The launch was held on the top floor of the Meridian Arts Center.

By six in the evening, the entire hall was filled with journalists, influencers, distributors and executives.

At the center stood a twelve-meter screen displaying the collection I had created.

Silver mist.

Red camellias.

A woman walking alone through a city at dawn.

The campaign had already broken the client’s preorder record before the official presentation began.

Mia stood beside me backstage.

“You’re pale.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’ve said that six times.”

I adjusted the cuff of my black suit.

“I’m going onstage in ten minutes.”

“That isn’t why.”

She looked through the curtain.

Daniel had arrived.

Laura was holding his arm.

For four months, I had prepared myself for the possibility of seeing him again.

Apparently, preparation and reality had very little to do with each other.

Daniel looked almost unchanged.

Dark suit.

Silver watch.

Same way of lowering his head slightly while listening to someone speak.

Laura was beautiful.

Elegant cream dress.

Diamond earrings.

She looked comfortable beside him.

They looked like exactly what they were supposed to be.

A successful executive and his fiancée.

I expected jealousy.

Instead, I felt something stranger.

Distance.

As if I were looking at two people from a television series I had stopped watching.

Mia whispered:

“Which one?”

“The man.”

“That’s Daniel?”

“Yes.”

She studied him.

Then looked at me.

“I expected someone more impressive.”

I laughed.

The tension finally loosened.

Outside, the host announced:

“And now, the creator of this year’s most successful visual campaign.”

Applause began.

Daniel looked toward the stage.

The host smiled.

“For years, the artist known as White Fog has refused public appearances.”

Laura leaned toward Daniel and whispered something excitedly.

I could almost imagine the conversation.

They both knew White Fog.

Everyone in our industry did.

Daniel had once bought a limited-edition illustration from my online store.

He hung it in his office.

He had told me:

“Look at this. Whoever made it understands emotion.”

I had stood beside him washing coffee stains from his desk.

He never asked why I smiled.

The host continued:

“Tonight, for the first time, White Fog has agreed to reveal her identity.”

Mia squeezed my hand.

“Go.”

I stepped through the curtain.

The applause continued for perhaps three seconds.

Then Daniel saw me.

His expression disappeared.

Completely.

Laura’s smile froze.

I walked toward the center of the stage.

No dramatic pause.

No revenge speech.

I simply accepted the microphone.

“Good evening. I’m Sofia.”

The host smiled.

“And?”

I looked toward the enormous White Fog signature projected behind me.

“Sofia Reyes.”

I paused.

“Also known professionally as White Fog.”

The room erupted.

Cameras flashed.

People stood.

Someone shouted a question.

Daniel remained seated.

Motionless.

I could almost see memories rearranging themselves inside his head.

The framed illustration in his office.

The campaigns he praised.

The artist whose interviews he read.

The prints he had bought.

The girlfriend he once believed earned too little to support herself.

All the same woman.

Laura turned toward him.

“You knew?”

Daniel didn’t answer.

I continued the presentation.

Twenty minutes.

Brand philosophy.

Concept development.

Commercial strategy.

Nothing about Daniel.

That was the part that seemed to affect him most.

Four months ago, my entire world had revolved around whether he loved me.

Now he wasn’t even important enough to appear in my speech.

When the presentation ended, journalists surrounded me.

“How long have you been White Fog?”

“Almost seven years.”

“What made you hide your identity?”

“I liked separating my personal life from my work.”

“Why reveal yourself now?”

I smiled.

“Because I no longer have anything to hide from.”

Across the room, Daniel lowered his eyes.

After the interviews, I escaped into the private lounge.

I had barely closed the door when someone stopped it with one hand.

Daniel.

“Sofia.”

“No.”

His face tightened.

“No?”

“You don’t get to walk into a private room just because you know me.”

For a second, he seemed unable to process the boundary.

Then he stepped back.

“Can we talk?”

“You have five minutes.”

His eyes searched my face.

“You’re White Fog.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“How long?”

“You heard the interview.”

“Seven years?”

“Yes.”

“That means…”

“That I was already earning money from illustration when we were together.”

He stared at me.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

I almost laughed.

“Why didn’t you ask?”

“That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?”

I folded my arms.

“For years you came home, talked about your promotions, your clients, your future.”

“You never once asked what I was working on after midnight.”

Daniel went silent.

“You told me those were freelance drawings.”

“They were.”

“I didn’t know they were…”

“Important?”

He flinched.

I hadn’t even needed to say successful.

He had understood.

Daniel looked toward the door.

“Laura doesn’t know about us.”

“Then tell her.”

His eyes returned to mine.

“We haven’t married yet.”

I stared at him.

“That sounds like information for Laura, not me.”

“Sofia.”

His voice softened.

The same voice he had used four months earlier when he told me he loved someone else.

“I made a mistake.”

There it was.

I had wondered whether hearing those words would satisfy me.

It didn’t.

“You chose someone else.”

“I thought I loved her.”

“And now?”

He hesitated.

That was answer enough.

I shook my head.

“You still haven’t learned.”

“What?”

“You think love is something you understand only after comparing women.”

His expression hardened.

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

I opened the door.

“Your five minutes are over.”

Laura was standing outside.

Her face was white.

Apparently, she had heard enough.

She looked at Daniel.

“You were together?”

He closed his eyes.

“For four years.”

Laura stepped backward.

“Four?”

She looked at me.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

I almost smiled.

“We had never met.”

Then something unexpected happened.

Laura laughed.

Not happily.

Bitterly.

“Of course.”

Daniel frowned.

“What does that mean?”

She looked at him.

“Nothing.”

Too quickly.

I recognized that kind of answer.

Daniel did too.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Laura gripped her handbag.

“I said nothing.”

Then Mia appeared at the end of the corridor.

“Sofia.”

Something in her expression immediately alarmed me.

“What happened?”

She handed me her phone.

“Our legal team found the source of the leak.”

“What leak?”

“The concept boards.”

My stomach dropped.

Three weeks earlier, several unreleased White Fog sketches had appeared anonymously online.

We assumed an external contractor had been careless.

Mia continued:

“They traced the access credentials.”

I looked at the screen.

The account belonged to someone at Daniel’s company.

Daniel stepped closer.

“What?”

I enlarged the name.

Laura Lin.

Silence.

Laura stopped breathing.

Daniel slowly turned toward her.

“You accessed Sofia’s files?”

“No.”

“The log says you did.”

“I can explain.”

The phrase was almost funny.

Except Mia wasn’t finished.

“She didn’t just access them.”

She opened another file.

“The same account downloaded White Fog’s client list four months ago.”

Four months.

My heartbeat changed.

Exactly when Daniel confessed he loved Laura.

I looked at her.

“You knew.”

Laura’s face collapsed.

Daniel frowned.

“Knew what?”

I answered for her.

“That I was White Fog.”

Daniel went completely still.

Laura shook her head.

“Sofia—”

“You knew before I left Beijing.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

I suddenly remembered the cosmetics proposal Daniel’s company had been negotiating just before our breakup.

One of my anonymous licensing agencies had been involved.

Laura had access to administrative contracts.

If she had connected the tax identification numbers…

She could have discovered everything.

Daniel stared at her.

“Did you know who she was when we started seeing each other?”

Laura’s eyes filled with tears.

“I didn’t think it mattered.”

My stomach turned cold.

Daniel’s voice dropped.

“Answer me.”

Finally, she whispered:

“Yes.”

The hallway became silent.

“But you told me Sofia depended on me.”

Laura said nothing.

Daniel looked as though someone had struck him.

Then Mia handed me one final document.

“There’s more.”

A payment record.

An anonymous design submission.

Dated two weeks before Daniel confessed his feelings.

The file contained several early sketches from my private archive.

Submitted under Laura Lin’s name for an internal promotion campaign.

She hadn’t simply known my secret.

She had been using it.

Daniel stared at the evidence.

Then at Laura.

But I was no longer looking at either of them.

Because attached to the stolen files was an access history showing exactly where Laura had obtained them.

Not from my agency.

Not from the cloud.

From an old computer in the apartment Daniel and I had shared.

And the account used to unlock it belonged to Daniel himself.

I slowly raised my eyes.

He had gone pale.

“I never gave her my password.”

Maybe he hadn’t.

But someone had.

And suddenly I understood that my disappearance four months earlier might not have been the end of someone else’s plan.

It might have been exactly what they wanted.