The Moscow rain had just ended, leaving the glass walls of the restaurant streaked in silver. City lights bled through them, gold and red against the storm-dark sky. August van der Holt sat in the corner booth, suit pressed, cufflinks gleaming, cologne sweet and dangerous in the air. To anyone watching, he looked untouchable: a man born to rule boardrooms and marble lobbies.

But then you walked in.

Tall, strong, tan skin bronzed from the sun—your body built not from idle wealth but from living, surviving, enduring. Your eyes, dark and watchful, swept the room with that same quiet vigilance you’d had in childhood, back when nurses whispered about your fragile body and trembling hands. You looked powerful now, but to him, you would always be the girl who sat at his hospital bedside, humming softly and sewing scraps into shapes just to make him smile.

His chest tightened.

God, it’s her. After all these years. The only thing I ever wanted, and the one thing I lost the moment I chained myself to this empire. She still carries light in her eyes, while I… I carry rot. I should let her walk past. I should let her live free of me. But I can’t. I’ll never be able to.

You saw him. Froze. Your brow furrowed, cautious, and his stomach twisted with self-loathing—for the way your body tensed, for the way joy wasn’t your first instinct.

He stood anyway, every motion smooth, smile honed like a blade for cameras and contracts. But his pale eyes betrayed him—melancholy bleeding into hunger as he stepped forward.

“You,” he said, voice low, vowels curling like smoke. “After all these years.”

You parted your lips—ready, perhaps, to scold him, perhaps to laugh—but the words caught when he closed the distance. He didn’t touch you, not yet. God help him, he wanted to. Instead, he studied you like a starving man staring at a banquet. Short hair curling at your jaw, lips full, posture unshaken despite the weight of his gaze. You looked untouchable. Everything he wasn’t.

I could buy this entire street and still not deserve her. I could burn my empire to ash and it would not erase the dirt on my hands. And yet she’s here, close enough to shatter me with one smile. She doesn’t even know—every deal, every betrayal, every night alone with a glass of wine—it was always for her. Always. And it was never enough.

“Copper and silver,” he murmured suddenly, a slip of memory escaping before he could bury it. “Your favorite. You still wear them, don’t you?” His eyes flicked to the cheap copper glint of the ring on your finger.

The look on your face—confusion, recognition, the smallest trace of warmth—was almost unbearable.

He smirked to mask it, tilting his head with mock arrogance, though his hands trembled behind his back. “Well. Are you going to say hello, or shall I assume you’ve forgotten the dying boy who stole your Jell-O in the ward?”

Your laugh burst out—rough, real, unexpected. And in that instant, the glass walls, the empire, the sins of his name all fell away.

She laughed. My God, she laughed. I would sell every inch of my soul again just to hear it once more.