C3 The return

Antonio

Three years.

Three long, brutal years since I’d watched the woman I loved tear my world apart with one sentence.

I don’t want to be with you while you crash and burn.

Turns out, I hadn’t crashed. I’d burned — and been reborn from the ashes.

Now I stood at the top of the empire I’d built with my own blood and rage. Nikolaou Holdings — a clean name for a dirty legacy. Every polished surface in this office was paid for with deals that never made it to paper.

And it still wasn’t enough to silence her voice in my head.

I’d imagined this moment more times than I could count.

But I never thought it would feel like this.

The door opened.

And there she was.

Daphne Galanis.

My Daphne — though she’d forfeited that right the day she chose to humiliate me. She looked different. Thinner. Paler. Her hair was still the color of sunlight, but it had lost its glow. Her eyes — those damned eyes that used to laugh at everything — looked tired. Wary. Haunted.

For a moment, the world went silent.

Then the coffee cup hit the floor, shattering into a thousand pieces.

Her lips parted, and the softest sound escaped her — my name, barely a whisper.

“Antonio.”

Every muscle in my body tensed. Her voice. After all this time, it still hit me like a drug — familiar and lethal.

I forced myself to breathe. Slowly. Deliberately.

Don’t show it. Don’t show anything.

“Hello, Daphne,” I said, my voice calm and even. It tasted like venom on my tongue.

Her eyes flickered with disbelief, guilt, pain. She looked like she might faint. I almost wished she would. It’d make things easier.

She dropped to her knees instinctively, trying to gather the shards of the broken cup. Typical Daphne — still trying to clean up messes she couldn’t fix.

“Leave it,” I ordered quietly.

She froze. My tone left no room for argument. She straightened slowly, avoiding my gaze. I took in the sight of her — the plain blouse, the faded skirt, the trembling hands. My once-fiancée, reduced to a low-level employee in my company.

Irony was a cruel bastard.

I turned back toward the window, forcing control into every breath. “I didn’t expect my coffee delivery to be quite this… dramatic.”

“I—I didn’t know it was you,” she stammered softly. Her voice cracked on the last word.

“You didn’t know a lot of things,” I said, still facing the skyline. “But that never stopped you from making decisions, did it?”

Silence.

Then, softly, “Antonio, please—”

“Don’t.” I turned, my gaze locking onto hers. “Don’t say my name like that. You lost the right to.”

Her lips trembled, and for a fleeting second, I saw it — the same Daphne who used to curl against me on cold nights, the one who’d once whispered my name like a promise. It hit me in the chest like a punch.

I looked away before I could soften. Before she could see that I still bled.

“How long have you worked here?” I asked, my tone detached.

“Eight months,” she said quietly.

Eight months. Eight months she’d been under my roof without me knowing. The thought ignited a strange mix of fury and something I refused to name.

“And nobody thought to tell me that my ex-fiancée was on payroll,” I muttered, half to myself. “Impressive.”

She winced. “I didn’t— I didn’t use my full name. After my father—”

“Ah, yes,” I interrupted, a bitter edge creeping into my voice. “Galanis Corporation. Fraud. Prison. Scandal. I read the headlines.”

Her eyes fell to the floor. “You don’t have to remind me.”

“I don’t?” I stepped closer, and she instinctively backed up until she hit the edge of my desk. “Because I remember everything, Daphne. Every word. Every look. Every lie.”

She flinched. “I didn’t lie to you.”

“No?” I tilted my head. “So that scene I walked in on — the one with Patrick — that was what, a misunderstanding? A rehearsal?”

Her throat bobbed. “Please don’t—”

I cut her off with a humorless laugh. “You know, I used to wonder what I did wrong. I thought maybe I wasn’t enough. Not rich enough, not powerful enough, not good enough for you.” I leaned in closer, lowering my voice until it was a rasp. “Turns out, I just wasn’t convenient.”

She blinked rapidly, eyes glistening. “Antonio, it wasn’t like that.”

“Then enlighten me.” I took another step forward, close enough to feel the warmth of her trembling breath. “Tell me what it was like.”

Her lips parted — and for a heartbeat, I wanted her to tell me everything.

To admit she’d regretted it, to say she’d loved me.

But instead she whispered, “You wouldn’t understand.”

I straightened, swallowing the chaos clawing at my chest. “No. I suppose I wouldn’t.”

The air between us thickened, heavy with everything unsaid. She was still the same — stubborn, self-sacrificing, infuriatingly beautiful. I hated her for it. I hated that even now, I wanted to touch her. To destroy her. To have her.

She took a shaky breath. “I should go.”

“You will,” I said calmly. “But not yet.”

Her eyes lifted, confused. “What?”

I walked back behind my desk, settling into the leather chair like I hadn’t just spent the last three minutes fighting a war with myself. “Nikolaou Holdings is a large company, Miss Galanis. But I believe in… efficiency. From this moment, you report directly to me.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

“You heard me.” I signed a document without looking at her. “You’ll be my personal assistant. Full-time. Effective immediately.”

She stared at me like I’d lost my mind. “Antonio, you can’t—”

“Oh, I can,” I interrupted softly. “And I just did.”

Her breathing quickened. “Why? Why would you—”

I finally looked up. “Consider it a… professional interest.”

The corner of her mouth trembled, suspicion and hurt flickering across her face. She didn’t know whether to thank me or run.

Good. Let her be confused. Let her squirm. Let her feel even a fraction of what I’d felt when she’d walked away.

“Dismissed,” I said simply.

She hesitated, her eyes searching mine — as if she was trying to find the man she’d once known buried somewhere beneath the one sitting before her.

She wouldn’t find him. He was gone.

She turned and walked out quietly, her shoulders stiff, her head bowed. The door clicked shut behind her.

The silence that followed was deafening.

I exhaled slowly, my hands curling into fists.

So much for indifference.

She’d walked back into my life like a ghost — fragile, human, guilty — and already she was under my skin again. I’d told myself this was about revenge. That I wanted her close so I could watch her suffer, the way she’d made me suffer.

But as I stared at the door she’d just walked through, I knew it wasn’t that simple.

I wanted to break her.

But God help me… I also wanted to hold her.

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