Chapter 3 3

The storm had rolled in sometime after midnight.

Rain lashed against the windows, the steady rhythm echoing through the quiet expanse of the master bedroom. I lay on my side, eyes open.

Sleep had long since abandoned me.

The bed felt impossibly wide, the space beside me untouched and cold. I could still picture Elias standing at the door earlier that evening, coat in hand, telling me he had a meeting. The sound of the door closing behind him had lingered long after he was gone. Now, as thunder rolled through the distance, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was truly still in the city—or if he had gone to her.

Willow.

The name alone was enough to make my chest tighten.

I turned onto my back, pressing my palms against my stomach. The only light came from the soft glow of the bedside lamp, its golden hue casting long shadows across the walls. My gaze drifted toward my purse resting on the armchair, the folded ultrasound hidden inside.

A new life. A secret.

And yet, as the storm outside grew wilder, all I could think about was the past.

I had been eighteen then, fresh out of high school and helping my mother at Paul Sinclair’s house during the summer before college. My mother had worked as Paul’s assistant for nearly a decade and often brought me along when the older man’s health began to fail.

Paul had been kind from the very first day I met him. Gentle, sharp-witted, endlessly patient. He treated me like the daughter he never had, teasing me about my quietness and my wide-eyed curiosity.

“You’re going to make someone very nervous one day with those big eyes, Maya,” he had joked once as I arranged books in his study. “Just make sure he’s worth your time.”

I had laughed, cheeks warm, never telling him that the person who made me nervous already existed.

Elias Sinclair.

I had first met him at sixteen, a shy student tagging along with my mother on a weekend visit. Elias had been home from college then, tall and confident, with a quiet charisma that made him seem older than his years. He had two friends with him that day— Kellan, quick-tongued and charming, and Willow Hart, beautiful and effortlessly radiant.

I had spent most of that afternoon hiding behind a book, stealing glances whenever I thought no one noticed. Elias had been polite, offering me a kind smile and a few words before turning back to his friends. He treated me like a child, and maybe I was one then. But that brief kindness had stirred something I didn’t understand.

Over the years, that feeling grew into love. I followed his achievements from afar, reading about his work in magazines, hearing stories from Paul. Each time, my admiration deepened. Elias was everything I thought I wanted. Calm, capable, driven. The kind of man who seemed unreachable.

Then everything changed.

Paul’s illness came without warning. One moment he was vibrant, the next he was sitting behind his desk, pale and tired.

“I don’t have much time left,” he said quietly. “The cancer’s beyond medical intervention.”

I had been helping him sort through his medical reports when he told me. The papers had slipped from my hands. From that day, I visited him almost daily. I brought him tea, helped him with his medications, and listened when he spoke of his three sons.

“Elias worries me,” he confided one afternoon. “He’s brilliant, but he lives too fast. Too detached. He thinks life can be managed like a company, but it can’t.”

I had smiled softly. “He’ll find his balance someday.”

Paul had looked at me with gentle affection. “He would, if he had someone like you beside him.”

I had laughed, embarrassed, never imagining he meant it.

Weeks later, Paul called both Elias and me to his study. I could still remember the soft hiss of rain outside, the smell of paper and medicine in the air.

Paul sat behind his desk, frail but composed. Elias stood beside me, hands in his pockets, his expression tense.

“I won’t waste time,” Paul said. “I want to see you married, Elias. And I want your wife to be Maya.”

The words had hit like thunder.

My heart stopped. “Mr. Sinclair, you can’t mean that.”

“I do,” he said gently. “You’ve always been like family to us, Maya. You have a good heart, and I trust you more than anyone. I want to know my son is in the hands of someone who will care for him long after I’m gone.”

Elias’s reaction was instant. “No,” he said, his tone clipped. “I can’t marry her just because you want it.”

Paul’s gaze didn’t waver. “You don’t have to love her right away. Love grows in unexpected ways.”

“That’s not how this works,” Elias replied tightly.

I had wanted to tell Paul to stop, to say I understood, that Elias didn’t love me and never would. But when I saw Paul’s trembling hands and fading strength, I stayed silent.

After that day, everything shifted.

Elias grew distant and curt, his politeness sharp enough to cut. He avoided me, and when he couldn’t, he spoke to me as little as possible. The warmth I had once seen in him was gone.

I had pleaded with Paul to reconsider, but he only smiled sadly. “You’ll see,” he said. “He just needs time.”

Then, one gray evening, Elias appeared at my doorstep.

He stood there under the porch light, rainwater dripping from his coat, his eyes unreadable.

“Maya,” he said quietly, “will you marry me?”

I had stared at him, heart pounding. There was no ring, no softness in his voice, only resolve.

I said yes. Not because I thought it would make him love me, but because I couldn’t bear to disappoint Paul in his final months.

The wedding had been small, almost somber. Paul had watched from his wheelchair, tears shining in his eyes. I still remembered the way he squeezed my hand after the ceremony, whispering, “Thank you.”

Elias had been polite, distant even on our wedding day. His smile had been forced, his touch formal. I told myself it didn’t matter, that love could come later. That one day he might look at me the way he used to look at Willow.

But as I lay awake now, listening to the rain hammer against the windows, I knew how wrong I had been.

Elias had done his duty. He had fulfilled his father’s dying wish. But in doing so, he had built a wall between us.

A tear slipped down my temple, vanishing into the pillow. I turned onto my side, eyes fixed on the darkened window where rain trailed down in silver paths. My hand moved instinctively to my stomach.

“Paul,” I whispered into the stillness, “I wish you were here. I don’t know how to fix what’s left of us.”

Outside, thunder rolled again, long and low, fading into silence.

Inside, I closed my eyes, listening to the rain and the ache of a heart that still loved a man who had never truly been mine.