Emily's POV
The city felt loud and restless that Saturday morning, but Emily had planned to spend it quietly. She wasn't ready to face Ethan again until Monday — not after the week they'd had.
Her fingers sifted through the stack of project files the secretary had delivered to her temporary apartment. The deal's logistics were demanding, but it gave her something to focus on besides the swirl of feelings she didn't want to name.
Keep it about the work, she reminded herself. Not the past. Not him.
As she opened the last folder, a single envelope slipped free and drifted to the ground.
It was old — the paper slightly yellowed, the edges softened. No stamp. No seal. Her name, "Emily," written in a familiar, messy scrawl across the front.
Her heart stalled.
She knew that handwriting.
She had memorized it once upon a time, in notes passed during math class and on the back of polaroid pictures they took behind the diner.
Ethan.
Hands trembling, she picked it up and stared at the unopened envelope. It felt like it hummed in her fingers, heavy with the weight of something never said.
She hesitated.
This was likely a mistake. It wasn't meant for her to find. It could have been tucked in with the documents by accident. But she opened it anyway.
The Letter — Ethan's Words (Years Ago)
Emily,
I don't know if you'll ever read this, but I need to write it anyway. Maybe to keep from losing my mind. Maybe because it's the only thing I can do when I have no control over anything else.
They made you leave. I know that now. My parents threatened your family, and I stood there like a coward, not knowing how to stop it. You looked at me like I betrayed you — and maybe I did.
I loved you. I still do. I didn't say it enough. Maybe I never said it at all. But I thought we had time.
I thought we had forever.
Every day since you left, I've wondered where you are. What you're doing. If you still wear that little sunflower pendant. If you still draw stars in the margins of your notebooks when you think no one's watching.
I wonder if you still think of me at night.
I'd give everything to go back. But I have nothing now but this letter, and even this may never reach you.
I just want you to know —
You weren't just a phase.
You were everything.
– Ethan
Emily's POV (continued)
Tears blurred the ink before she realized she was crying. Her fingers gripped the letter so tightly, it crinkled.
So many years had passed.
Ten whole years.
And yet this one letter shattered the carefully built walls she'd constructed around her heart. She had always believed he let her go too easily — that she didn't matter enough for him to fight.
But here was the truth.
He did love her.
He was just too young. Too powerless. Too broken by the same people who'd broken them both.
Emily folded the letter and pressed it to her chest, her breath shaky.
Everything inside her felt turned upside down.
Ethan's POV
Back at the office, Ethan reviewed the upcoming project milestones when a knock at the door startled him. It was his assistant.
"Ms. Carter received the files," she said. "There was an old folder included by accident. From your archives."
Ethan stiffened. "What folder?"
"It was marked as 'Misc – Personal Notes.' I didn't realize it was separate from the project binder. I'm sorry."
Ethan's heart dropped.
That folder.
That letter.
He closed his eyes, rubbing his temple.
"Thank you. That's all."
When she left, he leaned back in his chair, a million memories rushing to the surface.
If she read it — if she saw his truth from back then — would it change anything? Or would it only make the tension between them harder to survive?
He had spent a decade burying what he felt.
And now, the ghost of that buried love was being dug up by fate itself.
Lexi's POV
Lexi tapped her nails rhythmically on the glass table, waiting for Rachel's call.
It came ten minutes later.
"She's clean," Rachel said. "No suspicious meetings. Just work and a few personal errands. But something… interesting happened today."
Lexi arched a brow. "Go on."
"She received an old letter. Looked personal. From Ethan. His assistant accidentally sent it with her files."
Lexi's grip tightened on her phone. "A letter?"
"Handwritten. Emotional. She looked… shaken."
Lexi ended the call calmly, but her entire body buzzed with dread.
She had suspected Ethan still held a candle for Emily, but now that suspicion had grown teeth.
Lexi stood, staring out the window at the skyline.
Emily Carter had become more than a threat.
She was a storm rolling in, and Lexi didn't intend to stand in the rain.
Emily's POV (closing scene)
That night, Emily couldn't sleep.
The letter lay folded on the nightstand like a silent witness to every emotion she had fought to suppress.
Her hands kept reaching for it, rereading it, tracing the ink with her fingers.
She wondered what kind of man Ethan had become. If he still loved quietly like that. If the letter was just a memory for him now — or if it still lived in his chest, like a ticking clock waiting to restart.
She didn't know what tomorrow would bring.
But one thing was certain.
She could no longer pretend that the past was dead and buried.
It had found its way back to her.