The morning sun in South Harbor was cruel, reflecting off the grey Atlantic with a clinical, blinding brightness. Inside the North Office, the air-conditioning hummed with a low, mechanical drone that felt like a drill against Leo's skull.
Leo sat at his mahogany desk, but he wasn't looking at the merger documents.
He was staring at the palms of his hands. His mind felt like a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing and the other half melted. Last night was a jagged blur—the darkness, the cold salt air, and that shimmering vision of emerald silk. He remembered a name—Lili—tasting it on his tongue like a forgotten language. But then the lights had come up, Sienna's voice had shrilled in his ear, and the vision had vanished into the shadows.
He felt like he was losing his mind. Every time he tried to grab the memory of the girl on the balcony, a sharp, white-hot spike of pain shot through his temples, courtesy of the chemical withdrawal he didn't even know he was experiencing.
The heavy frosted-glass door creaked open.
Lili walked in, her face a mask of cold, professional indifference. She was back in the charcoal power suit of "Elizabeth Reed," her hair pinned into that sharp, obsidian bob. Her limp was more pronounced today—the run through the rain the night before had taken its toll on her scarred leg—but she held her head high.
She placed a steaming cup of black coffee on his desk and laid a leather-bound folder in front of him.
"The revised logistics for the South Harbor distribution are ready for your signature, Mr. Vance," she said, her voice a cool, detached chime. "You also have a teleconference with the London board at 11:00 AM."
As she leaned over the desk to align the folder, the movement caught a draft from the open window. A faint, unmistakable trail of scent drifted across the desk.
Lavender.
It wasn't the sterile smell of the office or the expensive, heavy musk of Sienna's perfume. It was earthy, fresh, and hauntingly familiar. It was the exact same scent that had filled Leo's lungs on the dark balcony last night.
Leo's head snapped up. His eyes, dark and bloodshot, locked onto hers with a sudden, predatory intensity. The pen in his hand snapped in half, the black ink staining his fingers like a dark omen.
"Where is it?" Leo growled, his voice a low, jagged rasp that vibrated with a sudden, unhinged fury.
Lili froze, her hand still hovering over the folder. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Vance? The signature line is at the bottom of—"
"The perfume!" Leo roared, slamming his fist onto the desk. The coffee cup rattled, spilling dark liquid across the white pages of the report. He stood up, his tall frame looming over her, his breathing ragged.
"That scent. Lavender. You're wearing it. Why are you wearing it?"
Lili didn't flinch, though her heart was screaming. "It's a common essential oil, Mr. Vance. It helps with stress. Given the schedule you've been keeping, I thought the office environment could use—"
"Don't lie to me!" Leo stepped around the desk, cornering her against the filing cabinet. He was so close she could feel the frantic heat radiating off his body. He looked at her not as a boss looks at an assistant, but as a man looks at a ghost he's finally cornered.
"I smelled that on the balcony last night. I smelled it in my dreams for two years. Who are you? What are you doing in my office?"
Leo reached out, his hand trembling as he grabbed her arm—the same arm the security guards had bruised two years ago. His grip was tight, desperate.
"Every time you speak, I feel like I'm drowning," Leo hissed, his eyes searching her face with a terrifying, fractured hunger. "I don't know your face, Elizabeth. I don't know your history. But my body knows you. My blood knows you.
Why does it feel like I've spent my whole life waiting for a girl who smells like you?"
Lili looked into those dark, tortured eyes. She saw the "Ice King" crumbling, but she also saw the fear. If she told him now, while he was this unstable, his brain might snap under the pressure of the suppressed memories.
"You're unwell, Mr. Vance," Lili whispered, her voice trembling despite her best efforts. "You've missed your medication. You're hallucinating. Perhaps I should call your father."
At the mention of Arthur, Leo flinched as if he'd been struck. He let go of her arm and stumbled back, clutching his head as a fresh migraine tore through his mind.
"Get out," Leo choked out, turning his back to her. "Get out before I... just get out!"
Lili grabbed her tablet and hurried toward the door, her eyes blurred with tears. She had reached him, but the fury in his eyes told her that the "Elizabeth Reed" mask was failing. He was starting to hate her because he couldn't remember why he loved her.
The explosion of fury from the morning had settled into a heavy, suffocating silence. Leo sat behind his desk, the broken pen replaced, the spilled coffee wiped away, but the air in the room remained charged. He looked at the woman standing by the window, her back to him as she organized a stack of historical site surveys.
"Elizabeth," Leo said, his voice no longer a growl, but a low, exhausted rasp.
Lili stiffened but didn't turn around. "Yes, Mr. Vance?"
"I... I apologize for my behavior earlier," Leo muttered, rubbing his eyes. "The migraines are becoming unpredictable. My father says it's a side effect of the recovery, but sometimes it feels like my own mind is trying to tear itself apart. I shouldn't have taken it out on you."
Lili slowly turned, her expression carefully neutral, though her heart was still racing from the encounter.
"Apology accepted, Mr. Vance. We have a lot of work to finish before the board meeting tomorrow. Shall we continue with the North Pier expansion?"
Leo nodded, gesturing to the chair across from him. "Sit. Let's go through the land acquisition files together. I need to understand why the local council is so hesitant to sign over the old library site."