The Lie That Married Us

Serena’s POV “You shouldn’t have come back.” I froze at the sound of the voice behind me. It was one I had spent six years trying to forget. Slowly, I turned around and found Damian Cross standing several feet behind me. He was older, colder, and nothing like the boy I remembered, but his eyes were the same. They met mine, and for one terrible second, I forgot how to breathe. Six months earlier… I was sitting alone in my office, staring at a leather ledger that had been in my possession for almost three years. I had memorized every page of it that remained, including every blank space where the missing pages should have been. I ran my thumb along the edge before opening it again. My father’s handwriting stared back at me. Julian Vale. I ran my thumb over the name, the old accusation settling over me like it had never really left. For years, that name had been associated with one thing. Betrayal. My father had been accused of stealing money from the company he had built with Richard Cross. When the scandal became public, everything my family had worked for disappeared almost overnight. Our reputation, our business, our home, our place in Belmont, and eventually, my father. I had been young when everything happened, but I remembered enough. I remembered the reporters outside our house, my mother pulling the curtains shut and telling me not to go outside, and the whispers whenever we were mentioned. Most of all, I remembered my father sitting beside my bed one night, looking more tired than I had ever seen him. “I didn’t do it, Serena.” I had believed him then and I still did. I turned another page, finding the same numbers, dates, transactions, and names I had spent years trying to understand. There were payments I had never heard of, transactions that didn’t match the official reports, and references to documents that no longer existed. But the worst part was the missing pages that hadn’t been torn out carelessly but had been removed deliberately because someone had wanted those pages gone. The missing pages were nowhere, and without them, I couldn’t prove anything. A knock sounded against my office door, and I quickly closed the ledger. “Come in.” Lila pushed the door open with two cups of coffee in her hands. “You’ve been staring at that thing for hours again.” “I wasn’t staring.” She placed one cup beside me. “You were absolutely staring.” I smiled despite myself, but then her eyes moved to the ledger. “You’re still going?” I knew exactly what she meant, she was referring to Belmont. “I have to.” “Serena…” “I’ve spent years looking for answers from here.” I tapped the ledger. “If the records really are being reopened, I can’t stay away.” “You don’t know who sent the message, why they sent it, or what you’ll find when you get there.” “I know.” “Then why are you going?” I looked down at the ledger, “Because my father never got the chance to clear his name.” I closed it. “I do.” Lila’s expression changed as she reached across the desk and squeezed my hand. “Then promise me you’ll be careful.” “I promise.” The lie came too easily because if the truth was waiting for me in Belmont, I knew I wouldn’t stop until I found it, even if it could destroy everything I had built. I looked at the ledger again, there was another reason going back terrified me. One name. Damian Cross. I hadn’t seen him since the day my family fell apart. Back then, Damian had been the boy who used to sneak out of his house just to sit with me in my father’s garden, I can still remember the way his hand had felt in mine, and six years later, I hated that I could. Then the scandal happened. One day, Damian was the boy who held my hand in my father’s garden. The next, our families were enemies, and everything between us disappeared. I had spent six years convincing myself that Damian Cross belonged to a life I had buried. Apparently, I had been lying to myself. I wasn’t sure which lie was harder to believe. That I had forgotten him or that I ever could. — The next morning, I stood in front of my bedroom mirror with a suitcase beside me, Belmont was waiting. I picked up my phone and the message was still there. The Cross family is reopening the old records. I deleted it, not because I didn’t need it, but because I had memorized it. I took one last look around my apartment, this had been my safe place. Here, I was Serena Laurent. Nobody knew me as Julian Vale’s daughter, nobody whispered when I walked into a room, and nobody knew what my family had lost. Going back meant risking all of it. But staying away meant accepting that my father’s name might remain stained forever so i picked up my suitcase and walked out. — The drive to Belmont was a blur of old roads and older memories. By the time the skyline appeared, my fingers had gone stiff around the steering wheel. For one terrifying second, I considered turning around but then I remembered my father’s voice. “I didn’t do it.” I kept driving. By the time I arrived, the sun was beginning to disappear behind the buildings. Belmont looked almost exactly as I remembered it, maybe I was the only one who had changed. I had barely crossed the parking lot when I heard a familiar voice. “Serena?” My fingers slipped slightly against the strap of my bag. Slowly, I turned and found Damian Cross standing there. I forced myself to hold his gaze even as every instinct told me to look away. For a bit, something flickered in his expression, something I couldn’t name, maybe recognition. For one stupid second, hope rose before I could stop it. He knew me. He had to. Then his face became unreadable. “I’m sorry,” he said calmly. “Have we met?” I stared at him. Six years. Six years had been enough time to turn a person into a memory. Apparently, it wasn’t enough time to make being forgotten hurt less. I kept my face still. “No.” His gaze stayed on mine before he smiled, giving me a cold, unfamiliar smile. “Then I suppose it’s nice to meet you, Ms. Laurent.” I nodded as though his words hadn’t mattered. Maybe he really had forgotten me and somehow, that hurt more than I wanted it to.