Chapter 4 – Echoes of a Life I Don’t Remember
723 Words
(Adrian's POV)
Morning arrived too fast.
Sunlight carved its way into the penthouse—sharp gold cutting across marble floors—warming everything except me. I lay there long before opening my eyes, listening to the muffled heartbeat of the city beneath the glass. Somewhere in the apartment, she moved—quiet steps, familiar rhythms…
As if the place already belonged to her.
As if I once belonged to her too.
Eva appeared in the doorway carrying a tray I never asked for—eggs prepared exactly how I would’ve liked them, black coffee in the mug engraved with my initials, toast sliced with a precision that felt intentional.
Something in my chest tightened, a flicker of… recognition?
“I thought you’d want breakfast,” she said softly. “You have a meeting today. I figured it would help.”
“I didn’t ask for help,” I muttered.
“You never did,” she murmured—then added, quieter, “not before either.”
Her voice trembled around the edges, but her gaze didn’t.
“But I know you.”
Three simple words.
And yet they hit like a memory trying to claw its way out of the dark.
You know me?
How?
Why did it feel true?
I pushed the tray aside. “I don’t know you,” I said—too sharp, too defensive. “Stop acting like I do.”
She didn’t flinch. She didn’t recoil. She just… took the words.
And then she whispered the sentence that cracked something open inside me:
“You did know me once.
You loved me once.
You just forgot.”
My pulse stumbled.
My denial collapsed.
And the truth—whatever it was—pressed against my skin like heat I couldn’t shake.
Because deep down, beneath the fog of amnesia, something in me responded to her.
The meeting that morning blurred by. I stared at presentations but absorbed nothing. Every voice sounded underwater, every number insignificant compared to that one truth Eva claimed to hold.
You loved me once.
When I finally returned to the penthouse, she was waiting—hands folded, shoulders squared as if bracing for impact.
“I went through your emails,” she said carefully. “Your contacts… your schedule. I sorted everything while you were recovering.”
I wanted to be angry. I wanted to demand how she knew my passwords, my routines—my life.
But all that came out was, “Why?”
“Because I remember,” she said, voice steady. “I remember us. And I’m not letting you fall apart again.”
Her certainty unnerved me.
Her tenderness terrified me.
Her devotion felt… dangerous.
I stepped onto the balcony, letting cold air slap the confusion out of me. Below, the city roared—alive, relentless, painfully clear.
But nothing in my life felt clear anymore.
My phone rang.
My mother.
Victoria’s voice slid through the line like polished ice—smooth, elegant, lethal.
“Have you made a decision about the woman?” she asked. “The intruder?”
“I’m handling it,” I said, though control was the last thing I felt.
“You cannot trust her,” she replied, every syllable sharpened to a blade. “Whatever she claims, whatever memory she tries to resurrect—it’s manipulation, Adrian. She wants something from you.”
“Mother—”
“She will take you. From me. From your legacy. From everything we’ve built—”
“I said I’m handling it,” I snapped.
Silence.
Then a calm, chilling click.
The line went dead, but her warning remained—slithering through my thoughts like poison.
Two voices.
Two truths.
Two versions of a life I didn’t remember.
Who was lying?
Who was I before all this?
CLIFFHANGER
A knock echoed through the penthouse.
Slow.
Purposeful.
Not Eva. Not staff. Not anyone who should know how to find me here.
My pulse jumped.
My feet moved toward the door before my mind caught up.
Then a voice—low, steady, unmistakably familiar—cut through the silence:
“Adrian… it’s time you remembered.”
I froze.
My breath lodged somewhere between fear and anticipation.
And for the first time since waking up,
I wasn’t sure if I wanted the truth…
or if the truth was about to destroy everything.
- Writer
