Please Come Back, My Love novel Chapter 159

Chapter 159

Elena: POV

Mom s hand suddenly reached across the table and grabbed mine. Then she grabbed Ethan’s.

Before I could process what was happening, she pressed our hands together.

‘You two are supposed to be dating,” she said, her tone light but pointed. But you look like strangers having a business meeting.”

My fingers went stiff against Ethan’s palm.

Fuck.

I’d forgotten-Mom still thought we were together. The fake relationship I’d agreed to at that bonfire, the lie I’d built to make her happy, to give her one less thing to worry about in the time she had left.

Ethan’s hand was warm. Steady. He didn’t pull away.

“Sorry, Mrs. Vance,” he said smoothly. “Elena’s just mad I showed up without warning.”

‘Mad is an understatement,” I muttered.

But I didn’t move away from his hand. Because if I did, Mom would know something was wrong. She’d see through the cracks, start asking questions I

couldn’t answer, and I couldn’t-I wouldn’t-let her spend her last months worrying about me.

So I curled my fingers around his and forced a smile that felt like swallowing glass.

“He has this habit of making decisions for me,” I said.

Ethan’s thumb brushed the back of my hand.

“Old habits,” he said quietly.

softened,

Mom looked between us, and for a second I thought she’d call bullshit. But then her face softened, and she squeezed both our hands before letting go.

“Well,” she said, “I think it’s sweet. He came all this way to look after you.”

Sweet. Right.

I swallowed the anger rising in my throat and turned to Ethan. “Fine. You can come with us. But you’re still doing your research trip, got it? I’m not letting

you derail your work because of some paranoid idea that we need protecting.”

His eyes searched mine. “Deal.”

The town was small-one of those places where everyone knew everyone, and strangers got second looks. We walked down Main Street, past antique shops and a bakery that smelled like cinnamon and burnt sugar. Mom walked between us, her arm looped through mine, and every few steps shed point at something and smile.

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Chapter 159.

Emok that,’ she said, gesturing to a mural on the side of a hardware store. Faded paint, peeling at the edges, but you could still make out the scene- mountains in the background, a family standing in front of a farmhouse.

‘Beautiful, she murmured.

Ethan pulled out his phone and took a picture. Then another one of Mom standing in front of it, her hand shading her eyes from the sun.

I watched him. The way he framed the shot, adjusted the angle, asked Mom to move a little to the left. Like he actually gave a shit.

“Your turn,” he said, nodding at me.

‘I’m fine.”

“Elena.” Mom tugged my arm. “Come on. One picture.”

I sighed and stepped next to her. Ethan crouched slightly, lining up the shot, and I tried not to think about how normal this felt. How easy it would be to

pretend.

The shutter clicked.

“Got it,” he said.

We kept walking. Mom stopped at a small shop selling handmade pottery, ran her fingers over the glaze on a bowl.

Ethan hung back, hands in his pockets, giving us space but never too far away.

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