A week later, the rain came hard on Arlington Drive.
Sarah heard the car pull up outside.
It was already past closing time, but George had received a call the other day.
The VIP client was coming for his first fitting.
Sarah stood.
Her heart pounded against her chest.
Her children were already tucked in bed, exhausted from a day of playing inside while the rain fell.
She slid the fitting room curtain open, then stood beside it and adjusted her veil.
Sarah didn’t want to offend the client by revealing her scarred face.
She made sure it covered everything.
The bell rang and two men came in out of the rain.
“Good evening, sir.
My employer is here for the first fitting.”
“Please follow Miss Larson to the fitting room.
She would be the one taking your measurements.
It won’t take long,” George replied.
Sarah lowered her head.
She didn’t dare to look at their VIP client.
His footsteps came toward her and stopped.
She could tell he was tall by the shadow he cast on the floor.
“Boss, let me hold your coat,” his assistant said.
The man before Sarah shed his coat in silence, then handed it over to his assistant.
He then passed Sarah and entered the fitting room.
Sarah went still as his scent reached her.
She held her breath, her eyes going wide.
‘No.
This can’t be.
Please don’t tell me it’s him.’
Her legs trembled.
Everything in her screamed at her to run.
“Miss Larson, do you need help?” George asked when she didn’t move.
Sarah jolted and immediately moved.
She took a notepad and a tape measure from the sewing machine.
She had measured hundreds of clients over the past years.
She could do this with her eyes closed, but her hands wouldn’t stop trembling.
‘You’ve survived worse,’ she told herself.
‘You survived the fire.
You survived the crash.
You survived seven years without him.
You can survive one hour.’
Before entering the fitting room, she took a deep breath.
“Sir, I’m going in.”
She made sure that her foreign accent was obvious.
The man inside the fitting room hummed in response.
Sarah adjusted the lighting inside as soon as she stepped in.
She found him standing in front of the mirrors.
She avoided looking at his face, fearing it would only confirm her suspicion.
‘It can’t be him.
Not him.
Not here, please.’
“Stand straight for me, sir.
Arms out a little.”
He did.
Sarah lifted her tape and stepped in close.
She had to.
Any farther back and she wouldn’t see the measure correctly.
She brought her face near his chest to line up the tape.
That was when she caught his scent.
Stronger now.
Clean.
Warm.
Familiar.
She knew that scent more than anyone else.
It was the first thing she noticed about him.
Clean soap, warm skin, and a hint of cedar from the cologne he never overused.
She spent seven years trying to forget it.
Her body refused.
She fought the urge to lift her head and look at his face.
As if not looking could keep the lie alive—that this wasn’t the man she left seven years ago.
Her heart knew before her mind did.
Seven years and she still remembered.
Adrian.
She knew his frame and scent the way she knew her own children’s faces.
She knew his exact height, the height she had to reach to loop the tape behind his neck.
Seven years.
She had crossed the world to stay away from this man.
She had let him believe she betrayed him and died.
She had kept him from ever knowing the children he never knew he had.
Now, he stood close enough that she could feel the warmth off his skin.
He had walked back into her life on his own two feet.
She wanted to drop the tape, grab hold of him and never let go.
She wanted to tell him how sorry she was—for the lie, for leaving.
But she couldn’t.
Sarah kept her hands steady and continued her work.
She gave him a few instructions.
He followed without a word.
Her hands moved the way they always did—steady, fast.
No wasted movement.
Each time, she brought the tape measure an inch from her nose.
The only way she could see it.
“Forty-two,” she said, as if talking to herself.
She wrote the number down and kept moving.
When her knuckles rested against his chest, Sarah felt his heart beating.
It was steady.
He was alive.
Seven years ago, she knelt in the rain and begged his mother to let him live.
Now, this same heart was still going.
Her eyes stung, but Sarah blinked them back and kept moving.
She made a deal with Cecilia that night.
Adrian’s life for her disappearance.
The Moretti name wouldn’t fall because of her.
Cecilia had kept her word.
Adrian was alive.
Sarah had kept hers, and she intended to keep it.
The Morettis upheld their part.
Sarah knew she had to continue paying the price.
She lifted his wrist for the sleeve, and her thumb brushed the bare skin.
Sarah nearly lost her grip.
His hands.
She had held them a thousand times.
She had pressed them against her face and told him they would be all right.
They had never been all right.
He was alive and was close enough for her to hold.
Close enough to lose all over again.
He had no idea whose hands were on him.
‘He thinks I’m dead.
He thinks I betrayed him.
Keep it that way.
For the twins’ safety, keep it that way.’
‘You gave him up once to save his life.
You can give him up again for your children.’
“That’s the arms done, sir,” she told him.
Her voice held.
“We’re almost finished.”
Adrian still didn’t speak.
He just stood there, still and patient, the way he always had when it came to her.
He had been like this before.
Quiet and watchful.
Letting her do her work.
Sarah hated how much she loved that about him.
She stepped back to write down the numbers and let herself breathe for the first time since he walked into the shop.
She had survived the fitting.
That was the only thought she could hold onto.
Not the way his presence made her heart ache.
Not the way his heartbeat had felt beneath her hands.
Not the way every instinct screamed at her to hold onto him.
She had survived the fitting.
She would survive the rest.
Because she had no other choice.
Her mind told her to give him up and leave again.
But it couldn’t stop what her heart already knew.
Her heart still belonged to this man.
She could give up everything else.
Her name.
Her face.
Her past.
Her future.
She could give up the man standing close to her.
But her heart—