Chapter 4
786 Words
Vortiger Estate – Private Office, 7:44 P.M.
Cassien Vortiger had stood in boardrooms with billions on the line and never flinched. But now, standing in front of Selene Morane the Selene his hands curled into fists at his sides to keep from shaking.
She had said it so quietly, like a confession.
“My name is Selene Morane.”
It echoed in his chest like a door slamming open inside a long-forgotten house.
He couldn’t speak at first. Could barely breathe.
He looked at her now, really looked and saw her. The slope of her cheek. The way her mouth twitched when she was holding back emotion. Those eyes god, how had he missed those eyes?
Selene. The girl from the fire. The one he had sworn to protect.
“I…” His voice came rough and useless. “You can’t be.”
Her chin lifted. “I am. You promised you’d come back. But you didn’t.”
Cassien turned away from her and gripped the edge of the table until his knuckles whitened. He remembered a stairwell. Flames licking the ceiling. Selene coughing, wrapped in a blanket. He remembered pain and sirens, and then nothing.
“I lost it,” he murmured. “All of it. The memories. The names. I woke up in a hospital and everything felt like static.”
“You didn’t think to ask?” Her voice wasn’t angry. It was tired.
“I was told I had no visitors. No one left.”
His eyes met hers again. “Why didn’t you come back?”
Selene’s breath hitched. “I was seventeen, Cassien. My sister was in surgery. You disappeared. No one gave me answers. I thought…” She looked down. “I thought you left on purpose.”
Silence stretched between them like something sacred.
Cassien walked slowly to the photo on the table and touched it. “You kept this?”
Selene nodded once. “It’s all I had.”
Cassien didn’t sit. He couldn’t. A million things moved inside him, like broken shards trying to reassemble.
He should’ve been furious at the deception.
But instead, he felt grief. Deep, pulsing grief for a memory lost and a girl abandoned.
“You worked with me… for days… without saying anything.”
“I needed to know who you were now,” she said. “If the man I loved was still buried inside the billionaire.”
He flinched.
“You loved me?”
“I was seventeen,” she repeated. “But yes.”
Cassien sat down heavily on the leather chair and rubbed his forehead. “God. I don’t even know what to say.”
Selene hesitated. “You don’t have to say anything. I just… needed you to remember.”
For a long moment, neither of them moved. The only sound was the ocean crashing far below.
Finally, Cassien spoke, quieter this time. “What happened to you… after the fire?”
Selene crossed her arms, but her voice cracked at the edges. “Lysa and I ended up in a shelter. I worked nights. She needed surgery. A family friend helped us relocate. Eventually, I built a new life.”
“A life that brought you back to me.”
“A life that you forgot,” she corrected.
Cassien’s chest tightened.
This wasn’t just about memory. It was about the damage his absence caused. The hole he left without knowing it.
“I want to remember everything,” he said. “All of it. Even if it hurts.”
Selene stared at him, disbelieving. “Why now?”
“Because the moment you said your name, it felt like something broke open inside me.”
He looked at her—fully, honestly. “And I’m terrified of what else I lost.”
Later that night, after she left, Cassien stood in the same spot, replaying everything.
Selene Morane.
Her name repeated like a mantra in his head.
He went to the locked cabinet in the corner of his office, one only he had the key for. Inside were fragments of a life he never understood photos, journal entries he didn’t remember writing, items from the hospital.
He pulled out a tattered notebook marked 2007–2017. Scrawled notes, drawings, names.
He flipped through until he found it:
A sketch of a girl.
Long hair. Eyes like Selene’s. Labeled simply:
“Don’t forget her.”
Cassien leaned against the cabinet and exhaled hard.
He had forgotten her.
But some part of him had tried to remember.
And now that she was here, he wasn’t sure if he deserved a second chance.
But he knew one thing for certain
He wouldn’t let her slip away again.
- Writer
