ALTHEA'S POV
Okay, so being a comeback artist is basically just adult show and tell with better lighting and a budget. It's been a week of it now, and I'm starting to get the rhythm.
Go to the Celestial Sound tower. Smile at people who still look at me like I might suddenly remember I hate them. Work with Maya, who is a genius and lets me eat gummy bears in the recording booth. Avoid direct eye contact with Janea Vance, my confusing ex-girlfriend from a past life I can't fully remember.
Key word: try to avoid.
Because here's the thing about Janea. When Haven is there, looming behind me like a gorgeous, silent shadow in her perfectly tailored suits, Janea keeps her distance. She's all polite smiles and professional nods from across the room. It's like Haven emits a "vipers, keep back" force field. It's kinda hot, not gonna lie.
But when Haven gets pulled away to take a call from Singapore, to sign something for Liam, to glare at a spreadsheet that displeased her Janea slithers into the vacuum. Nothing major. Just a "How's the track coming, Thea?" by the coffee machine. Or a "I heard that take, your lower register is back, Thea" as she passes the control room.
And every single time, without fail, I'd feel this prickling sensation on the back of my neck. I'd glance up, and there, in the corner of the ceiling, would be the unblinking black eye of a security camera. And I just knew. Haven was watching. From her phone, from her office, from some secret command center in our basement. Her jealousy was a live feed, and I was the star of the show.
Was it toxic of me to find that… thrilling? To sometimes linger a second too long in conversation with Janea, just to feel the imaginary heat of Haven's gaze intensify? To go home and find Haven a little stiffer, a little more quiet, her possessive energy simmering just below the surface, and think, hehe, I did that? Maybe. Probably. But in my defense, poking the beautiful, terrifying bear that loved me was the most entertaining sport I'd discovered since amnesia.
Today was the Big Announcement Day. No more secret studio sessions. We were telling the world that Althea Vale was back, and she was in love, and her new music was basically a audio scrapbook of that love. Haven had wanted to be here, but some crisis at a resort in Bali about a "hostile takeover attempt of the local orchid Hotel supply" (her words) demanded her immediate, furious attention. She'd kissed me goodbye that morning with a ferocity that felt like a warning and a promise. Be good. I'm watching.
So here I was, in a stunning emerald green gown that made me feel like a art deco statue, getting my picture taken in front of a backdrop of blown-up Polaroids the ones from our garden, our kitchen, a few sly, shadowy shots of Haven's profile. The press release called it "intimate" and "authentic." I called it "my wife is hot and I have a camera."
The photoshoot was a blur of flashing lights and "give us more mystery, Althea!" from the photographer. Then came the social media team, filming a quick, breathless video of me holding a vinyl mock-up of the single, "My Only One," smiling like I'd just won the lottery. Which, in a way, I felt like I had.
It was done. The posts were scheduled. The world would know in T-minus three hours.
As the team began to pack up, Janea appeared, holding a simple bouquet of cheerful white daisies. She looked… genuine. Happy, even.
"Althea," she said, her voice warm. "Congratulations. Really. This is a huge moment. I just wanted to say I'm proud of you. For coming back. For doing it your way."
It was so… normal. So collegial. The suspicion Haven had drilled into me warred with the amnesiac's desire to believe people were nice. Daisies weren't roses. They were friendly flowers. "Thank you, Janea," I said, accepting them. "That's really sweet."
She smiled, a little sadly. "I know I'm… a complicated part of your past. But I truly do wish you happiness." With a final nod, she melted back into the hallway.
Okay. That was… okay. Maybe Haven was wrong. Maybe people change. Maybe exes can be… not friends, but civil.
I turned to put the daisies on a nearby table cluttered with equipment when I noticed another bouquet already there. This one was different. Exquisite. A cascade of deep purple lisianthus, blush-pink peonies, and trailing ivy, wrapped in black silk ribbon. It was darkly romantic, utterly Haven.
A smile spread across my face. Of course. She couldn't be here, so she sent flowers. My obsessive, beautiful wife. I reached for the small card nestled among the blooms.
The handwriting was elegant, but it wasn't Haven's sharp, decisive script. This was more flowing, almost artistic. My heart did a funny little skip. Maybe she had an assistant write it?
I opened it.
Congratulations, Eya.
You look happy. Almost enough to make me believe the lie. But I remember the song you wrote before the silence. I remember what you were afraid of. Flowers die when they're kept in the dark, even if the gardener says it's for their own safety.
Don't forget to look behind the curtain.
Be careful, my friend.
I stared at the words. They didn't compute. Thea. Only a few people from my old life called me that. The card with Janea's daisies was signed with a simple smiley face. This… this was different.
A cold finger traced down my spine. The lie? What I was afraid of? The only fear I remembered lately was the formless terror of the accident, the panic of memory loss. Was there another fear? A specific one?
Flowers die in the dark… the gardener says it's for their own safety.
The metaphor was obvious, and it was aimed directly at Haven. At my gilded cage. At the possessive love I'd just professed to thrive in.
"Althea! There you are!" Dana's cheerful voice broke through my paralysis. "Come on! Angel has ordered a mountain of sushi and champagne to the big pantry! Celebration time!"
I crumpled the card in my fist, shoving it deep into the pocket of my long skirt. My smile felt brittle as I turned to her. "Oh! Dana! Here you are! Haha! Sushi! Great! Let's go!"
The celebration was a blur of noise and color. The Celestial Sound staff were buzzing, toasting my return. Angel gave a charming little speech. I laughed, I ate a California roll, I accepted more congratulations. But my mind was a thousand miles away, locked on the words in my pocket.
My eyes found Janea across the room. She was laughing with Angel, looking relaxed, happy. If she'd sent the dark bouquet, would she be so calm? Would she sign it "your friend"? We were exes. That didn't track.
But if not Janea… who? Who knew my old fears? Who called me Eya? Who would dare send such a thing, knowing Haven would likely find out?
The sushi turned to ash in my mouth. The cheerful chatter became a deafening roar. I kept touching my pocket, the card like a piece of dry ice burning through the fabric.
I needed to get out. I needed to think. Or, more accurately, I needed Haven. I needed her to tell me this was nothing, to dissect the threat with her cold logic, to wrap me in her arms and make the creeping fear go away.
But first, I had to survive the party.
HAVEN'S POV
The hostile takeover of the Balinese orchid syndicate was, in fact, a minor irritation orchestrated by a former business partner with a grudge. It took me forty-seven minutes to dismantle his operations, freeze his assets, and ensure he would be too busy fighting extradition to Thailand to ever bother me again.
Satisfaction was a cold, blunt instrument. But it was a distraction. My true focus was split across multiple screens in my office, the live feeds from Celestial Sound providing a more vital, more maddening drama.
There she was. My Althea. A vision in emerald, glowing under the studio lights. She was radiant. She was mine. And she was smiling at the camera, at the crew, at the world that would soon know she belonged to me.
The presentation to the Vale Holdings board had been a necessary farce. I spoke of quarterly projections and brand expansion while my mind replayed the clip from an hour prior: Althea, in a quieter moment between shots, looking at a Polaroid of us, her thumb stroking the image of my face. The private, tender smile on her lips was my true sustenance.
Then, a new clip auto-saved to the encrypted server. From a camera in the hallway outside the studio. A man, nondescript, wearing a delivery uniform and a surgical mask common enough in the city now. He carried bouquets. He approached a young intern from the marketing team who was smoking by a fire exit.
"Flowers for Ms. Vale," he said, his voice muffled. "From her wife, Ms. Hartwell. Can you make sure these get to her dressing area? Security is tight today."
The intern, eager to help, took them. "Of course! Wow, they're beautiful."
The man nodded and left, disappearing down a service stairwell.
On my screen, I watched, my blood beginning to hum a warning tune. I had sent no flowers. I'd planned a different surprise for later.
I pulled up the clip from the studio camera, fast-forwarding to the moment the intern placed the bouquets on the side table. One was a simple bunch of daisies. The other was the dark, lavish arrangement of lisianthus and peonies.
My eyes narrowed. The daisies were from Janea; I'd seen her bring them in earlier. But the other…
I isolated the feed, zooming in. The card. I couldn't read it, but I saw Althea pick it up after Janea left. I saw her face. The initial smile of recognition melted into confusion, then into something else a dawning, chilling apprehension. She read it again, her knuckles white. Then, Dana arrived, and she shoved the card into her pocket like it was a live serpent.
Who.
The question was a silent roar in my skull. Who had impersonated me? Who had bypassed the security I'd personally overseen? Who had placed a message in my wife's hands that caused that look of fear?
The fear was the worst part. Not anger at an intrusion, not annoyance at a prank. Fear.
A red, blinding rage began to eclipse all rational thought. This was not business. This was not a rival. This was a violation of the most sacred boundary. This was an attack on her. On her peace. On the reality I had so carefully constructed for her.
My hand, resting on the desk, curled into a fist so tight my tendons screamed. The rational part of my brain, the CEO, began issuing silent, furious commands. Trace the delivery service. Facial recognition on the man, mask or not. Pull all external camera footage from a three-block radius. Audit every employee who touched that floor today.
But the alpha, the monster, the obsessed heart of me, had only one command: Get to her. Now.
I stood up, my chair slamming into the wall behind me. The screens continued to play: Althea at the party now, in the pantry, a flute of champagne untouched in her hand. She was smiling, but it didn't reach her eyes. She kept glancing around, her hand drifting to her skirt pocket every few seconds. She was scared. In the middle of her celebration, surrounded by people, my love was frightened.
That was unacceptable. An aberration that needed to be corrected with extreme prejudice.
I didn't bother with a coat. I strode from my office, through the silent, opulent hallways of our office. "The car. Now," I barked into my phone, and within sixty seconds, the town car was idling at the curb, Marcus behind the wheel, his usual calm demeanor tensing at the sight of my expression.
"Celestial Sound. Fast."
The city blurred past. My mind was a war room. Janea was the obvious suspect, but it felt too obvious. The message spoke of old fears, of songs before the "silence" the period after her accident. Janea knew that history, yes. But the tone… "Be careful, my friend." It was intimate, but not romantic. A warning from someone who believed they had her best interests at heart. Someone who saw me as the threat.
By the time the car screeched to a halt in front of the tower, I had a list of potential names in my head. Former collaborators. Old "friends" from her Juilliard days. Family members I'd paid off to stay away. Each one was a spark I thought I'd extinguished.
I entered the building, and the usual awe-struck hush that followed me was drowned out by the static in my own ears. I went straight to the private elevator, bypassing all security with a swipe of my keycard. My scent grape wine turned sharp and acrid with fury filled the small space.
The elevator opened onto the creative floor. The sounds of the party drifted from the open pantry door. Laughter. Clinking glasses.
I walked in, and the room fell silent. All eyes turned to me. The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees. I ignored them. My gaze swept the room, finding her instantly.
Althea was near the window, holding her champagne flute like a shield. Her eyes, wide and anxious, found mine across the crowd. In them, I saw relief so profound it cracked something inside my chest, and a fear that made the monster in me snarl.
She took a step toward me, and the crowd instinctively parted, creating a path. I met her halfway. I didn't speak. I simply reached for her, my hands closing around her upper arms. My touch was firm, grounding, a claim and an inspection rolled into one. I leaned in, inhaling deeply. Her strawberry-vanilla scent was spiked with the sharp, sour tang of adrenaline.
"Are you hurt?" My voice was low, a vibration meant only for her.
She shook her head, her curls bouncing. "No. I'm… I'm okay." Her voice was small.
My eyes dropped to her skirt pocket, the slight rectangular bulge of the card. "You have something."
She followed my gaze and nodded, a quick, jerky movement.
"Give it to me."
She fished the crumpled card from her pocket and pressed it into my palm. Our fingers brushed, and hers were ice-cold.
I didn't read it there. I didn't need to. I could feel the poison in the paper. I pocketed it, my other hand sliding down her arm to intertwine our fingers. My grip was undoubtedly too tight, but she didn't pull away. She clung to me.
I finally looked up, addressing the room, my voice cutting through the silence like a blade. "My wife is feeling unwell. The excitement of the day." My eyes found Angel, who was watching with a carefully neutral expression. "We'll be leaving."
Without waiting for a response, I turned, pulling Althea with me. She stumbled slightly, then matched my pace, her hand a lifeline in mine. We walked out of the party, down the silent hall, past the studio where her beautiful pictures still sat, past the table where the two bouquets now seemed like grotesque monuments.
The dark, beautiful one I left where it was. A crime scene. The daisies I swept into a trash can with a backhanded flick as we passed.
In the elevator, alone, I turned to her. I cradled her face, forcing her to look at me. "Tell me everything. From the moment you saw it."
Her words tumbled out in a rushed whisper the two bouquets, Janea's congratulations, finding the card, the confusing message.
"Who calls you Eya?" I asked, my thumbs stroking her cheeks, a gesture of comfort that belied the murderous calculus in my mind.
"I… I don't know. Someone from before. A friend, I guess?" Her brow furrowed in frustration. "The song before the silence… what does that mean? What was I afraid of, Haven?"
The question hung between us. The fear in her eyes was now mixed with a desperate need for truth. My truth.
I looked at her, my beautiful, amnesiac wife, standing in a elevator that felt like it was plummeting even as it ascended. She was asking me to define the monster in the dark that someone else had just pointed to.
I leaned forward, until my lips were a breath from hers. My voice was a dark, solemn vow.
"You were afraid of being alone. Of being unloved. Of being nothing." I kissed her, once, hard and brief. "You have nothing to fear now. I am here. And I will find who did this. And when I do, they will learn the true meaning of fear."
The elevator doors opened to the lobby. I didn't let her go. I marched us through the staring crowd, out into the waiting night, and into the back of the car. I held her the entire way home, her body tucked tightly against mine, as if I could physically shield her from the past that was reaching for her with a bouquet of poisoned flowers.
And in my pocket, the card with its elegant, treacherous script felt like a declaration of war. One I intended to win with absolute, brutal finality.