We Meet Again, After All These Years
Ten years ago, her family was destroyed.
Alya Rivas broke off her engagement with Archer Garcia and fled without a word.Ten years later, she returns to the capital, hoping to live quietly in the shadows-only to run straight into him, now a man of immense power and influence.
He traps her in his world, his eyes dark with obsession and possession:"You ran for ten years. Now it's time you came back."Old grudges linger, old love burns bright. In this glittering, cold capital, nights will no longer let her rest.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 1
The rain over Washington D.C. was a solid, freezing sheet of gray, blurring the illuminated dome of Capitol Hill through the windshield of Alya's cheap rental car.
She gripped the steering wheel. Her knuckles were bone-white.
A sudden, violent spasm ripped through her chest. It felt like a steel vice crushing her ribs, stealing all the oxygen from her lungs.
Alya gasped, her vision tunneling into dark, fuzzy edges. The PTSD was triggering the physical decay of her heart, right here on 14th Street.
She needed the pills. Now.
Her right hand left the wheel, trembling violently as she reached blindly into her open purse on the passenger seat. Her fingertips brushed the smooth plastic of the unmarked prescription bottle.
She fumbled. The bottle slipped from her slick, cold fingers and dropped onto the floor mat.
"Damn it," Alya hissed through her teeth.
She bit the inside of her cheek, tasting copper, and ducked her head for a fraction of a second to grab the bottle.
In that split second, the wail of a D.C. police siren pierced the rain.
Alya snapped her head up. The police cruiser had abruptly blocked the intersection. Directly in front of her, a massive, black armored Cadillac Escalade slammed on its brakes.
Her pupils dilated. She stomped her right foot down on the brake pedal with all her remaining strength.
The rental car's cheap tires shrieked against the wet asphalt. It wasn't enough.
The front of her sedan slammed into the reinforced steel bumper of the Escalade. The sickening crunch of twisting metal echoed through the street.
The airbag deployed with the force of a heavyweight punch. It smashed into Alya's face, throwing her head back against the headrest.
A high-pitched ringing filled her ears. Warm, thick blood immediately began to slide down her eyebrow, mixing with the cold sweat on her face.
Her chest heaved. The heart palpitation was turning into a lethal flutter.
Ignoring the blood dripping into her eye, Alya grabbed the pill bottle from the floorboard. She popped the cap, shook a single white pill into her palm, and swallowed it dry. It scratched her throat on the way down.
Through the cracked windshield, she saw the driver's side door of the Escalade open.
A man in a dark suit stepped out into the pouring rain. He held a black umbrella. His right hand hovered near the bulge of a holstered weapon under his jacket.
It was Marcus Vance.
Alya's stomach dropped. The bile rose in her throat.
Marcus walked over to her crumpled door, his face a mask of cold, professional indifference. He tapped on her window.
Alya took a ragged breath. She unbuckled her seatbelt and shoved her shoulder against the warped door. It groaned, popping open just enough to let the freezing rain whip into the cabin.
She stumbled out, her high heels splashing into a puddle of oily water. She pressed a hand to her bleeding forehead, trying to keep her spine straight.
"License and insurance," Marcus demanded. His voice was flat, devoid of any empathy.
Alya's hands shook as she pulled her wallet from her coat pocket. She slid out her British international driver's license and handed it to him.
"I'm sorry. The brakes locked up," she said, her voice hoarse. She dug the nails of her free hand into her palm, the sharp sting a desperate anchor against the waves of pain and panic.
Marcus shined his tactical flashlight onto the plastic card. The beam illuminated the name: Alya Rivas.
Marcus froze. His entire body went rigid, as if he had just grabbed a live wire.
He slowly looked up from the card, his eyes wide with absolute horror. He didn't look at Alya. He turned his head and stared directly at the pitch-black, tinted rear window of the Escalade.
Inside the armored SUV, the high-grade external microphones fed the audio directly into the cabin.
Archer Garcia sat in the back seat. His breathing stopped.
Without a second of hesitation, Archer hit the console button. The heavy, bulletproof glass of the rear window rolled down with a smooth mechanical hum.
Alya heard the motor. She turned her head.
Her gaze slammed straight into a pair of pitch-black, storm-filled eyes.
Archer's face was carved from granite, sharp and ruthless, but his eyes were burning with a violent, suppressed chaos.
Alya's smartwatch, hidden under her sleeve, let out a sharp, high-pitched beep. Her heart rate was spiking to dangerous levels.
She instinctively took a half-step backward. Her heel slipped in the mud. She wanted to run. She needed to run.
Archer didn't speak. He shoved his door open, ignoring the torrential rain, and stepped out onto the street.
He was a giant of a man, his broad shoulders instantly blocking out the streetlights. He closed the distance between them in two long strides.
His aggressive gaze swept over her pale face, locking onto the blood pouring from her eyebrow.
"My insurance company will handle the damages," Alya forced out, clinging to the most sterile, bureaucratic tone she could muster.
Archer let out a low, dark chuckle that held zero humor.
He snatched the driver's license out of Marcus's hand. His knuckles were completely white.
He didn't listen to a single word she said. Archer reached out, his large hand wrapping around her freezing wrist like an iron shackle.
"Hey!" Alya gasped, trying to yank her arm back.
Archer ignored her resistance. He pulled her forward, his grip bruising, and dragged her straight toward the open door of his armored beast.
You may also like
9.1
I was the orphaned "parasite" of the Tyler family, taken in only to be abused for fifteen years after my parents died in a tragic car crash.
To finally escape their control, I sold my first time to my ruthless billionaire boss, Ellsworth Mosley, for one million dollars.
I thought it was a clean transaction.
But the next morning, covered in severe bruises he left on me, I was handed a brutal contract with a fifty-million-dollar penalty.
He didn't just buy my silence; he bought me.
My nightmare only worsened when my adoptive family found out about my connection to the billionaire.
Instead of disgust, they invited me to a hypocritical family dinner.
"Talk to Mosley, convince him to invest in our failing business," my adoptive father demanded shamelessly.
His son, who had tormented me for years, even grabbed my hand.
"Do this, and we can be officially engaged. You'll finally be a real Tyler."
They wanted me to whore myself out to save the family that had treated me like a stray dog.
I shattered my wine glass, cursed them to go bankrupt, and walked out into the rain.
As I reached the door, my phone vibrated with a terrifying summons from Ellsworth.
But it was the panicked whisper behind me that froze my blood.
"She knows about the brakes on her parents' car. If anyone finds out what we did, we'll go to prison."
They murdered my parents.
I gripped my phone, accepting the devil's call.
Since I was already bound to a monster, I would use his power to drag them all to hell.
8.1
When Amara Nwosu, a broken Nigerian photographer, lands in the vibrant heart of Lumeria, all she wants is silence-
a place to heal, a city to disappear in, and a project to keep her hands busy while her heart stays numb.
But Lumeria has its own plans.
The city hums with color and chaos, music and memory, and somewhere between the rain-soaked markets and golden riverbanks, she crosses paths with Kairo Mbeki - an architect with a past as heavy as hers and eyes that see far too much.
Their worlds collide under the weight of coincidence, and something unspoken sparks between them:
a pull neither of them wants to name, a connection that feels both familiar and forbidden.
As Amara's camera begins to capture the soul of Lumeria, Kairo becomes the part of it she cannot frame - the one thing she can't walk away from. But love in Lumeria isn't simple. Between family expectations, personal scars, and the ghosts of everything they've lost, both must decide whether healing means holding on... or finally letting go.
In a story of second chances, cultural beauty, and quiet resilience, Call Me by Your Name reminds us that sometimes, love doesn't ask for grand gestures -
it just asks to be seen.
9.2
I woke up suffocating in the dark, only to find my mind trapped inside a tiny, plump, and entirely uncoordinated body.
A cold, mechanical voice echoed in my brain, announcing that I was dead in my original world and had transmigrated into a corporate revenge novel as the six-month-old illegitimate daughter of Edward McClure, the story's ruthless villain.
The system mercilessly outlined my doomed fate. Tonight, my cold-blooded father would abandon me to a state orphanage. By age two, he would officially sign my rights away, leaving me to die miserably at the hands of human traffickers. Outside my nursery, I could hear his terrifying footsteps approaching, his voice devoid of any human warmth as he debated throwing me out like garbage. I was completely helpless, trapped in a baby's body, staring up at a man who looked at me with pure, visceral disgust.
Why did I have to be reborn as the tragic cannon fodder of a tyrant destined to put a bullet in his own head? How was I supposed to win over a severe germaphobe when my unequipped infant reflexes made me literally pee and vomit all over his pristine Tom Ford suits?
"Your ultimate mission is to prevent Edward McClure's self-destruction. Step one: Survive tonight's abandonment crisis."
Hearing the system's terrifying ultimatum, I swallowed my adult panic, forced a pool of pitiful tears into my large eyes, and reached my chubby little hands toward the monster.
7.5
I thought my best friend Mila and my lover Preston were my only salvation from Essex Langley, the ruthless billionaire who kept me caged in his estate.
I trusted them blindly when they planned my grand escape.
But it was all a cruel setup.
Mila deliberately leaked the plan to Essex's guards to win his favor, and Preston only wanted my family's shares to pay off his massive debts.
When we were caught in the rose garden, Preston shoved me toward the guards and ran for his life.
"You're insane if you think I actually loved a freak like you!"
I was dragged back into the manor, my ribs cracking under heavy boots.
I bled out on the freezing marble floor, staring into Essex’s unhinged, mad eyes as I took my last agonizing breath.
Until the moment I died, I couldn't accept it.
I had ruined my own life, adopting a hideous punk look with fake tattoos and piercings just to make Essex hate me, all for two people who saw me as nothing but a sacrificial lamb.
Why was my blind rebellion rewarded with such a brutal betrayal?
Opening my eyes again, the white-hot pain was gone.
I was back in the freezing bedroom on my eighteenth birthday, the very night Mila would come to orchestrate my ruin.
I looked at the rebellious, smudged stranger in the mirror.
This time, I calmly washed off the black makeup, took out my lip ring, and put on a pristine white dress.
If fighting the devil got me killed, then in this life, I would tame him and make them all pay.
9.1
I’ve spent eighteen hundred days as a silent ghost in the Crawford estate, a place where the air smells of expensive cigars and terror. My father, Senator Jed Bowen, sold me to Alek Crawford to pay off his gambling debts, trading his daughter’s life for a seat in the Senate.
Alek doesn’t just want my service; he wants my complete submission. He tracks my every move through cameras and bruises my skin just to see if I’ll flinch. He thinks he owns me because he holds the contract, and his mother ensures I’m kept in my place with slaps and insults.
When a scandal involving my half-sister and Alek’s brother hit the news, the house turned into a war zone. Alek cornered me in the dark, his hands stained with blood and ink, whispering that I was nothing but a receipt for his family's money. He’s been forcing me to take pills for years, believing they’ve kept me drugged and mute.
"She needs to speak again," he told a surgeon over the phone. "Whatever it takes."
He thinks he’s fixing a broken toy, but he’s actually planning to carve the silence into my throat permanently. He has no idea that I’ve been switching those pills for years, or that I’m more awake and more dangerous than he could ever imagine.
I’ve endured the biting cold and the crushing weight of his obsession, waiting for a single sign that my nightmare could end. Tonight, a secret message reached me in the rain, confirming that the only man I ever loved has finally finished his mission.
Kole is coming back for me.
The contract review is tomorrow, but I’m not planning on signing anything. I’m planning on taking back everything they stole from me, starting with my voice.
8.4
They say marrying Cassian Blackmoor is a death sentence.
Seventeen wives. Seventeen funerals. One widower no one can explain.
They call him cursed. They call him dangerous. Some call him a murderer who hides behind wealth and silence. But no one can prove anything - and no one dares accuse a billionaire who buries his wives with the same calm devotion he once loved them with.
Eloise Laurent knows the rumors. She knows the whispers. She knows the stories about the widower whose brides never live long.
Instead, she falls for him.
For the quiet sadness in his eyes.
For the way his voice softens only for her.
For the way he loves like he's terrified of losing her.
And maybe he should be.
But when she discovers a hidden grave bearing her own name, Eloise realizes something far worse than rumors is waiting for her inside his house.