After that day, Julian vanished from my life.

Until the project's conclusion. Simon brought me, as contractor's representative, to accompany Julian, the client, to Normandy for final inspection. This was business—I couldn't refuse.


On the drive to Normandy, we shared one car. Simon drove, I rode shotgun, Julian sat alone in back.

Suffocating silence filled the car. Only the windshield wipers moved, scraping rhythmically across the glass. Outside, a gloomy sky and howling wind sent snowflakes mixed with rain against the windows, melting instantly on contact.

In the rearview mirror, I glimpsed Julian's reflection. Eyes downcast, profile tense, he sat like a statue, radiating unapproachable coldness.


I thought after this final inspection, our seven entangled years would truly end. In this lifetime, we'd likely never meet again.

That Parisian winter was brutally cold, blizzards striking without warning.


On a dark rural highway, the snowstorm grew so fierce we could barely see the road.

The accident happened in a heartbeat.

The icy road sent our tires skidding, the car swinging wildly left. Simon wrenched the wheel right, shouting, "Hold on!" But it was too late.

I watched helplessly as a massive truck's hazard lights—like monstrous eyes—rushed toward us.

Time slowed to a crawl.

I heard my breath catch in terror.

I saw Simon's desperate expression.

Then, in that critical moment, a familiar cologne mixed with warm cashmere surged from the backseat with unstoppable force.

Powerful arms pressed my head against a solid chest.

The impact exploded in my ears—shattering glass, twisting metal, blaring horn—a symphony of destruction. The world spun violently around me.

Yet in that chaos and pain, my perception remained crystal clear.

I smelled that cedar scent I'd once loved so deeply.

I felt his burning body like a mountain, enveloping me completely, absorbing the impact.

And I felt something hard and cold pressing against my chest through his cashmere sweater.

I suddenly realized...

A ring.

The very ring I'd thrown into the Seine. He'd found it and kept it.

Before darkness swallowed me completely, I heard a broken whisper against my ear.

"Aurora... I'm sorry..."

...

When I opened my eyes, the sharp smell of disinfectant hit me first.

I lay in a hospital bed, my left arm in a suspended cast. Simon sat beside me, gauze taped to his forehead, pale but not seriously injured.

His face showed relief mixed with remorse when he saw me stir. "You're awake? Thank God. Just a fractured arm and some bruising—nothing life-threatening."

I moved my dry lips, asking immediately: "Julian? Where is he?"

Simon's eyes darkened. "ICU next door. It's serious. He took the worst impact protecting you—severe trauma to his back and head."

I sat numb outside the ICU window, staring at the lifeless figure surrounded by machines and tubes. I suddenly couldn't imagine a world without him in it.

The first arrivals weren't doctors but five American lawyers in impeccable suits.

Their leader, an elderly gentleman, introduced himself as the Croft family's counsel who'd known Julian since childhood. He placed a thick document stack before me, requesting signatures.

I couldn't comprehend the dense legal text. I only recognized the bold heading:

"IRREVOCABLE TRUST WILL"

The elderly lawyer explained in a sorrowful yet respectful tone:

"Miss Aurora, Mr. Croft established this trust after arriving in Paris. He's placed all his stocks, properties, and personal assets into it."

"Should Mr. Croft pass away or be declared permanently incapacitated, this trust automatically activates."

He paused, studying me intently.

"This fund—The Aurora Lane Foundation—exists solely to provide free legal and mental health support to women worldwide who've suffered emotional abuse and relational trauma, as you did."

He added finally: "This trust is irrevocable. This is Mr. Croft's final wish—even he cannot alter it."

My mind went blank, filled with white noise.

I stared at my name on the document, then at the man fighting for life behind glass.

I finally understood his apology.

He'd used his entire empire—his life's work—as final, absolute atonement for the harm he'd caused. Not a gift but shackles forged from gold and diamonds, too heavy to bear.

Tears finally broke through. I covered my face and released the first devastating sob since that night in the parking garage.

I couldn't comprehend how someone could love so deeply yet hurt so cruelly, systematically, condescendingly.

The elderly lawyer offered a handkerchief with a soft sigh.

"Miss Aurora, Julian had a tragic childhood. His capacity for love was warped from the start. He'd rather let you misunderstand his actions than expose his vulnerability in dealing with Vance. In his world, weakness meant death."

My stitches were removed, but Julian remained unconscious.

On a sunny afternoon, I visited Alinea alone—that three-star restaurant where he'd planned to propose, where neither of us had shown up.

The setting sun bathed Paris in golden light.

At the next table, a young man dropped to one knee. Applause and cheers filled the restaurant as his blushing girlfriend slipped on the ring.

I watched their happiness and wept silently.

I couldn't deny that no one but Julian could evoke such extreme love and such extreme hatred in me.

Night had fallen when I returned to the hospital.

Julian lay there quietly, his features sharp as if carved from stone in the moonlight, just like countless nights before.

I approached his bedside and whispered words I'd been contemplating for days.

"I've thought carefully, Julian, and that 'I'm sorry' of yours—I don't accept it."

"You're here because you protected me—that's true. But the pain you caused me is also true. Your struggles don't erase my suffering."

"So, Julian, we can't go back to what we were."

A night breeze stirred the curtains. I paused, looking at his pale lips, and whispered words only we could hear:

"But... your future is subject to my reassessment."


(Julian's Side Story: The Prisoner's Awakening)

Julian drifted through a long, deep dream.

He floated in endless, warm darkness, as if back in the womb. No time, no sound, no pain. At first, he embraced this tranquility—this long-forgotten feeling of safety. He wanted to sleep here forever.

Then images invaded without warning.

First came blinding headlights and screeching brakes.

He was twelve again, hiding behind the study door, watching his always-elegant parents in their final, ugliest argument. Porcelain shattered as his mother screamed accusations of betrayal; his father hissed venomously about her lover emptying company accounts.

Love, it seemed, was violent destruction.

Then came the accident scene. Red and blue lights illuminating his mother's bloodless face. He stood wrapped in a police blanket in the cold rain, watching his parents' bodies loaded into ambulances. No one hugged him. No one comforted him. In that moment, young Julian understood.

In this world, you can only rely on yourself. Love brings destruction. Vulnerability equals death.

Darkness fell again, quickly pierced by another light.

Aurora at nineteen.

At a stuffy business dinner, everyone wore masks of hypocrisy, exchanging empty pleasantries. She was there as the youngest intern, just filling a seat. When an arrogant French director questioned her in French about an expensive wine, she froze, then answered in crisp English: "I'm sorry, sir, but my French stops at 'hello' and 'thank you,' and my family doesn't drink wine, so I know absolutely nothing about it."

The table erupted, some guests snickering. Julian remembered her clear eyes showing no shame—only frankness and a slightly mischievous smile that seemed to say "so what?"

In that moment, her unmasked authenticity crashed recklessly into his cold, sterile world.

He was drawn to this light. He wanted to possess it, protect it, make it shine only for him.

The dream scenes shifted rapidly.

He saw himself gradually imprisoning that light, step by methodical step.

He saw himself rejecting her project "for her own good," shielding her from workplace attacks, never noticing how her light dimmed.

He saw himself hiding her "for protection," giving her no official status, letting her face rumors alone, missing her lonely midnight struggles.

He saw himself possessing her roughly, punishingly, just for speaking with male colleagues. He'd relished her jealousy and tears, seeing them as proof of love.

He thought he was building a safe harbor.

But now, from the dream's objective perspective, he finally saw clearly—this wasn't a harbor at all.

It was an elaborate, airtight cage.

He'd lined it with velvet, fed her expensive chocolates, adorned her shackles with brilliant diamonds. Then smugly congratulated himself on his sacrifices, moved by his own "deep affection."

He'd forgotten ships are safest in harbor—but that was never why ships were built.

He loved that ship named "Aurora," yet in his misguided way, broke her mast with his own hands, leaving her to rust in stagnant harbor waters.

Then the dream dragged him into hell's deepest circle.

He was forced into Aurora's perspective, becoming her.

He stood in that cold garage, smelling alcohol on Robert Jones, feeling that rough hand on his shoulder. He heard his own terrified cries echoing uselessly through empty space. Fear and humiliation crashed over him like a tidal wave.

And where was Julian Croft when she needed him most?

At a glamorous dinner, chasing a business deal, flashing fake smiles at Sienna Vance.

The scene shifted to the Seine's banks.

He heard himself—in Aurora's calm, cruel voice—uttering the devastating truth: "That night, I was almost raped by Robert Jones."

Then he felt himself—Julian—experiencing the blood draining from his face as his world collapsed. For the first time, he tasted what it felt like to be stabbed through the heart by the person he trusted most.

Pain, remorse, endless despair consumed his consciousness like a black hole. In his dreams, he cried out, begging God—any deity he'd once disdained—to let him return to the past.

To that parking garage where she was attacked.
To that night when she questioned him through tears.
To when he could still explain everything.

A calm voice answered from the darkness—God's reply or his own echo:

"The past cannot be returned to."

Julian sank into darkness. Let it be this way, he thought. Let him perish in endless remorse—the punishment he deserved.

Just as he surrendered, another voice—clear and gentle—penetrated the darkness.

Not God's voice. Aurora's.

"However... your future requires my reassessment."

These words weren't judgment but pardon—a pardon from the one he'd hurt most, something he'd never dared hope for.

It promised no forgiveness, offered no hope.

It merely offered possibility.

A possibility to spend his life atoning for his sins.

Julian Croft slowly opened his heavy eyelids.

The smell of disinfectant, ticking medical equipment, and soft Parisian morning light streaming through the window flooded his senses.

He felt no physical pain—only overwhelming remorse that nearly suffocated him. Yet beneath that remorse lay a strange serenity he'd never known before.

That Julian Croft—the control freak who'd spent his life building cages—had died completely in last night's dream.

He realized something.

If Aurora forgave him, he'd spend his life making amends, learning to be a true harbor—one that allowed her to sail freely while offering safe refuge when needed.

If she never forgave him, that would be fine too. He would disappear from her world, watching from afar as that vessel named "Aurora" sailed through open waters, breaking waves and radiating brilliance.

This time, he would respect her choice unconditionally.

Because he finally understood that love isn't imprisonment.

It is fulfillment. It is letting go. It is saying: "I am here if you return, but I'm also ready to watch you sail away."