One Night in Valeria - Chapter 17: Chapter 17

Jessica didn’t sleep that night.
She lay in bed staring at the ceiling, counting every crack in the plaster like it could distract her from the man who had stood in her studio just hours ago the same man who had been the stranger in her bed that night, the man who knew her before she knew herself.
And yet… he hadn’t told her.
That truth still hung between them, like smoke after a fire invisible, but impossible to ignore.
The memory of him standing at her door, his shirt damp from rain, eyes aching with something he didn’t name it lingered.
He wanted to help her.
But he also lied to her.
And no matter how close he stood, the silence in between still screamed.
The next day, the city glistened under a stubborn sun. Velaria looked clean, new, as if nothing scandalous had happened. But the headlines still ran like blood through the streets.
HALE GIRL STRIKES BACK.
FASHION’S PHOENIX.
BLOODLINE OR BRILLIANCE?
Jessica kept her head down as she entered The Conservatory this time, not as an anonymous face in the crowd, but as a rising name invited to consult on the upcoming Legacy Fund exhibition.
A seat at the table. A voice in the room. Power… almost.
She hadn’t expected to see him there.
Liam stood across the conference room, hands clasped behind his back, posture perfect but his gaze locked on her the moment she walked in.
She pretended not to notice.
But she felt it the way her breath caught, how her pulse shifted. He didn’t speak to her, not even a nod, but his presence filled the room like tension before a storm.
She took her seat. Papers shuffled. Voices droned. But all she could hear was the echo of that night: “Let me help.”
She hadn’t let him.
She still wasn’t sure if she wanted to.
After the meeting, she stepped into the hallway alone, needing space and maybe air that didn’t smell like power games and polished lies.
But of course, he followed.
“Jessica,” Liam said gently.
She didn’t stop walking.
“Just listen, please,” he added, his voice low, urgent. “I’m not here to ask for anything.”
That made her pause.
She turned slowly, her arms folded.
“You want to help me. Why?”
He met her gaze. His expression wasn’t smooth or practiced. It was tired. Real.
“Because I remember everything,” he said. “That night. The way you looked at me before the lights blurred. The way you trusted me even when you couldn’t speak.”
She swallowed hard.
“I didn’t know it was you,” she whispered.
“I know.” He stepped closer. “That’s what kills me.”
The hallway hummed with silence the kind that feels like it’s waiting to break.
“You should’ve told me,” she said.
“I was going to,” he admitted. “But the moment I saw your face again… I knew if I told you the truth, I’d lose the only chance I had to protect you.”
Her voice trembled, not with fear, but something dangerously close to anger. “You weren’t protecting me. You were protecting yourself from what I’d feel.”
Liam’s jaw clenched.
“I’ve spent every day since trying to unmake that mistake.”
A breath passed between them heavy, fragile.
And then he did something she didn’t expect.
He stepped back.
“I’ll go,” he said softly. “But if you ever want the truth all of it I’ll be waiting.”
Then he left.
And the silence he left behind echoed louder than any lie.
That night, Jessica stood at her window watching the lights of Velaria shimmer like a thousand secrets.
She thought of his face.
His voice.
The way he hadn’t begged. The way he’d left with dignity, and regret.
She didn’t know if she was falling for him or just mourning the version of him she’d built in her head.
But either way… the ache was real.
And it wasn’t going away.