Please Come Back, My Love novel Chapter 20

Please Come Back, My Love

Chapter 20

Alexander: POV

I looked down at the woman in my arms, her face pale and fragile against my chest, and my breath caught.

Fuck.

For a second–just one heartbreaking second–she looked exactly like Elisa.

Same delicate bone structure. Same way her lashes cast shadows on her cheeks. Same expression of exhausted vulnerability that made something in my chest crack wide open.

I’d spent years trying to forget that face. Years telling myself I’d done the right thing by dream about her every goddamn night.

And here I was, holding someone who looked so much like her it physically hurt.

Walking away. Years pretending I didn’t still

“Mr. Sterling?” My assistant, David Miller, appeared at my elbow, his eyes widening. “Is she-”

“She’s been drugged,” I said, my voice harsher than I intended. “Get the car. Now.”

David sprinted toward the alley entrance.

I adjusted my grip, cradling her closer. She was burning up, the drug making her temperature spike. Her hands clutched weakly at my jacket, and she mumbled something I couldn’t quite catch.

“I knew you’d come…”

The words hit me like a punch to the gut. That’s exactly what Elisa used to say–every time I showed up at her door, every time I convinced her to let me help with her art projects. “I knew you’d come for me, Alex.”

But I hadn’t come for Elisa in the end, had I?

Twenty years ago

I was just a teenager when I met Elisa Hunt–who looked to be in her twenties–who saved my life and became my first love. She was trapped in an abusive marriage, and I was just a lovesick teenager who visited her under the pretense of needing art lessons.

My family discovered my “obsession and sent me away to boarding school. By the time I had the power to find her again, she was dead–killed by the very husband I’d been too young and powerless to save her from.

I’d failed to protect the first woman I ever loved.

When her husband found out about my visits, when my family threatened to cut me off and destroy her reputation completely. I’d walked away. I’d chosen the fucking family name over the woman I loved.

Elisa used to curl into me just like this during those stolen moments in her art studio–when the nightmares got bad, when her husband’s abuse left her shaking and broken,

“Sir, only family-

“I’m her uncle, I lied smoothly. “And I’m not leaving her alone.”

The nurse hesitated, then nodded. “This way.”

My phone buzzed. David, with information.

I stepped into the hallway to read his message, and the words on the screen made my blood run cold.

Elena Vance. Age 26. Fashion designer at Sterling Conglomerate. Adopted daughter of Margaret Vance, head housekeeper at the Connecticut estate. Status: MARRIED TO JULIAN STERLING (hidden marriage, 3 years).

Son of a bitch.

This was Julian’s wife. My nephew’s fucking wife, lying drugged and assaulted in an ER because that bastard had hung up on her

I remembered the phone call she’d made in that alley. The way her voice had broken when she begged for help. “I’ve been drugged… please…”