Chapter 9 — THE SECRET IN HIS EYES
Night had fallen softly over Elaris City, turning its skyline into a sea of glowing silver. From her small balcony, Cathy Duke could see the lights reflecting on the river, golden ribbons stretching endlessly, like the city was whispering its secrets to the stars.
She sat with her sketchbook open, pencil dancing over the page.
The drawing was of Adrian again.
She hadn’t meant to make it — it just… happened.
His face emerged from the graphite lines: calm, focused, and yet distant, as though he was carrying an entire world behind his eyes.
Cathy paused, staring at it. That look. That quiet depth. It was beautiful — and lonely.
She sighed softly, setting the book aside. Her phone buzzed with a message.
From: Luna 💬
You’ve been glowing lately. Tell me you’re not falling for someone mysterious.
Cathy smiled faintly and typed back:
Maybe I am. And maybe he’s not as mysterious as he seems.
But when she pressed send, she wasn’t so sure anymore.
The next day, the Rivers Design firm buzzed with activity. Assistants carried portfolios; phones rang with impatient voices. The Glass Bridge Project, the city’s biggest design competition in years, had reached its final stage.
At the center of it all stood Adrian Rivers. calm, collected, sleeves rolled up, eyes sharp with focus.
“Sir,” an assistant called, “the Vale Corporation sent another letter. They’re asking again if you’ll—”
Adrian’s expression hardened. “Tell them I’m unavailable.”
The room went still.
Everyone knew the Vale Corporation, one of the most powerful names in the city. No one said it aloud, but a few exchanged glances. Declining the Vale family wasn’t something ordinary architects could afford.
But Adrian wasn’t ordinary.
He turned back to his design board, trying to drown the rising noise in his head. His father’s voice echoed faintly — cold, commanding, a ghost from another life.
“You can’t run from the name Vale, Adrian. It’s carved into everything you touch.”
His jaw clenched. He pressed harder with the pencil until the tip snapped.
Marcus Hale, leaning in the doorway, noticed. “You okay?”
Adrian forced a smile. “Yeah. Just— thinking.”
Marcus crossed his arms. “She’s getting under your skin, isn’t she?”
Adrian looked up sharply.
“The girl,” Marcus added, grinning. “The mute one. The one who makes you forget to breathe when you talk about her.”
Adrian laughed softly, shaking his head. “She’s… different.”
“Different how?”
Adrian hesitated. Then said quietly, “She listens. Even when I’m not speaking.”
Marcus studied him for a moment. “You should tell her who you are. Secrets have a way of destroying the right things.”
“I can’t,” Adrian said simply. “Not yet.”
Marcus nodded slowly, a flicker of sympathy crossing his face. “Then be careful, my friend. Secrets always find their way to light, especially in a city like Elaris.”
That evening, Adrian showed up at Wynn’s Blossoms again. Cathy looked up, surprise flickering across her face.
He smiled, holding up a box of pastries. “I think it’s becoming a pattern.”
She wiped her hands and reached for her notepad.
You’re starting to sound like someone who likes flowers and croissants more than architecture.
“Maybe I like the person who sells them,” he said softly.
Her cheeks flushed.
They shared tea by the shop window, laughter mingling with the sound of rain. Cathy noticed small things, the way his eyes softened when she smiled, the faint tension that sometimes crept into his posture, the moments when he seemed far away even when sitting beside her.
When the rain stopped, she offered him her sketchbook.
Inside, she’d drawn him, several times. Some rough, some detailed.
Adrian turned the pages slowly, something tightening in his chest.
“You drew me,” he whispered.
She smiled shyly. Then signed: You inspire calm.
He swallowed hard. “No one’s ever seen me that way before.”
For a heartbeat, he wanted to tell her everything, his real name, his family, the empire he’d walked away from. But then his phone buzzed again.
He ignored it. Then it buzzed again.
Cathy noticed the tension in his face. He stood, murmuring an apology, and stepped outside.
Through the glass, she saw him answering, his expression darkening.
“Father,” he said under his breath.
“Your absence has been noted,” came the cold voice on the line. “You think you can hide behind an alias forever? The Board is meeting. They expect the Vale heir to show his face.”
“I told you I’m done with that life,” Adrian said quietly.
“And I told you that life isn’t done with you.”
Click.
He stood in the rain for a moment, jaw tight, eyes distant. Then, slowly, he turned — only to find Cathy watching through the window.
She couldn’t hear the conversation, but she saw the pain in his eyes. The kind of pain that comes from being caught between two worlds.
When he stepped back inside, she wrote softly:
You looked sad. Are you okay?
He hesitated, then nodded. “Just… family things.”
The kind that hurt? she wrote.
He smiled weakly. “The kind you can’t escape.”
Later that night, when she was locking up, Cathy noticed a small envelope on the counter, one Adrian must have left behind.
Curious, she picked it up. Inside was a folded letter with a corporate seal embossed in gold: Vale Corporation.
Her brows furrowed. She knew that name, everyone did. It was on the skyline, on billboards, in the news.
Why would Adrian Rivers be receiving letters from them?
Her pulse quickened. A strange unease crept in — not fear, but confusion.
She turned the envelope over again, staring at the emblem.
A golden “V.”
It matched the same design she had once seen on the architectural magazines in the shop — Vale Industries: Building Tomorrow’s World.
She touched the seal again, then closed her hand around it, heart racing.
Adrian had secrets.
And something told her that whatever truth he was hiding… could change everything.
That night, as rain whispered against the city, two people lay awake in different corners of Elaris, one drawing strength from a love she couldn’t yet understand, the other trapped between who he was and who he wanted to be.
And far away, in a glass tower by the harbor, Gabriel Vale looked out at the skyline, murmuring to his assistant:
“Find him. My son thinks he can hide forever. But no one escapes the name Vale.”
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