Adrian had been waiting for this day.
He deliberately delayed this meeting not only to sort out his thoughts but also to avoid scaring away the Larson woman.
He received the report about her.
He had read it a dozen times until he’d memorized it.
He hadn’t slept properly.
Not since he saw the recording and heard her name.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the veiled woman at the bus stop.
He needed to see her.
To confirm or deny.
To know if he was chasing a ghost or losing his mind.
Emelia Larson.
There wasn’t any notable information about her aside from being an orphan in Bellavere, attending a community college, and giving birth to twins.
Nothing listed her husband or the father of her children.
No husband, no parents, and no one on the page to explain the children.
He had stared at those blank lines for hours.
They told him more than the rest of the file combined.
There was also no reason why she and her children suddenly appeared in Costa Verde.
No record showed Emelia Larson arriving in this city until three months ago.
The profile told him everything, yet Adrian felt it wasn’t enough.
Emelia Larson was nothing but a struggling single mother raising her twins.
He wanted to believe that.
He needed to believe that.
But nothing about her felt simple.
“Boss, the rain is pouring.
Should we reschedule the fitting?” Calvin asked.
“No, let’s proceed.
They must be waiting.”
An hour later, Adrian sat in the back seat of the car as they made a stop before an old garment shop on Arlington Drive.
Calvin opened the front seat door and used the umbrella to protect Adrian from the rain.
The shop was empty but open when they arrived.
An old man greeted them by the door.
Adrian looked around the shop.
It was small and old.
The kind of place that had been there for decades.
His gaze landed on the woman who had just opened the curtain of the fitting room.
She was about the same height as Sarah, but she was considerably thinner than his beloved wife.
She wore a veil.
Different from what she was wearing at the bus stop.
It was dark blue with laced seams.
It covered half of her face, hiding the scarred part.
As he passed her and entered the fitting room, he saw her tremble.
But she didn’t say a word and started working professionally as if she’d taken measurements of men before him.
She was afraid.
Of him, most likely.
Men like him made people afraid.
He was used to it.
He didn’t like it, but he was used to it.
Adrian watched her through the mirror and felt like a fool.
He had waited for this moment for days, and now he was here, watching a stranger take his measurements.
And all he could think about was how much she looked like Sarah.
He had come for one reason.
To stand close to the woman he’d seen at the bus stop and see her with his own eyes, to know whether he was losing his mind or not.
He’d half expected to laugh at himself the moment he did.
But he didn’t.
Emelia Larson was about the same height.
She held herself a certain way.
Cautious but fast.
She kept her head lowered and didn’t dare to meet his eyes.
She moved like someone who used to make herself small and unseen.
Adrian wondered if she was conscious of her scarred face.
She covered it well.
Her hands initially shook when they came near him.
They were thin and bony—the hands of someone who worked with them every day.
But they were steady at work.
She knew what she was doing.
Perhaps it was because of her thin body.
Miss Larson’s jaw and chin were sharp against the bright light.
Looking at her lower face, he could see why he had mistaken her for his Sarah.
Even the curve of her lips was the same.
Adrian forced himself to look away.
He counted to ten in his mind.
Then twenty.
When he looked back, she was writing in her notepad, her head lowered.
The image of her lips stayed with him.
He tried to shake it but couldn’t.
Sarah was dead.
He’d stood at her grave on more nights than he could count.
This was a seamstress named Emelia, from Bellavere.
The city was full of women with sad stories.
Grief had been playing tricks on him.
First, the woman at the port.
Now this.
Except the woman at the port and the seamstress before him were the same person.
He watched her lift each mark to her face to read it, as if she was struggling to read even under the bright lights.
She kept moving and writing, never stopping even for a moment.
Maybe her eyesight was poor.
Maybe she needed glasses.
He didn’t know.
He filed it away with everything else he had noticed about her.
Too many details didn’t add up.
She was a stranger.
She shouldn’t have this many things in common with his dead wife.
Then she turned around and was about to step out of the fitting room when her veil started slipping from its pin and fell away.
She stepped forward, missed her step, and nearly fell.
Adrian moved.
His hand pulled her arm towards him.
The sudden change of direction forced the seamstress to fall on him instead.
He didn’t think and just moved.
She was falling and would hit the glass.
He couldn’t let that happen.
The fitting room could accommodate only two people, but with Adrian’s height and build, the seamstress had very little space to move.
Her full weight fell into him, forcing Adrian to step back, but he hit the mirror instead.
Adrian pulled the woman into his arms and braced for the impact, shielding her from the sharp glass.
She was small.
Smaller than he expected.
She fit against him as if she belonged there.
He held her longer than he needed to.
He didn’t know why.
Glass shattered behind him, followed by the seamstress’s scream.
Adrian didn’t feel it.
He was braced over her, one arm around her waist, the other planted against the floor to keep his weight off her.
The veil was gone, lost among the shards.
Her face was bare beneath him.
Adrian saw the scar first—the burn mark that ran from her cheek to her jaw.
Then the curve of her lips.
Then her long, straight, pitch-black hair that reached her waist.
Sarah had brown hair.
Soft and wavy.
He had run his fingers through it a thousand times.
He would know it anywhere.
This woman’s hair was black and straight.
Different.
He should have felt relieved, but he didn’t.
She was trembling in his arms, and when she looked up at him and met his gaze, Adrian felt it was wrong.
He expected the hint of green in her eyes, but the ones that stared back were hazel.
Her lips parted, but no sound came out.
She pushed herself away from his chest and looked away.
He stayed on the floor, glass crunching beneath him.
The rain was still hammering against the nearby window.
He had looked at her and seen her face.
And he still didn’t know what he was looking at.