Clara’s POV
I had thought I’d buried Ethan in the past.
That night I left him, I told myself it was for the best. He was drowning in debt, working himself into exhaustion, and dragging me with him. We were living in a shoebox apartment with peeling paint, a mattress on the floor, and hope stretched thinner than paper. I told myself it wasn’t love anymore, that it was survival.
But standing at the fundraiser last night, hidden behind the glittering crowd, I saw him.
Ethan.
And I didn’t recognize him.
Gone was the boy in secondhand clothes, the man who could barely scrape together enough for dinner. In his place was someone polished, someone elegant. His suit wasn’t rented or patched together, it was fitted, perfect, expensive. His posture was different too. Straighter, more assured, e
