Clara
Ethan picked me up himself rather than sending a driver, dressed casually in a way I rarely saw him anymore, jeans and a simple jacket that reminded me, achingly, of the man I'd fallen in love with on a rooftop five years ago rather than the composed heir he'd become since.
"You're being very mysterious about this," I said, settling into the passenger seat.
"You'll understand soon," he said, and I noted the particular warmth in the word this time, no longer the anxious, uncertain promise it had once been between us, but something solid, something I fully trusted him to keep.
We drove for nearly an hour, the city giving way gradually to the narrower streets and older buildings of the neighborhood I hadn't visited since the day I'd searched desperately for him after his surgery, on
