1 My first love from five years ago stepped out of the past and found me on a Tuesday evening. It had been the summer we loved each other the most. The year we were twenty, broke, and fiercely certain of the future. He caught me by the elbow under the flickering amber streetlamp at the mouth of the alleyway, breathless and wide-eyed, asking, “Audrey… are we married yet?” I reached up, my thumb grazing the soft, familiar arch of his brow. I smiled, though it tasted like ash. “Jesse, you’re getting married in two months. But not to me.” The commuter train had been delayed twenty minutes, and by the time I turned down the narrow alley cutting toward my apartment building, the city was already wrapped in winter damp. A pair of heavy, hurried footsteps echoed behind me on the wet asphalt. Before I could whip around and dig the small utility knife from the bottom of my purse, a hand clamped around my wrist. Adrenaline surged into my throat. “Audrey, it’s me!” The voice hit me like a physical blow. Jesse? Why was he here? Before I could process the sound, hands gripped my shoulders and spun me around. “You don’t even recognize your own boyfriend?” he chided, his voice carrying that familiar, breathless cadence from a lifetime ago. “I ought to ground you for that.” A dry, bitter scoff scraped past my lips. I jerked my arms back, breaking his grip with a sharp snap. “Did you lose your mind in a boardroom somewhere? If you can’t even remember who your fiancée is, Jesse, go check yourself into an urgent care clinic.” He froze, genuinely bewildered. The bravado melted from his features, replaced by a sudden, anxious panic. He reached out again, this time gently taking my sleeve and pulling me toward the circle of light cast by the streetlamp. “Look at me. Look closely. It’s really me.” It was Jesse. And yet, it wasn’t. The ruthless, calculating edge he had sharpened over years of high-stakes venture capital was gone. In its place were the soft contours of his youth—the untamed hair, the unlined forehead, the raw vulnerability of a boy who hadn’t yet learned how to barter people away for market share. He looked exactly like the college junior who used to split four-dollar bodega sandwiches with me. Jesse caught my fingers and pressed them flat against his cheek, his skin warm and pulsing. “Audrey, I’m twenty. I don’t know what happened—I fell asleep in the computer lab and woke up on a bench by the pier. I didn’t know where else to go. Are we… did we make it? Are we married?” He told me he had appeared out of thin air in this year, disoriented, terrified, unable to track down a single familiar face. “I went to the old place,” he mumbled, rubbing the tip of his nose with his knuckle, watching me with cautious, sheepish eyes. “Number Seven. But someone else lives there now.” Number Seven. 7 South Harbor Lane. During our junior year, when he first incorporated his tech startup, we pooled every penny of our savings to rent that cramped, drafty one-bedroom. We lived there for four grueling years. We survived the winters when the radiator clanked and died, survived the weeks when our bank accounts dipped into double digits. We survived everything—right up until he met the sole heiress of Montgomery Capital, and the two of them announced their whirlwind engagement to the city’s financial press. Now, he looked at me like an abandoned golden retriever stranded in the rain. “Audrey, don’t push me away. If you don’t take me, I have nowhere left to go.” Nowhere to go? I almost laughed out loud. Half the prime real estate in this metropolitan skyline bore the logo of his holding company and the Montgomery family trust. 2 I reached into my shoulder bag and pulled out my key fob, pressing the unlock button. A few yards away, the headlights of my secondhand Honda Civic flashed with a low chime. Jesse followed at my heels, his eyes lighting up. “Audrey! You bought a car?” “Jesse,” I said, stopping abruptly by the driver’s side and turning to face him with cold, measured gravity. “Five years have passed. We are not who we were.” Something in my tone—the sheer lack of warmth, the formal distance—seemed to rattle him. He shrank back slightly, sliding his hands into the pockets of his worn canvas jacket, and didn’t speak another word for the rest of the drive. Thirty minutes later, I pulled up to the gated entrance of a sprawling, limestone estate nestled in the exclusive hills of the northern suburbs. The landscape lighting bathed the manicured hedges and towering pillars in an opulent, golden glow. Jesse finally looked up from the passenger seat. His jaw hung slack, his eyes darting across the vast estate with a mixture of awe and sheer dread. “Where… where is this?” “This is your house,” I said, shifting the car into park and killing the engine. “Get out.” Jesse went rigid. His fingers curled around the interior door handle, hovering, unable to press down. “You’re coming inside with me, right?” He had always been stubborn. When we were younger, that tenacity felt like a shield; now, it was just exhausting. I let out a quiet sigh and gave him the easiest lie. “I’m going to park in the visitor turnaround. Go on up. I’ll be right behind you.” He studied my face, searching for reassurance, before nodding softly. “Okay.” He stepped out into the crisp evening air and began walking up the stone path toward the grand double doors. Every three steps, he turned his head, checking over his shoulder to make sure I was still there. He truly believed I would follow him. Of course I wouldn’t. The woman who lived in that house wasn’t me. I picked up my phone, dialed Mindy Montgomery’s personal number, and let it ring twice before hanging up—just enough to alert her. Seconds later, the front door swung wide. Mindy rushed out onto the marble veranda, her silk robe billowing around her. When she caught sight of him, she let out a breathless, tearful cry, throwing her arms around his neck. “Jesse! My God, where have you been?!” I put the car in reverse, swung smoothly around the fountain, and accelerated down the private drive into the night. On my phone’s dashboard mount, the local business notification from three days ago was still pinned to the top of the feed: Young Tech CEO Jesse Rivers Reported Missing. Whatever version of Jesse this was—twenty or twenty-five—I had delivered him back to his rightful owner. 3 Halfway back to the city, the Bluetooth system chimed with an incoming call from Graham. “Hey, sweetheart. You’re running later than usual. Do you need me to walk down and meet you at the garage?” Graham was an associate professor of literature at the nearby state university, introduced to me by a mutual colleague six months ago. We had hit it off immediately—an easy, grounded compatibility that felt like warm tea after years of drinking vinegar. He was the polar opposite of Jesse. Back when Jesse was building his empire, my entire universe revolved around his orbit—his pitch decks, his sleepless nights, his missed dinners. But Graham was attentive, observant, and deeply gentle. With him, my shoulders dropped. I didn’t have to carry the weight of an entire company’s survival on my back. “I’m just pulling onto our street,” I said, letting out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “Don’t come down in this cold.” He came down anyway. By the time I locked the car, Graham was standing at the entrance of the lobby, a thick wool coat thrown over his flannel shirt. He stepped forward, unwound my scarf, and retucked it snugly around my neck. “It’s freezing out here,” he murmured, pressing a warm kiss to my forehead. “Did your manager really make you stay this late on a Tuesday?” Inside our apartment, the scent of pan-seared trout and dill butter filled the warm air. He plated the food with care, tapping my nose with the back of a spoon. “I know it’s your favorite.” The next day was Saturday. I switched off my alarms, intending to sleep until the morning sun filled the bedroom. A sharp, persistent ring of the doorbell shattered the quiet. Graham was already in the kitchen brewing pour-over coffee. I heard the pad of his bare feet against the floorboards, followed by the click of the deadbolt. A voice cut through the apartment air like a shard of broken glass. “Isn’t this Audrey Woods’ apartment?” My heart stopped. Every muscle in my body seized. I threw off the duvet, grabbed my cardigan, and rushed barefoot toward the entryway. Graham stood in the open doorway, his brow furrowed in polite confusion. “Yes, it is. Can I help you with something?” Jesse’s voice was arctic, trembling with an edge of coiled fury. “And who the hell are you, and why are you answering her door in your sweatpants?” “Jesse!” I stepped in between them, grabbing Graham’s forearm and pulling him slightly behind me. “Stop this right now. Get out of my building.” Jesse’s face drained of every ounce of color. “Audrey… I don’t understand,” he whispered, his voice cracking around the edges. He forced a sickening, fractured smile. “What happened in these five years? That woman, Mindy—she claims she’s my fiancée. She told me the whole city watched me dump you. But that’s impossible. How could I ever leave you? How could I marry anyone else?” He stepped forward, reaching for my hands with raw desperation. “I stayed awake all night searching public records to find this address. Audrey, please. Don’t cast me out again.” Graham had never met Jesse in person, but he was an intelligent man; the pieces fell into place instantly. Gently, Graham shifted his weight, putting his broad frame firmly between Jesse and me. “Sir, whatever history you share with Audrey, you are an engaged man. Showing up at her home like this is entirely out of line.” It was direct. Dignified. Unflinching. Jesse stared at Graham’s protective posture, his eyes hollow. A harsh, humorless laugh tore from his throat. “Mindy Montgomery means nothing to me! I met her for the first time yesterday! If that’s what’s standing between us, Audrey—if her name is a thorn in your heart—I’ll call her right now. I’ll break it off in front of you!” In that split second, the terrified twenty-year-old boy vanished, and the ruthless corporate titan he was destined to become took his place. He was identical to the man who, after eight years of devotion starting from our high school days, had discarded me in the span of a single week. The man who held a press conference to reassure the Montgomery family that his connection to a certain “Miss Woods” was purely historical and entirely severed. If he could discard eight years of us without blinking, of course he could discard Mindy in an afternoon. To him, right now, she was just an inconvenient stranger. 4 Mindy arrived in less than forty minutes. Considering the distance between the gated hills of the north side and our modest brick walk-up, she must have run every red light on the interstate. When she stepped through the door, windblown and pale, Jesse didn’t offer her a chair. He didn’t offer her a glass of water. He stood by the bookshelf, his arms crossed, his gaze fixed on the baseboards. “I’m not the man you think you know. Pretend you never found me. Don’t contact me again.” He wouldn’t even grant her a single glance. Instead, he turned his eyes toward me, extending an open palm. It was an unspoken plea: Look, Audrey. Nothing matters more than you. Come back. Let’s stop this nonsense. But Mindy was not a woman who crumbled under rejection. She was an heiress bred for boardrooms and charity galas, accustomed to public scrutiny and cutthroat negotiations. She didn’t cry. She didn’t raise her voice. She simply adjusted the strap of her handbag, her voice smooth and steady. “Jesse, I don’t know what kind of psychological episode you’re having, or what games you’re playing. But our families exchanged rings. We made public commitments in front of every major investor on the East Coast. If you call off this wedding now, we will both be the laughingstock of the tech industry.” She turned the three-carat diamond on her right ring finger, her gaze settling on him with razor-sharp precision. “Furthermore, the launch event for the Riverwood software ecosystem is scheduled for next Friday. Are you really going to walk away from that? I can handle a broken heart, Jesse. But if my father pulls his venture backing, production stalls, the patents freeze, and you will never secure institutional capital again.” Riverwood. It was the dream Jesse had carried since our senior year of high school. In our dorm rooms, when professors dismissed his architecture as overly ambitious and impractical, he worked on it until dawn. When angel investors shut their doors in his face, we sat on the linoleum floor of our studio apartment, splitting fifty-cent ramen packets, sketching server diagrams on paper napkins. Back then, he had held my hands and said, “Audrey, I only have two ambitions in this lifetime. To bring Riverwood to the world, and to make you my wife.” “Then you’ve already achieved half your dream,” I had teased him, smiling through the steam of the noodles. “Because I already said yes.” Standing in my cramped entryway, hearing Mindy mention the software, Jesse’s outstretched hand began to waver. “Audrey…” he murmured. The words seemed to stick in his throat, choking him. “Come along, Jesse,” Mindy said, taking a step forward and linking her arm through his with practiced ease. “Stop throwing tantrums. Let’s go home. Dad is waiting for us for lunch.” Jesse’s fingers slowly curled into a fist. Inch by inch, he lowered his arm back to his side. At the threshold, he stopped and looked back at me one last time. “Audrey… do you still remember why we named it Riverwood?” He waited in the silence for a reply. I kept my lips pressed firmly together. Finally, the elevator doors chimed, and they were gone. Graham shut the apartment door and let out a long, heavy breath. “He looks young, but… he knows exactly which leverage moves the needle.” Graham was always tactful. What he meant was that Jesse’s ambition was already older than his years. I nodded slowly, walking back toward the kitchen. “He was always like that. Some things are simply woven into a person’s marrow.” 5 The company’s busy season arrived, sweeping me into an endless cycle of seventy-hour workweeks. I buried myself in marketing strategies and client presentations, foolishly believing my path would never cross Jesse’s again. On Monday morning, my department manager dimmed the lights in the main conference room and pulled up a live stream of a major tech showcase. There, centered in the high-definition projection, stood Jesse Rivers. He moved across the stage with effortless authority, breaking down the proprietary architecture of the Riverwood suite, outlining how the system would integrate enterprise data streams and translate theoretical computing into billions in recurring revenue. Though his twenty-year-old self lacked formal executive polish, the core system was something he had lived and breathed for years. He commanded the presentation like a maestro who had waited an eternity for an orchestra. Our department head cleared his throat. “We just landed the regional rollout contract for the Riverwood campaign. It’s a massive account. Everyone needs to submit a comprehensive promotional deck by Thursday.” A collective groan echoed across the room. Liam, a recent college hire sitting beside me, nudged my elbow. “Look at that guy, Audrey. He can’t be older than twenty-five, but he carries himself like an absolute king. It’s unreal.” I gave a noncommittal hum. Back in his bespoke tailored suit, with Montgomery Capital’s private stylists smoothing away every rough edge, Jesse looked every bit the prodigy. Beside him on stage, Mindy stood in an ivory sheath dress, fielding press questions with poise. “Mr. Rivers, Miss Montgomery, congratulations on the milestone! Any updates on the wedding date?” a reporter shouted. Jesse’s jaw tightened. His eyes remained fixed on the back wall, cold and unyielding, refusing to engage. Mindy stepped smoothly to the microphone, laughing gracefully. “Don’t worry, you’ll all receive your press invitations. Just make sure the photographers catch my good side!” Liam stacked his folders, whispering, “I heard through the grapevine that he dumped his long-term college sweetheart the second the Montgomery investment cleared. Man, you have to be cold-blooded to win at that level.” “Hey, maybe you should try marrying an heiress, Liam,” another coworker teased. “With my face?” Liam laughed, rubbing his neck. “Rivers looks like a movie star. The guy won the genetic lottery and the bank lottery.” Because of the Riverwood campaign, our team lived on takeout and overtime. Graham, knowing I had a habit of skipping meals when deadlines loomed, began bringing home-cooked dinners straight to my office floor. His university teaching schedule was flexible—just two lectures a week, leaving his afternoons open for research. Within two weeks, my entire department adored him. They called him “Professor Evans” and showered him with praise every time he arrived with artisan pastries or iced lattes for the whole bullpen. On February fourteenth, Valentine’s Day, Graham walked through the glass doors carrying a box of bakery cupcakes. Our manager grinned the moment he saw him. “Alright, Audrey, pack your bag. Professor Evans didn’t bring lemon tarts just for our health. You’re banned from working past five today.” The team cheered, shoving my laptop into my bag and practically herding me toward the elevators. Outside in the brisk winter dusk, Graham took my hand, his fingers warm and steady. His cheeks were slightly flushed from the cold, his eyes soft with anticipation. “Ready for dinner?” he asked, a conspiratorial smile tugging at his lips. For the past week, I had caught him whispering on the phone and tucking receipts into his desk drawer. I smiled back, leaning into his shoulder. “Lead the way.” 6 I hadn’t expected him to take me to L’Aura, an exclusive rooftop restaurant overlooking the harbor. It was members-only, with a multi-course tasting menu that cost half a month’s rent. Standing in the elegant, dimly lit foyer, I tugged at his sleeve, whispering, “Graham, this is way too much. It’s Valentine’s Day—they’re charging holiday rates. Let’s just go get Thai food.” He laughed softly, pressing his hand over mine. “It’s a holiday. We’re allowed to indulge. Besides, your boyfriend is a tenured associate professor with a book deal; don’t sell me short.” He guided me to a prime corner table with floor-to-ceiling glass framing the glittering city skyline. I had never dined in a place like this. Sitting across from the white linen and sterling silver, a sharp memory unspooled in my chest: Jesse and I, freezing in our coats, splitting a medium pepperoni pizza on a plastic bench behind a strip mall. Back then, eating at an upscale diner felt like the pinnacle of luxury. We used to make ridiculous lists of all the three-star restaurants we would conquer once we made our first million. The moment he made it, the first thing he did was erase me from the table. Halfway through our second course, Graham signaled the headwaiter. He leaned in, whispering a brief instruction. A moment later, a solo violinist in a tuxedo stepped toward our table, the bow drawing a rich, melancholic cadence across the strings—a classical piece Graham often played on his vinyl player at home. My breath caught. “Graham… what are you doing?” He gave me a shy, nervous wink, reached into the breast pocket of his blazer, and pulled out a velvet box. Stepping out from his chair, he lowered himself onto one knee on the hardwood floor. “Audrey… will you marry me?” The surrounding diners paused, turning toward us with warm, collective murmurs. Heat rushed to my ears, my pulse thumping like a drum against my ribs. And then, a familiar voice drifted from the archway just ten feet away. “Jesse, look. Someone’s proposing.” 7 My head jerked up instinctively. Mindy Montgomery was standing by the maître d’ stand, her arm draped through Jesse’s. They had just arrived. “How romantic,” Mindy remarked lightly. A low, guttural sound escaped Jesse’s throat. His eyes locked onto mine, burning with an intensity so raw it felt like an open wound. He stood frozen, a statue of black wool and tailored silk, but his knuckles were trembling at his side. Graham noticed the sudden shift in the room’s gravity. He glanced over his shoulder, locking eyes with Jesse. For five agonizing seconds, the two men regarded each other in absolute silence. When Graham turned back to me, his gaze was unwavering. He lifted the ring higher, his voice steady, grounding me like an anchor in a storm. “Audrey. Marry me?” Over Graham’s shoulder, Jesse did something inexplicable. He stared at me, slowly shaking his head. With silent, pleading lips, he mouthed: Don’t. Please, don’t say yes. The sheer audacity of it struck me like cold water. What right did he have? Under what authority, in what lifetime, did he think he could ask that of me? I reached out my left hand, offering my finger to Graham. Looking straight into Graham’s gentle, devoted eyes, I spoke clearly: “Yes. I will.”
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