Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT0SMZG559949V8QZ1KDY9G

Aurora’s fingers froze on the stack of takeout menus when the knock echoed sharply against the front door of her flat. Three deadbolts stood between her and the visitor, but the sudden sound made her heart leap. It was almost midnight—no one came to this floor at this hour unless they had no regard for social niceties or happened to belong in her tangled past. She stepped forward, caught in a flicker of unease, and peered through the peephole. The latch clicked, and the heavy door swung open slowly. There stood Lucien Moreau—the Frenchman wrapped in the charcoal suit that always felt like a piece of some strange, untouchable world. His amber eye caught the dim light, shimmering with that unreadable calm, the other, jet black and unblinking. His posture was loose but deliberate, the ivory-handled cane resting casually against one hand, the blade hidden but never far from his sense. His scent drifted faintly—cedar, rain, something sharp beneath it all. “I was hoping you'd forget me already,” he remarked, voice a silky thread weaving tension into the air. She stared for a long breath. The scar on her left wrist itched—a crescent moon in her memory, a faded wound she kept beneath sleeves and reticence. “Lucien,” she said, voice flat and cool. “What the hell are you doing here?” The corner of his mouth twitched upward, a smirk that wasn’t quite a smile. “You’d think I’d show up with flowers or a better excuse.” Her eyes darted past him into the cramped familiarity of her flat—the cluttered kitchen counter, the worn couch sagging from endless nights of silent brooding, the single light swinging low from above. He hadn’t changed; neither had the flicker of a storm that swam in his gaze. “You don’t just turn up at someone’s door unannounced, not after...” she caught herself, biting down the shard of old pain. “Not after what?” His voice dropped, the edge sharper, and it pulled at something tangled in her chest. After everything that had exploded between them last time—the accusations, the silences that stretched like crevices too wide to bridge. Before she’d left without a word, the cold snap of goodbye still bruising. “I left because I needed to get away, Lucien,” she snapped, stepping inside, closing the door with a deliberate click that sounded like finality. “I didn’t want this.” Gesturing vaguely around at the stale dimness, “Whatever this is.” He followed, the sound of his steps smooth and measured, as if weighing the air between them. “And yet, here I am.” “You don’t come to London for the curry houses or the damp nights,” she said, voice rising enough to challenge but steady. “You come for me.” His amber eye caught the faint sheen of tears threatening to bloom in hers, but he hid nothing. “I came because you didn’t answer my calls. Because I’m tired of shadowboxing with memories and ghosts. Because I—” He stopped, the silence suddenly raw and sharp. She folded her arms, turning away, the want strangling the words from her throat. “Save it.” Lucien’s gaze flicked to her wrist, the crescent scar catching the lamplight. “That’s why you never left when I needed you.” Eyes dark and guarded, Aurora shook her head, pain and anger flaring past the surface. “It’s not that simple.” “Nothing about us ever was.” He stepped closer, the distance shrinking until the sharp scent of rain and earth mingled with the faint traces of her perfume. “Why now?” Her voice wavered despite herself, the walls closing in with old ache. He hesitated, cane tapping lightly but deliberate on the wooden floor. “Because I can’t untangle the mess without you. Because I’m tired of the lies we both told ourselves.” “Maybe we’re beyond fixing.” Her fingers brushed the scar beneath the sleeve again, as if grounding herself to reality. Lucien reached out, not touching, just holding his hand in the space between them, the silent offer hanging in the charged air. “What do you want from me, Lucien?” His voice was low, a threadbare confession. “Not to undo the past. Just to start the conversation we never had.” For a long moment, Aurora weighed the ghosts in his eyes against the memories spinning restless in her mind. “All right,” she said at last, the word a fragile bridge over the crackling silence. Lucien’s lips curved, softer now. “Then let’s not waste tonight.”