ethan called me before I’d finished my coffee. “We have a problem,” he said, and his voice was clipped, business-first, the tone he used when the world demanded control.

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“The Hudson expansion. The board is pushing for an accelerated timeline. We need an art partnership for the launch, and the advisory committee already narrowed down the consultants.”

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I frowned, irritation sparking. “So?”

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Ethan paused, then said it anyway. “Seraphina is on the shortlist. Actually, she’s the favorite.”

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The room went very still, as if even the air had stopped moving. “Why?” I asked, though I already knew.

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“Because she’s good,” Ethan said simply. “Because she rebuilt her career and she’s respected in that world now. Because she’s exactly what the project needs.” His voice sharpened slightly. “And because, Lucien, the board has no idea what this would do to you.”

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I stared at the city beyond the windows, my reflection faint in the glass, and felt the shape of fate shifting into something darker, something sharp-edged and inevitable. Forced proximity. Business necessity. A reason that would sound clean and professional to everyone else, even if I knew the truth underneath it.

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Naomi’s voice echoed in my head: Do you want her back, or do you want to undo the damage to your ego?

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I didn’t know.

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But I knew one thing with terrifying clarity.

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If Seraphina Moreau walked back into my orbit because of this project, I would not have the strength to pretend she didn’t matter.

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And for the first time, the thought didn’t feel like weakness.

It felt like the beginning of a reckoning.