Chapter One- The Return
Lana’s POV
Airports always smelled like goodbyes.
Even when you were coming home.
After five years in Paris, I thought I’d gotten used to leaving things behind — apartments, people, pieces of myself. But stepping out into the spring air of New York again felt different. It was heavier somehow, thick with the past I thought I’d have outgrown.
A part of me still wanted to be that girl in a Paris café, writing French idioms into a notebook while sipping tea that tasted like courage. But that girl had run out of courage — and contracts. So when the offer came in from a global language company called Extra International, it felt like fate’s way of saying, time to come home.
A company built around languages — the very thing that had once tied my heart in knots. Lots of anxieties back then!
“Ms. Moreau?” a voice called from across the lobby. A woman in a crisp blazer smiled, extending a hand. “Welcome to Extra International. I’m Harper, Mr. Hart’s assistant.”
Mr. Hart.
The name meant nothing to me at first..until it did. Until it felt like gravity, pulling every molecule in my body to a standstill.
No. It couldn’t be.
Daniel Hart was a dream I’d left behind under a college sky — brilliant, stubborn, unforgettable. The boy who once whispered beyond limits like it was a promise meant only for us.
But the Daniel I remembered couldn’t possibly be this Daniel. The CEO of a company whose name we made up while sitting outside at school, having cheap pizza.
Still, as Harper led me through the glass corridors, my pulse thudded louder with every step. The building was sleek, modern, ambitious — everything Daniel used to talk about. And somehow, I already knew.
We stopped in front of a set of tall double doors. Harper smiled. “He’s expecting you.”
Expecting me.
My palms were damp. My heart, traitorous.
When the doors opened, I saw him — older now, sharper around the edges, but unmistakably him. The same brown eyes, steady and unreadable. The same posture, confident yet familiar.
For a moment, the room was silent except for the faint hum of city noise behind the glass.
He blinked, surprise flickering across his face before he smiled — slow, careful, devastating.
“Lana Moreau,” he said, in a voice that hadn’t changed at all. “It’s been a long time.”
My throat tightened. “Ten years,” I managed. “But who’s counting?”
He chuckled softly, the sound both foreign and achingly familiar. “Welcome to Extra International. I suppose we’ve come full circle.”
I smiled — or tried to.
But inside, I knew nothing about this felt circular. It felt like the start of something I’d never truly finished.
