Five years. That was how long it had taken Iris Hale to come back.
Once, this place had meant home. It had meant everything. But after that night five years ago, some things could never be undone. Now, standing at the bustling airport exit, she felt nothing but a quiet, unfamiliar distance from it all.
She still remembered the way she had fled from this very spot—young, hollow, shattered.
Back then, she had told herself that leaving meant leaving behind the betrayal, the humiliation, the wreckage of every wrong choice. She had made it.
But when the news came that her grandmother was gravely ill, even the farthest wanderer knew it was time to come home.
She took a step forward, ready to flag down a cab, when the sharp howl of an engine cut through the noise around her.
A blue Aston Martin pulled to a stop directly in front of her.
The move was deliberate. Arrogant. The window slid down with a quiet hum.
The man in the driver’s seat leaned back, one arm resting with careless ease along the edge of the window frame. His gaze swept over her—slow, unhurried, as if he were inspecting something delivered to his doorstep.
“You must be Iris Hale,” he said, his voice carrying a lazy drawl. “Your mother sent me to pick you up.”
Iris looked at him properly now.
He was well-dressed, the kind of well-dressed that came with a trust fund and a distinct lack of concern for what anyone thought of him. The watch on his wrist was obscenely expensive—less an accessory than a statement. He was handsome, technically, but the perpetual smirk ruined the effect.
Iris had never had patience for the entitled heir type.
Which made it all the more unfortunate that this particular one was, according to their parents, her fiancé.
Lucas Bennett.
She had never agreed to it. Not once.
Iris ignored him and stepped to the side, ready to walk around the car.
A low sound of irritation escaped his throat. He pushed open the door and unfolded himself from the driver's seat in one swift motion. Before she could react, he'd grabbed her—and her suitcase—and deposited her into the passenger seat.
"You deaf or something?" he asked, not bothering to hide his annoyance. "I came all the way to pick you up, and this is the attitude I get?"
He didn't wait for an answer before pulling away from the curb. Fine by her. He didn't like her anyway, which only made the prospect of calling off this engagement feel more achievable by the minute.
"Take me to Central Hospital," she said, letting a deliberate coolness slip into her voice.
Lucas turned his head sharply. A laugh escaped him, short and utterly devoid of amusement. "You're actually treating me like a chauffeur?"
Iris didn't bother answering.
He slammed his foot on the accelerator. The engine roared.
"You might want to remember that I'm your fiancé," he said, his voice tight with barely contained irritation. "That doesn't mean you get to order me around. I promised your mother to drive you home. That's it."
"She's not my mother."
The words came out flat. Casual. Matter-of-fact.
Lucas opened his mouth, then closed it again. For a moment, he seemed genuinely at a loss. He'd heard the rumors, of course—that Iris Hale had always been difficult, ungrateful. Everyone in their circle knew the story: Claire Hale wasn't Iris's biological mother, but she had raised her as her own. Had even waited seven years to have her first child with Richard Hale, just to ensure Iris's place in the family inheritance was secure.
What more could anyone ask of a stepmother?
And what had Iris done in return? Disappeared five years ago without so much as an explanation. Meanwhile, Claire had never spoken a single word against her rebellious stepdaughter. All she'd ever said was that she hoped Iris would come home safe.
Lucas's mother was close friends with Claire. He'd heard the stories his whole life—enough to know which side he was on.
He hadn't come tonight for Iris. He'd come because his mother asked him to. The engagement was a business arrangement anyway. The Bennetts had their own standing in this city. He could manage the basic courtesy of picking up his future wife.
But that was where his obligations ended. Unlike her parents, he had no intention of indulging her.
"I'm the one behind the wheel," Lucas said, his jaw tightening. "So you'll sit there and behave."
He pressed harder on the accelerator. Streetlights bled into streaks of gold across the windows.
A moment later, his phone buzzed.
Lucas glanced at the screen, then answered without hesitation.
"Hey," he said, his voice shifting into something looser, easier. "What's up?"
A woman's voice came through the speaker—sweet, breathy, dripping with intent. "Baby, where are you? I've been thinking about you."
"Yeah?" Lucas's mouth curved. "What exactly have you been thinking about?"
"Mmm." A soft, deliberate pause. "I'm wearing that lingerie you like. The black lace. The one you said you wanted to tear off with your teeth." Another pause, her voice dropping lower. "I've been looking at myself in the mirror for the last hour. Couldn't stop touching."
His jaw tightened. "Fuck. You're going to make it hard to concentrate on driving."
"That's the idea." A quiet, wet sound filtered through the speaker—deliberate, unmistakable. Her breathing hitched. "I've been thinking about your hands, your cock. I'm so wet, baby. When are you getting here? I need you inside me."
Lucas glanced at Iris as if only just remembering she existed. He coughed lightly and turned down the volume.
Iris kept her eyes fixed straight ahead. Her fingers curled slightly against her knee.
She'd heard the rumors about her fiancé—that he went through women the way some men went through cufflinks. But she hadn't expected him to be crude enough to carry on like this in front of her.
“I've got things to handle,” Lucas said into the phone, his tone a lazy dismissal. “Go to sleep. Don't wait up.”
Before the woman on the other end could respond, he ended the call with a short tap. A faint sigh escaped him as he reached for his cigarettes.
“I'm allergic,” Iris said quietly.
His hand paused. A flash of irritation crossed his features, but he tossed the pack back onto the console without a word.
The silence stretched between them for a moment before he spoke again.
“Let's get one thing straight,” Lucas said, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. “This marriage is a business arrangement. Don't go expecting anything romantic.”
Iris gave a small, indifferent nod. “I never did.”
His expression remained unreadable. “My father wants an heir. Within two years, you should give me a son. That's your part of the deal.”
She turned her head, a flicker of dark amusement in her eyes. “And if I don't?”
“That's not an option,” he replied flatly.
He continued, his tone as clinical as a term sheet.
“I don't care where your heart lies,” he said. “Just don't embarrass me.”
“And you?” Iris asked, her voice even.
A faint, condescending smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You don't get a say in my private life.”
“One more thing,” Lucas added. “Don't get pregnant with someone else's child. If you do, you get rid of it.”
Iris let out a quiet, humorless laugh. “You might want to engrave that on your forehead. In case you forget.”
A dozen cutting remarks sat on the tip of her tongue, ready to strike. But when she recognised the destination, the words died in her throat.
Lucas had brought her to Central Hospital after all.
“I know why you wanted to come here,” he said casually, as if he were doing her a favor she ought to be grateful for. “You get twenty minutes. After that, I have my own things to do.”
Iris had no energy left for sarcasm. The moment the car stopped, she murmured a quick "thank you" and was out the door, half-running toward the hospital entrance.
Somewhere on one of these floors, the reason she had returned—her grandmother—was waiting.
The elevator climbed in silence. When the doors slid open at the floor she'd been directed to, Iris stepped forward—and stopped.
He was there.
Adrian Cross.
Founder and CEO of Cross Meridian Group.
Her father's greatest rival.
The reason she had shattered five years ago and fled this city in the middle of the night.
And the man she had never, for a single day, stopped dreaming about since she was seventeen.
He stood in the center of the corridor as though he owned it—which, knowing him, he probably did. The lighting in this wing was softer than the rest of the hospital, more subdued, but it only seemed to sharpen the lines of him: the broad shoulders beneath a perfectly tailored coat, the cut of his jaw, the way he occupied space like it belonged to him.
His eyes met hers.
And the world tilted.
Adrian didn't move. Didn't speak. He simply looked at her—not with the lazy once-over Lucas had given her earlier, but with something far more dangerous. Recognition. Calculation. The kind of stillness that came from a man who had learned long ago never to let emotion show until he'd already read the other person's hand.
Iris felt her pulse slam against her ribs.
Say something. Move. Do anything.
But her feet had rooted themselves to the floor. Five years of distance, five years of rebuilding herself from the wreckage he'd left behind, and in the span of a single heartbeat, she was seventeen again—breathless, foolish, utterly undone by the mere sight of him.
The corner of his mouth shifted. Not quite a smile. Something quieter. Something that held the memory of everything they'd never said.
“Iris,” he said.
Her name in his voice was a gravity she'd forgotten how to resist.
And then, with the faintest tilt of his head, he added, “I heard you were coming back.”
The words were simple. Civil. The kind of thing a casual acquaintance might say.
But the way he said it—low, unhurried, his gaze never once leaving hers—made it sound like a reckoning.
Behind her, the elevator doors began to close.
Iris didn't notice.
