POV: Nova
I woke up to the smell of jasmine and rain.
Not the sterile hospital scent I expected. Not Darren's expensive cologne that always made me feel like I was suffocating. This was different. Familiar. Like a memory I'd buried so deep I'd forgotten it existed.
My eyes fluttered open. I was lying on a leather couch in what looked like a hotel suite, but not any hotel I recognized. Floor-to-ceiling windows showed the city sparkling below like scattered diamonds. A soft blanket covered me, and someone had taken off my heels.
"You're awake."
My heart stopped.
That voice. Deep and warm like honey, but with rough edges that hadn't been there when we were kids. I turned my head slowly, afraid I was dreaming.
Kai sat in an armchair across from me, his elbows on his knees, watching me with those dark eyes that used to see straight through to my soul. But he looked nothing like the boy I remembered.
Gone was the skinny teenager with messy hair and hand-me-down clothes. This man wore a perfectly tailored black suit that probably cost more than my first car. His shoulders had broadened, his jaw had sharpened, and there was a dangerous quality to him now that made my breath catch.
But his eyes. God, his eyes were exactly the same.
"Kai?" My voice came out as a whisper. "Are you real?"
Something flickered across his face. Pain, maybe. "As real as you want me to be."
I struggled to sit up, my head spinning. The events of the night crashed back—the Grammy, Darren, the divorce announcement, the cameras. "How did I—where are we?"
"My hotel. You collapsed. I caught you before the vultures could get their claws in." His voice was carefully neutral, but I caught the anger underneath. "Darren tried to follow, but my security had other ideas."
"Your security?" I looked around the suite again, really seeing it this time. Everything screamed expensive. Not just rich—powerful. "Kai, what happened to you? Where have you been?"
He stood and walked to the window, his hands clasped behind his back. "I built something. Made myself into someone who couldn't be pushed around anymore."
The boy I'd loved had been gentle. Soft-spoken. The kind of person who rescued injured birds and wrote me songs on his beat-up guitar. This man looked like he could level cities with a phone call.
"You left." The words fell out before I could stop them. "You just... disappeared. No goodbye. No explanation. I looked for you everywhere."
His shoulders tensed. "I know."
"That's it? You know?" Fury bubbled up in my chest, mixing with the grief I'd carried for ten years. "I waited for you, Kai. I waited for two years, thinking you'd come back. Thinking you'd explain why you left me with nothing but a note saying you had to go."
"Nova—"
"No." I stood up, my legs shaky but my voice getting stronger. "You don't get to just show up at my lowest moment and act like nothing happened. You broke my heart. You broke me."
He turned around then, and I saw something raw and desperate in his face. "You think I wanted to leave? You think it was easy walking away from the only good thing in my life?"
"Then why did you?"
"Because I was nobody!" The words exploded out of him. "I was a poor kid from the wrong side of town whose father drank away every paycheck. You were going places, Nova. You had talent and dreams and a future. I would have held you back."
"That wasn't your choice to make."
"Wasn't it?" He stepped closer, and I could see the pain etched in every line of his face. "Your parents made it pretty clear I wasn't good enough for their daughter. And they were right."
My heart clenched. "My parents threatened you?"
"They didn't have to. I could see it in their eyes every time I picked you up. I could hear it in their voices when they talked about your future. A future that didn't include some trailer park kid with no prospects."
"I wouldn't have cared about any of that."
"I know. That's what scared me." His voice went soft, almost broken. "You would have thrown away everything for me. Your music, your dreams, your chance at something better. I couldn't let that happen."
Tears burned my eyes. "So you decided for both of us."
"Yes."
The simple answer hit harder than any explanation. He'd loved me enough to break both our hearts. And I'd spent ten years hating him for it.
"I thought you didn't love me," I whispered. "I thought I wasn't enough to make you stay."
Something shattered in his expression. He crossed the room in three strides and cupped my face in his hands. His touch was warm and gentle and exactly like I remembered.
"Nova, listen to me. Not loving you was never the problem. Loving you too much—that was what almost destroyed me."
I closed my eyes, leaning into his touch despite everything. "I married him because I thought it would make the pain stop. Because Darren promised me the world and you'd already given me everything then taken it away."
"I know. I watched every interview, every award show, every moment of your rise to the top. I saw you smile for the cameras and knew I'd done the right thing, even if it killed me."
"And now?"
His thumbs brushed away tears I didn't realize were falling. "Now I'm strong enough to protect what's mine. Rich enough that no one can touch me. Powerful enough that when I take something back, it stays taken."
The intensity in his voice sent shivers down my spine. This wasn't the boy who'd let my parents scare him away. This was a man who looked like he could move mountains.
"Why now?" I breathed, my heart hammering against my ribs.
His dark eyes burned into mine as he answered.
"Because you finally need me."