Ava's Point of View
The morning after the tabloid exploded with the truth about Damian's memory loss, I barely slept.
I stood by the window of my apartment—our apartment watching the city swirl beneath a gray sky. Rain tapped lightly against the glass, a rhythm that felt like a countdown. Any moment now, everything would shatter. Not just the illusion we had crafted for the world, but the secret I hid from Damian, fragile truth that I carefully buried from him is on the verge of coming to light.
The headlines had called it "sabotage." But it was more than that. It was betrayal. The kind that left scars not bruises. The kind that changed the course of lives forever.
And soon, he'd know.
I turned from the window as the front door opened. Damian stepped inside, his expression unreadable. He looked tired, like he hadn't slept either. Maybe he hadn't. Maybe the truth was already starting to settle like ash in his lungs.
He dropped his keys on the marble counter and looked at me.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Straight to it.
My heart raced. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
His voice was softer the second time, but it carried more weight. "You knew. This whole time. You knew what my father did."
"Yes," I whispered.
He nodded slowly, his jaw tight. "And you let me think I left you. That I abandoned you."
"I didn't let you," I said, my voice breaking. "You… you didn't want to hear it. You didn't believe anything I said. And I—" I turned away, pressing a hand to my forehead. "I was angry. I wanted you to suffer like I did, all those sleepless nights. I thought… if I let you live in the lie, maybe you'd feel a fraction of the pain I felt."
Damian didn't respond. His silence was the worst part.
I turned back to him. "But then I found out about your father. And everything changed."
"You should've told me the moment you knew," he said, shaking his head. "He drugged me. He wiped my memory clean. I had a wife. A life. And he—he took it all. And you just sat on it?"
"You think I sat on it?" I snapped. "I buried myself in it. I spent nights crying over the files. I visited that clinic over and over again. I bribed nurses. I traced timelines, Damian. I lived in that secret every day. Don't you dare act like I didn't care about you."
He looked like he wanted to argue, but then something in his eyes faltered. His voice dropped. "Why would he do this to me, my father?"
I crossed the space between us and took his hand. "Because he couldn't control you. And because you loved me more than he could stand."
He closed his eyes.
And I knew—I knew—this wasn't just about us anymore. It never had been.
There was more.
Much more.
And if I didn't say it soon, someone else would.
Rachel's Point of View
My plan was unraveling perfectly. One headline at a time.
They'd underestimated me. They always did.
Ava had brains. Beauty. Heart.
But she was soft.
And softness couldn't survive in a world like ours.
I watched the chaos unfold from the corner of my luxury suite, glass of champagne in my hand, as the television replayed the moment Damian's father left that shady clinic. A slow zoom. A cold caption.
"Was this the moment everything changed?"
I knew it was.
Because I made it happen.
Still, it wasn't enough. Not yet.
There was one piece left to play. One card that hadn't been revealed.
The baby.
The child no one had seen. The secret Ava guarded like her last breath.
And when that came out?
Not even love could save them.
Damian's Point of View
I didn't sleep that night.
Ava had retreated to her room. I stayed in mine, staring at the ceiling, wondering who the hell I really was.
I didn't know how much was real anymore.
What had been taken from me? What had I chosen? What had been chosen for me?
But in all the mess of it, one thing kept coming back to me—Ava's laugh.
It haunted me. Comforted me. Tore me apart.
I could remember her laugh before I remembered her name.
I rose and walked to the living room, hoping the quiet would give me peace.
That's when I saw it.
A single photo on the floor, half-tucked beneath the leg of the couch.
I picked it up.
And the breath left my lungs.
It was a picture of Ava.
But not alone.
She was holding a baby.
A boy.
Dark curls. A crooked little smile. Eyes that looked…
Familiar.
I turned the photo over.
No date. No name. Just a smudged fingerprint in the corner.
Ava.
And a baby.
Our baby?
The photo trembled in my hands.
If Rachel found this before me… I know she might use it against us.
My father had taken everything.
But what if he hadn't just stolen my memories?
What if he had stolen a child too?
Ava's Point of View
I found him on the balcony, the photo clenched in his hand, his knuckles white.
The wind whipped his shirt. His chest rose and fell too fast.
He didn't look at me.
He didn't have to.
"You lied," he said.
"I didn't lie," I whispered. "I protected him."
Damian turned then, his face unreadable. "He's mine?"
"Yes."
The silence roared between us.
"How old is he?" Damian asked.
"Four."
His face crumbled. "Four. That's four birthdays. Four first words. Four years of me not being there."
Tears burned my eyes. "Because you didn't know."
"Because you didn't tell me," he snapped.
I stepped closer. "I didn't know how. You didn't even remember me. How was I supposed to throw a child into the middle of that chaos? What if you had rejected him? What if you forgot again?"
"I never would've forgotten him," Damian said, voice cracking. "Not if I knew."
My throat closed. "I didn't want him to be another casualty of your father's war. So I kept him away. He doesn't even know who you are."
He swayed slightly, as if that hit him harder than anything else.
"Where is he?"
"With Olivia. She's kept him safe all this time."
He stared at the city for a long moment. Then he said something I didn't expect.
"I want to meet him."
My heart stopped.
I don't have opinion. I nodded. "Okay."
"But not like this," he said. "Not as strangers. I want him to know me. I want you to help me remember everything. Not just him. Us, Our memories."
I stared at him, caught between hope and fear.
"You might not like what you remember," I said.
He turned to me, holding the photo tighter.
"I think I've lived with worse."