HHWM | Chapter 10: She Never Forgot

Greg stood at the edge of the celebration, an untouched glass of whiskey in his hand, watching the tableau of his own life. Mayette was glowing, weaving through the guests with the practiced grace of a perfect hostess. At her side, five-year-old Gio played with his toy trucks, his eyes—carbon copies of Greg’s own—bright with innocent joy.

This had been Greg’s lifelong ambition. An orphan who grew up in the hollow silence of foster care, he had hungered for this: the warmth of a dinner table, the weight of a son’s hand in his, and a woman to grow old with. He had built this fortress brick by brick.

But as he stood in the center of his realized dream, a ghost from the wreckage of his past stepped into the light.

Selene.

He had heard whispers of her return from the States. He had comforted himself with the lie that the crash had been a permanent reset—that her amnesia was a vault that would never be opened. But when their eyes met across the crowded room, the air was sucked out of his lungs.

He knew that look.

It wasn’t the vacant stare of a stranger. It was the predatory, knowing gaze ofthe girl who once held his soul between her teeth..

Greg’s blood turned to ice. Did she remember?

“Ninong…”

She approached him, the title falling from her lips like a whispered curse. To the guests, it was a polite greeting to a godfather; to Greg, it was a live wire against his skin. The sound sent him spiraling back to nights of sweat and starched uniforms—the beautiful, agonizing sin he thought he had buried.

The Selene standing before him now was a far cry from the Selene he had left in that hospital bed. She was complete. Sophisticated. Untouchable, yet radiating an invitation that made his jaw tighten.

Nearby, Greg heard the proud laughter of Luis, Selene’s father, chatting with Mayette.

“She’s incredible, isn’t she?” Luis beamed, swirling his wine. “She fast-tracked everything—graduated top of her class, jumped levels in her program. An accelerated genius.”

“A multinational executive already,” his wife added, beaming. “She’s a powerhouse. We’re so proud.”

Mayette smiled, her eyes soft. “I remember when I used to help her review. Now, she looks like she could run the world.”

“I asked her why she pushed herself so hard,” Luis said, his voice dropping slightly. “She told me, ‘I needed to be someone else. Someone better.’”

Greg looked at Selene, a chill settling in his marrow. To the world, she was a success story—a corporate role model. But he knew the version of her that lived in the dark. The version that whispered through tears and arched her back under the weight of his betrayal.

When she leaned in for a ceremonial kiss on the cheek, the scent of her skin—a lethal blend of her natural musk and expensive perfume—hit him like a physical blow. It was designed to haunt—to wake the fire he had spent six years trying to extinguish.

He pulled away quickly, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He had a family. He had a son. He was not that man anymore.

He retreated to a group of new arrivals, pretending to be the jovial host, but his peripheral vision remained locked on her. He watched as she approached Gio. She knelt so she was eye-level with the boy, handing him a small, elegant box.

Greg’s pulse spiked. What was she doing?

Seconds later, Gio ran to him. “Daddy! She said this is for you!”

Greg took the box, his hands steady only through sheer force of will. He opened it just an inch. Inside was a small note. His breath hitched as he read the elegant script:

Do you miss me the same way I still taste you?

He snapped the box shut and shoved it into his pocket, his face set into practiced neutrality. No one saw.

But when he saw Selene slip away into a quiet hallway, he moved. He didn’t think. He followed. He caught up to her near the storage room,grabbing her elbow and pulling her in before she could protest. He slammed the door shut, plunging them into the shadows.

“Do you want to repeat our first time together?” Selene asked, her voice a low purr in the dark.

Instead of pulling away from his iron grip, she reached up, her cool, soft fingers tracing the rough stubble of his jaw. Her breath was warm against his skin, a ghost of the intimacy that had once been his entire world.

Greg wrenched his face away. “What do you think you’re doing, Selene?” he hissed, his jaw tight. “We have lives. Good ones. Why are you doing this?”

“Let’s not pretend this is about you, Ninong,” she said, her voice dripping with a mocking tenderness. Her eyes weren’t just challenging; they were bottomless. “I didn’t come back for you.”

She stepped closer, her lips brushing the shell of his ear. “I just wanted to see if you… truly remembered nothing. Because between the two of us, I think you’re the one who’s actually forgotten who you are.”

Greg closed his eyes, the weight of his guilt pressing down on him.

“Do you really think I’d come back to beg for you?” she continued, stepping back to face him fully. “I can have any man I want now. Men better than you. Men without baggage, without a family to hide from.”

She paused, her gaze turning razor-sharp. “Unlike you… who couldn’t even keep a promise in the dark.”

Her voice trembled slightly for the first time, a crack. Beneath the predator, the wound was still raw. She remembered the silence. She remembered waking up in a foreign country, grasping at the frayed edges of memories he had let her believe were dreams. He had promised to stay as long as she followed him, and then he had let her drown in the dark.

Greg felt the strength leave his fingers. He let go of her arm. “Then why?” he asked, his voice hollow. “Why the note? Why show up here?”

Selene reached out, her fingertip grazing his lower lip in a silent, final gesture. “I told you… I’m testing the waters. I have too much to lose now to let a ghost from my past leave stains where they don’t belong anymore.”

She smiled—a cold, beautiful thing. “And if erasing me was truly that easy for you… then seeing me shouldn’t stir a thing. We can just stand here… as if none of it ever happened.”

She turned and opened the door. Before stepping out, she looked back over her shoulder. “I don’t belong here anymore, Ninong. And you… you still look like you’re hoping I do.”

She left him there in the dark.

Greg stood frozen, his throat dry, his chest heavy with a suffocating realization. Had he been overthinking it, or was he just foolish enough to believe she returned for the same reasons he had never been strong enough to forget?

When he finally stepped back out into the hallway, his eyes scanned the room, but she was gone. The air felt thin.

From across the room, a guest caught his eye—a woman holding a wine glass, watching him without blinking. She had seen them enter the storage room together. She had seen the duration of the silence.

Greg forced himself to look away, his heart racing. One wrong move, one misplaced glance, and the fortress would crumble. He wanted to fight for his family. He wanted to be the man Mayette believed him to be.

But as he looked at his son, he realized the shadow of his past hadn’t just returned. It was already inside the house.