Please Come Back, My Love novel Chapter 284

#hapter 284

Elena: POV

The first thing I became aware of was pain.

Not the sharp, screaming kind-more like a dull, persistent throb that seemed to pulse through my entire skull in time with my heartbeat My eyelids felt heavy, weighted down, and when I tried to open them, the fluoressent light above made me wince.

Moonlight poured in through the window, softening the cold sterility of the hospital.

‘Elena?”

That voice. Deep, rough with exhaustion and something else I couldn’t quite name.

I forced my eyes open fully, blinking against the brightness until the world came into focus.

White walls. Beeping machines. The antiseptic smell of a hospital.

And sitting beside my bed, looking like he hadn’t slept in days, was Julian Sterling.

My husband.

Ex-husband, I corrected myself automatically. Except-

The memories hit me like a freight train.

The penthouse. The hidden marriage. His cold dismissals and colder touches. Victoria’s smug smile as she flaunted her place in his life while I was relegated to the shadows. The baby I’d lost because someone had beaten me in a Brooklyn alley.

The divorce papers I’d signed with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking.

The bridge.

Oh God, the bridge.

I remembered standing there in the rain, my mother’s death certificate clutched in my hand, convinced Julian had ordered someone to kill her Remembered

the crushing weight of grief and betrayal, the certainty that I had nothing left to live for.

Remembered falling.

And now I was here, in a hospital bed, with tulian staring at me like I was a ghost he’d conjured through sheer force of will

“Elena. He leaned forward, his hand reaching for mine, and I jerked away so violently that the IV line pulled, making me gasp.

‘Don’t touch me.”

The words came out hoarse, my throat raw, but the venom in them was unmistakable.

Julian froze, his hand suspended in midair. ‘You remember.

Chapter 284

avanto question. He could see it in my eyes. I realized. Could see the return of every painful, humiliating memory he’d given me.

‘Yeah, I said, my voice gaining strength ever as my body felt weak. I remember everything. Every lie. Every time you chose her Every-

Movement in the corner of the room caught my eye.

A little girl was curled up in one of those uncomfortable hospital chairs, fast asleep with her thumb in her mouth. Dark hair, delicate features that looked achingly familiar.

Lila.

My daughter.

The one thing the past four years had given me that I couldn’t bring myself to regret, even now.

“She wouldn’t leave,” Julian said quietly, following my gaze. “She’s been asking for you every five minutes since we got here.”

I stared at Lila’s sleeping form, my heart clenching. She didn’t know. Didn’t know that the man she’d been calling “Sad Uncle” was actually her father. Didnt know that her entire life-the one I’d built with Alexander in London-had been constructed on lies.

Alexander saved me from the river, then lied to me for four years about who I was.

Julian. Who’d driven me to jump in the first place.

I was surrounded by men who thought they had the right to control my life, and I was so fucking tired of it.

“How long have I been out?” I asked, deliberately not looking at Julian.

“Six hours.” He shifted in his chair, and I could hear the exhaustion in every movement. “You fell. At the cemetery. Hit your head on the stone steps.”

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