God knows I shouldn’t have.
I should have stayed in Greece, protected and forgotten, pretending the past no longer had teeth. But curiosity gnawed at me—and beneath it, something more dangerous.
Hope.
I told myself I only wanted to see. To witness from a distance. To confirm the chapter was truly closed.
The wedding at Lake Como never made it to the vows.
Seraphina—elegant, polished, chosen for him by politics rather than desire—collapsed at the altar before a single promise could be spoken. Foam spilled from her lips as panic ripped through the church. Screams echoed.
Chaos erupted.
And in the confusion, Vanya slipped from my grasp.
He darted forward, fearless and curious, and collided with Dmitri. The commotion drew his attention to me.
And despite believing I was dead, he chose to marry me again.
I wasn’t Penelope to him.
I was Pen—a woman who resembled his late wife so closely that he had tried, desperately, to make me her.
Sometimes I wondered if he truly didn’t know.
Other times, I was certain he did—and chose ignorance because acknowledging the truth would mean facing his guilt.
Dmitri Volkov had always been a master at burying pain beneath control.
Vanya knew.
My son’s eyes—so sharp, so observant—missed nothing.
He never called Dmitri father. Never slipped. He addressed him as sir, polite and distant, a small smile playing on his lips as though he understood the strange game we were all playing.
Dmitri noticed, of course, but mistook it for shyness.
He had no idea the child he watched so closely already knew who he was.
Dmitri believed Penelope Volkov had died in that hospital.
A casualty of chaos. An irreversible mistake.
I saw the regret in him every day—in the way his jaw tightened when my name was mentioned by others, in the long silences that followed memories he refused to share.
His remorse lived in his eyes, dark and restless, never spoken aloud. Dmitri did not apologize. He punished himself instead.
What began between us was sharp-edged and volatile.
We spoke like enemies forced into proximity—barbed remarks, measured cruelty, glances that lingered too long.
There was anger there. Suspicion. And something far more dangerous beneath it all: familiarity.
The passion crept back slowly, unwelcome but undeniable.
It culminated in a night heavy with tension and unspoken history.
It wasn't tenderness we reached for—it was desperation. A reckless attempt to reclaim something broken beyond repair.