Chapter Two: The Ceremony and the Silence
Chapter Two: The Ceremony and the Silence
The Manhattan skyline stretched endlessly beyond the Sutton tower windows, but Kian Sutton wasn't seeing any of it.
He sat in his office chair — still, silent — as the door softly clicked shut behind Elena. Her scent lingered: lavender and something warmer he couldn’t name, something he hadn’t smelled in seven years but still recognized instantly. His fists clenched on the armrests, jaw tight.
She was here. She was real.
And she looked... the same. No — she looked stronger. Wiser. Braver.
But in his chest, something twisted sharply. Because her eyes had still held the same ache he remembered. The ache of a girl who didn’t choose the life that was written for her. Just like he hadn’t.
And yet, he’d stayed. While she ran.
He let his eyes fall closed — and the memories returned, slow and sharp like needles through silk.
---
Charleston, South Carolina — Sixteen Years Ago
It had been a humid spring afternoon when they were dressed in white.
Kian, eight years old, stood stiffly in a crisp white suit, his hair neatly parted, his expression blank the way his father liked it. Elena, just six, wore a delicate lace dress, her brown hair pinned with tiny pearl flowers. She looked terrified.
The garden behind the Madison estate buzzed with quiet music and murmured conversation. No one there spoke to them like children. They were heirs, pawns, legacies.
Kian remembered reaching for her hand. She had flinched slightly — then looked up at him with those wide hazel eyes.
“It’s okay,” he had whispered, bending down so only she could hear. “I’ll protect you.”
Elena hadn’t said anything, but her hand tightened around his. They stood together before the officiant, holding those too-big vows like they were puzzle pieces no one explained.
“You may now exchange tokens,” the officiant said solemnly.
Kian pulled a small gold band from his pocket — his mother's. Elena’s fingers trembled as he slid it onto her thumb.
A symbolic marriage. That’s what they called it.
But when their hands touched that day, Kian felt something shift in him — like a switch flipping on in a room he never knew was dark.
---
Present Day
Kian blinked the memory away, swallowing hard. He stood abruptly, pacing toward the window, but his reflection caught him.
In it, he saw the same man he always did — controlled, clean, powerful. But the ache behind his ribs reminded him he wasn’t as cold as the world believed.
He had loved her.
Not like a child loves. Not even like a man in love with a woman.
He had loved her as something essential, something embedded in his identity, like his own name.
She had left anyway.
And he had never asked why.
Because he couldn’t afford to know.
Knowing would’ve meant feeling. And feeling — at nineteen, standing in that Charleston garden again years later without her — would’ve broken him.
He remembered the letter.
It had come a month after she vanished. Handwritten. No return address.
Kian,
I know you hate me. I would hate me too. But I need to go. I’m not ready to be what they want. I don’t know who I am if I keep living under the weight of their expectations.
This isn’t your fault. You were the only good thing in all of it.
-E.
He had read it once. Memorized every word. Burned it in the fireplace the same night.
It still hadn’t stopped the hurt.
A soft knock interrupted the silence.
Rachel peeked her head in. "Do you want me to cancel the afternoon board meeting?"
Kian shook his head. "No. Keep it."
She lingered. “She looks... different. Stronger.”
“I noticed.”
“You okay?”
He didn’t answer.
Because he wasn’t.
Because her return was ripping open something he had spent years convincing himself was healed.
Because part of him still wanted to go after her, even now, even after everything.
Because no matter how far she ran, Elena Madison-Sutton had never truly left him.
And maybe she never would.---
He walked into the executive washroom and splashed cold water on his face. His reflection still stared back with the same impassive mask, but the cracks beneath it were beginning to show.
He leaned closer to the mirror. "You can’t afford this," he muttered to himself.
But his pulse betrayed him.
Back at his desk, Kian opened a secure folder on his private drive. A digital archive—untouched for years. Inside it was everything he had on Elena’s disappearance. News clippings. Old text messages. A scanned copy of the letter she had sent.
And beneath it all — a photo.
She was seventeen. Smiling on the steps of the conservatory she used to sneak into to play piano when she thought no one was watching. Kian had watched. Every time.
He'd taken the photo himself.
He stared at it now, his jaw clenched.
She had haunted him. Not just in memory, but in every relationship he couldn't maintain, every touch that didn’t feel like hers, every late night where silence fell too heavily.
He hadn't dated seriously. Hadn’t married. Never even considered it.
Because he already had a wife.
Legally. Emotionally. Irrevocably.
And now she was back.
Kian locked the folder, stood up, and crossed the room.
He wasn’t going to chase her.
But if she came back to stir the past — he’d make sure she knew it was still burning.
And this time, it wouldn’t be so easy to walk away.