Chapter 2 The Girl He Chose Instead

The hallway swallowed me whole.

I walked past marble pillars and glass offices where people pretended not to look, each step echoing like a drumbeat against my chest. My heels struck the floor with a rhythm that mocked me.

Cassian Vale didn't recognize me. And Selene's words sharp, deliberate, merciless still lingered: "You know, Cassian... It's almost strange that the girl who saved you would ever look so... ordinary."

The elevator doors slid shut behind me, trapping me in the cold reflection of glass and fluorescent light. My scar stared back at me, subtle but impossible to ignore. It wasn't the mark itself that hurt; it was the memory attached, the girl I once was, and the man who had once looked at me with trust and awe. The boy I saved had become a man I feared.

I pressed my forehead against the reflective wall, trying to calm the storm inside. Broken things, I reminded myself, do not belong in perfect worlds. And Vale Dominion Holdings thrived on perfection.

I reached my desk, the lower floor of the empire, where invisible hands did the labor the elite never wanted to touch. Mira noticed my pallor immediately, her brow knitting with concern.

"Are you okay?" she asked quietly.

I gave a small, practiced smile. "I'll survive."

But her eyes didn't accept the lie, and that tiny crack in my armor made me uneasy. Mira had always been too empathetic for this place, seeing too much, feeling too much. In a company built on control and intimidation, sensitivity was a liability.

Then, the office shifted. A hush fell, chairs straightened, and even the phones seemed to quiet. He was coming.

Cassian Vale moved through the floor like a predator marking territory. Tailored suit, exacting posture, storm-grey eyes scanning, assessing, calculating. Even without looking at me, I could feel him.

When he finally paused near my desk, it wasn't recognition in his eyes. It was a measurement, a judgment.

"Miss Ashford," he said, voice low, precise, controlled.

My heart raced, betraying every ounce of calm I had tried to cultivate.

"Sir," I murmured. My hand rested on the edge of the desk, knuckles whitening.

His eyes flicked briefly to the scar on my cheek. That glance wasn't cruel, but it wasn't gentle either. It was scrutiny, an invisible ruler sliding along the imperfections he didn't know how to reconcile with the memory he cherished.

"I don't appreciate theatrics," he continued. "If Selene made you uncomfortable, that wasn't my intention."

I stiffened. It wasn't his intention? Selene had walked in like a storm, stolen my identity in a glance, and planted a seed that might bloom into something I couldn't undo. And yet, Cassian's voice held no acknowledgment of the betrayal , no defense, no fury. Only the cool cadence of authority.

"I understand, sir," I said, my voice quieter than I intended.

Something flickered across his face, irritation perhaps or recognition struggling to surface. He leaned slightly closer, voice dropping to a whisper meant only for me.

"Be careful how you speak to me."

A warning, a promise.

I met his eyes, searching for the boy I once knew beneath the man he had become. All I found was steel, a shadow of memory threatening to suffocate the fragile light that remained.

"What is it?" he asked softly. "Why do you look at me like that?"

Because I remember you crying beneath rusted swings. Because I held your trembling hands and told you light still lives inside broken glass. Because I never stopped searching for you.

I swallowed the truth, locking it away behind a wall of calm. "You remind me of someone," I said instead. A lie, a half-confession, a whisper of what could have been.

His brow creased, doubt flashing for the briefest moment. Then, as if pushed by the memory Selene had manipulated, he turned, scanning the office again.

Selene's presence lingered like perfume: sharp, invasive, impossible to ignore.

Her eyes met mine, sharp and knowing. A predator enjoying the hunt, the stolen prey unaware. She leaned forward slightly, voice soft and insinuating.

"You look tired, Liora," she said, deliberately using my real name. "Must be stressful, trying to keep up with standards you weren't meant for."

The room seemed to shrink around me. Every syllable was a knife, every glance a spotlight. I wanted to disappear, to melt into the polished floor and leave them to their cruelty.

Cassian's gaze returned to mine. That familiar pull, the ache I had tried to deny, rippled through me. He was measuring me. Seeing something. But what? Recognition hovered on the edges, dangerous and tantalizing.

"I need you to follow me," he said abruptly, the edge of command clear despite his calm voice.

I froze. The command was subtle but undeniable, a current pulling at my instincts.

"You... what?" My voice trembled despite my effort to remain collected.

He stepped closer. Each movement precise, predatory, deliberate. "There are matters only you can handle. Direct oversight. Close proximity."

My pulse surged. Close proximity meant scrutiny, exposure no hiding from him, no shielding the scar that had defined my shame.

"I... can't," I said, though the word felt inadequate. I was drowning in the intensity of his gaze, the gravity of Selene's interference, the ghost of a childhood I hadn't allowed myself to remember fully in years.

"You will," he said, softer now, almost a promise or a warning. I couldn't tell which. "Because hiding only delays the reckoning."

I swallowed hard, nodding.

The words weren't mine. They were forced out by necessity, by the undeniable pull of destiny, by the subtle terror of Selene's watchful eyes.

As he turned to leave, the air shifted again. Selene's soft laugh, perfectly timed, followed him:

"Do you think she even realizes what she's about to face?"

And I did.

Because the world I had stepped back into wasn't mine to navigate safely anymore. And the man I had saved as a girl was no longer a boy, no longer innocent, and no longer capable of recognizing me without unraveling everything around him.

The door closed behind him, and I was left in a storm of whispers, shadows, and unasked questions.

For a moment, I pressed my hands to my scarred cheek, as if it could shield me from the inevitable collision of past and present. And in that brief, impossible silence, I realized that no matter what I did, Selene had already started her game.

And Cassian, cold, calculating, unrecognizable in his power, might be the only person who could stop her or the person whose gaze, if it truly recognized me, could undo everything.

I sat back, heart hammering, mind spinning.

And in the back of my head, a single thought refused to be silenced:

He might look at me and see everything.

Or he might never see me at all.