Chapter 1

The Los Angeles sun felt good on my skin, a warm contrast to the cool gallery air I' d just left.

Liam Chen, my fiancé, squeezed my hand.

"Ready for New York, Sarah?" he asked, his voice kind, like always.

Liam was an architect, steady and calm, everything my past wasn't.

I nodded, a real smile on my face. "As I'll ever be."

My first big solo art show. Back in New York City.

The irony wasn't lost on me.

Years. It had been years since I fled that city, a different person.

Later, scrolling on my phone, a headline flashed.

"Vanderbilt Heir Embroiled in New Scandal."

Ethan Vanderbilt.

The name hit me, a quick, cold splash.

My breath caught for just a second.

Then I let it out, slow.

I was Sarah Miller, recognized artist, engaged to a good man.

That other world, Ethan's world, was a lifetime ago.

I closed the news app.

My composure didn't break. It bent, just a little, then straightened.

Liam was talking about dinner plans, his voice a comforting anchor.

I focused on him, on us, on the life I' d built here in LA.

But New York waited.

And with it, the ghosts.

The gallery in Chelsea was almost ready for my exhibition, "Echoes in Sterling."

Sterling, like the silver locket. My grandmother' s locket. Lost in the storm of him.

Unpacking canvases, the smell of paint and new beginnings filled the air.

But the city itself, it pulled at old threads.

Each street corner held a potential memory, a whisper of a past I' d fought to bury.

This trip was supposed to be a triumph.

My return, on my own terms.

But the city felt heavy, charged.

The news about Ethan, it lingered. A faint, bitter taste.

I pushed it down.

I had work to do.

My art was about resilience, about hidden pain transformed.

I was living proof of my themes.

Or so I told myself.

The first flashback hit me when I walked past a small, struggling coffee shop in Brooklyn, not far from where my old studio had been.

It wasn't the same place, but it was close enough.

Rain, cold and relentless, just like that night.

I was Sarah Miller then too, but a different version.

A struggling painter, a barista, serving coffee to people with dreams bigger than their wallets.

My own dreams felt fragile, tucked away in a cramped studio apartment.

That night, the alley behind the cafe was dark.

A shape huddled there.

A man. Bloodied. Disoriented.

He looked up, eyes wide with a fear that had no name.

"I... I don' t know," he' d whispered, when I asked who he was.

A violent mugging, the police later said.

Amnesia.

He had nothing. No ID, no memory.

Just the clothes on his back and the terror in his eyes.

I should have called the authorities and walked away.

But I saw the raw panic, the utter desolation.

I saw a human being, stripped bare.

"Come with me," I said.

I took him to my tiny studio.

It was an insane thing to do.

But he looked so lost.

He chose the name Leo.

Just Leo.

He said it felt right.

Over the next year, "Leo" and I built a world in that cramped space.

Hardship was our wallpaper, simple joys our furniture.

He found work in construction, his hands strong and capable.

He dreamed of opening a small gallery for me, a place where my art could breathe.

His love was a quiet, steady warmth.

He got my initials, "S.M.", tattooed over his heart.

A tiny, permanent declaration.

"So you're always with me," he' d said, his voice rough with emotion, his eyes shining with a love so pure it almost hurt to look at.

We were happy. Poor, struggling, but undeniably happy.

It was a love born from shared vulnerability, a shelter from the storm.

Then, a flicker. A face in a crowd on a busy street.

A former associate of someone he didn't remember being.

The memories crashed back into him, a tidal wave.

He wasn't Leo, the kind construction worker.

He was Ethan Vanderbilt.

Scion of a New York real estate empire.

The shift was dizzying.

One day, we were sharing cheap takeout on the floor of my studio.

The next, I was standing in a Vanderbilt penthouse, the city lights spread out like a carpet of fallen stars, feeling smaller than I ever had in my tiny apartment.

Ethan – he insisted I call him Ethan now – tried to bring me into his world.

But his world had walls, high and cold.

The main wall was Victoria Vanderbilt.

His mother.

Elegant, formidable, with eyes that assessed and dismissed me in a single glance.

To her, I was a gold-digger. An unacceptable detour in her son's carefully planned life.

She made her disapproval clear, not with shouts, but with a chilling politeness that was far more effective.

Ethan, caught between the simple, honest love he'd known as Leo and the crushing weight of his regained identity, began to change.

The warmth of Leo flickered, then dimmed.

Ethan Vanderbilt was distant, burdened by obligations I couldn't comprehend.

There was Isabelle Harrington. Daughter of a rival-turned-allied business tycoon.

A long-standing, informal engagement. Essential for a major upcoming merger.

Victoria pressured him. His family legacy pressured him.

He struggled. I saw it in the fleeting moments when Leo' s eyes looked out from Ethan' s face.

But Ethan Vanderbilt, the heir, was winning.

Victoria offered me money. Two million dollars.

"A fresh start, dear," she' d said, her smile never reaching her eyes. "For your art. So you won't be a... burden."

A burden. That' s what I was to them.

I didn' t take it. Not then.

My heart still clung to the ghost of Leo.

The final, public shattering happened at the Vanderbilt Foundation gala.

A night designed for my humiliation.

Isabelle Harrington, with Victoria' s subtle, approving nods, was the architect.