Alaric stood in front of me at the airport as passengers moved around us.

For several seconds, he said nothing.

Then he asked:

“Stopped loving me?”

“Yes.”

His face tightened.

“When?”

I thought about it.

“Not when my father died.”

He looked surprised.

“Not even when you took Sabina’s case.”

“Then when?”

“The night I asked you to come with me to remove my father’s residential record and you told me to go alone.”

His eyes lowered.

“That night?”

“That was when I understood something.”

I picked up my suitcase.

“I wasn’t asking for a lawyer.”

“I wasn’t asking you to break professional rules.”

“I was asking my fiancé to stand beside me while I erased my dead father’s name from an address.”

Alaric went completely still.

“And you were too busy.”

He reached for my suitcase.

“Lenora, let me explain.”

I moved it away.

“There’s nothing left to explain.”

His flight announcement sounded above us.

He ignored it.

“I looked for you.”

I almost laughed.

“After how long?”

His silence answered.

“Three days?”

Nothing.

“A week?”

He finally said:

“Eleven days.”

I nodded.

“Exactly.”

His expression changed.

“I came home and found the ring.”

“But instead of looking for me, you finished Sabina’s trial first.”

Alaric frowned.

“How do you know?”

“Lucien told me.”

That name affected him immediately.

“Lucien Lu?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve been working with him?”

“For three years.”

His jaw tightened slightly.

I almost found it ironic.

Three years ago, he had accused me of competing with a younger woman.

Now merely hearing another man’s name made him uncomfortable.

“Sabina won her case,” he said quietly.

“I know.”

“She later told me she never expected you to leave.”

“Neither did you.”

He didn’t deny it.

Then he said something unexpected.

“Your father’s case shouldn’t have been lost.”

My fingers stopped on the suitcase handle.

“What?”

Alaric looked around.

“There’s somewhere quieter we can talk.”

“No.”

“Lenora, please.”

That word sounded strange coming from him.

He had rarely needed to ask me for anything.

I checked the time.

“My boarding begins in forty minutes.”

“I need ten.”

I should have walked away.

But something in his expression bothered me.

So we sat in a nearly empty café near the gate.

Alaric opened his briefcase.

Inside was an old brown file.

I recognized the case number immediately.

My father’s lawsuit.

My chest tightened.

“Why do you have that?”

“Because six months after you left, I reviewed the entire case.”

“Why?”

He looked at me.

“Because one sentence from your resignation letter wouldn’t leave me alone.”

I waited.

“‘Your boundaries only exist when I’m the one who needs something.’”

He swallowed.

“I wanted to prove you wrong.”

A bitter smile crossed my face.

“And?”

“I proved you right.”

Silence.

He slid a document toward me.

It was an expert report.

I remembered it.

Our strongest piece of evidence.

But something was different.

“This isn’t the version submitted in court.”

“No.”

Alaric nodded.

“The original report supported your father.”

“The submitted report was missing seventeen pages.”

I stared at him.

“What are you saying?”

“Someone removed them.”

My heartbeat accelerated.

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve had three years.”

“I know who benefited.”

He placed another file beside it.

Company records.

Payment transfers.

A consulting agreement.

And one name appeared repeatedly.

Su Holdings.

Sabina’s family name.

I slowly raised my eyes.

“You told me Sabina grew up alone with a single mother and had no connections.”

“She told me that.”

“And you believed her?”

“Yes.”

“You investigated my father’s case enough to refuse him on professional boundaries, but you never investigated the associate you broke those boundaries for?”

His face hardened with shame.

“No.”

I looked back at the documents.

“What does her family have to do with my father?”

Alaric answered quietly:

“Your father’s lawsuit threatened a company secretly controlled by Sabina’s uncle.”

Everything inside me went cold.

The opposing party.

The missing evidence.

Sabina entering Alaric’s office one day before the hearing.

Suddenly, that conversation looked very different.

“She convinced you to withdraw.”

“Yes.”

“Knowing the substitute lawyer wouldn’t have enough time.”

His face went pale.

“I believe so.”

I pushed the documents away.

“You believe so?”

“I confronted her.”

“When?”

“Two years ago.”

“And?”

“She resigned the next morning.”

I stared at him.

“You let her leave?”

“I had suspicion, not proof.”

I laughed once.

It wasn’t amusement.

“You had more patience protecting her rights than you ever had protecting my father’s chance at justice.”

“Lenora—”

“No.”

I stood.

“I don’t need this anymore.”

“You do.”

His next words stopped me.

“Your father’s case was reopened.”

I turned.

“What?”

“I filed the application using newly discovered evidence.”

My voice became cold.

“Without asking me?”

“I didn’t represent you or your family. I submitted evidence regarding possible procedural misconduct.”

“And why would you do that?”

He looked at me for a long moment.

“Because your father deserved the truth.”

I said nothing.

“And because I owed him something.”

“You owed him nothing.”

“That was what he said too.”

My heart stopped.

“What?”

Alaric reached into the file and pulled out an envelope.

It was old.

My name was written across the front.

In my father’s handwriting.

I couldn’t move.

“Where did you get that?”

“Your father gave it to me before the trial.”

My voice disappeared.

“Before you withdrew?”

“Yes.”

“Then why do you still have it?”

His eyes reddened.

“He told me to give it to you only if he lost.”

I stared at him in disbelief.

“He lost.”

“I know.”

“He died.”

“I know.”

“And you kept my father’s last letter for three years?”

Alaric closed his eyes.

“I couldn’t face you after you left.”

For the first time since meeting him again, anger returned.

Not love.

Not heartbreak.

Pure anger.

I took the envelope from his hand.

“You weren’t protecting me.”

“I know.”

“You were protecting yourself from having to see what you’d done.”

His voice dropped.

“Yes.”

That single honest answer silenced me.

I tore open the envelope.

There was one page.

Lenora,

If the case goes badly, don’t let it become the reason you destroy your life.

Alaric made his choice as a lawyer.

You must make yours as a woman.

And there is one thing I never told you because I hoped I could solve it first.

The lawsuit was never really about my company.

It was about yours.

I stopped reading.

“My company?”

Alaric leaned forward.

“There’s another page.”

I pulled it out.

Attached was a share certificate.

Thirty-eight percent ownership in a corporation I recognized immediately.

The international firm where I now worked in New York.

Lucien’s firm was its legal adviser.

I looked at Alaric.

“What is this?”

His expression became grim.

“Your father wasn’t only defending himself.”

“He was protecting assets he had placed in trust for you.”

I stared at the certificate.

“And the people who sued him?”

Alaric paused.

“They knew.”

My boarding announcement sounded.

Neither of us moved.

Then my phone vibrated.

Lucien.

One message.

“Lenora, don’t board yet. The court just issued an emergency order in your father’s reopened case.”

A second message arrived.

“We finally identified who altered the evidence.”

I opened the attachment.

The name on the first page wasn’t Sabina Su.

It was someone I knew far better.

Someone who had sat beside me at my father’s funeral.

Someone who had watched me leave for New York without saying a word.

My hand started trembling.

Because the signature belonged to my own mother.