Lucien POV
At this point, I already knew my tech dreams were over. That version of me—the boy in hoodies building prototypes and eating cheap burritos in Silicon Valley—was long dead.
Buried beneath quarterly reports, inherited board seats, and the weight of a last name I didn't choose but had to carry.
My life was structured. Efficient. The path clear: build my credentials, take the reins, marry a good Fil-Chinese girl from a family as respectable as ours.
There were introductions. Dinners. Heiresses and taipans' daughters with surnames longer than their personalities. All with foreign degrees, smooth skin, and a curated smile.
They didn't look at me like a man. They looked at me like a stock option. Like something to hedge their futures on.
None of them asked who I was.
Only what I could become for them.
I didn't blame them. I didn't care.
I told myself I'd marry the one who made the most sense. Maybe I'd get bored. Maybe I'd cheat quietly. Discreetly. Just like my father did. It wasn't scandalous. It was expected. It was math.
But I swore I'd never have a second family like my grandfather. Never make things messy. Never leave a paper trail.
Love? That was a luxury for men who didn't carry empires on their backs. That was for civilians. I wasn't raised to need love.
I knew who I was. What I had to become.
Then she walked back into my life.
That girl from Melbourne.
It happened on a humid Wednesday morning. I was supposed to be reviewing Q3 strategy with the telecom division but got pulled last minute into a creative debrief for the Maharlika campaign—something I would usually delegate. I walked into the studio late, half on a call, barely listening. Then I looked up.
She was there.
Wearing Maharlika navy, hair tied up in a loose ponytail, head tilted slightly as she listened to the photographer.
There was a coffee cup in her hand, smudged lipstick on the rim, and she was smiling at something someone said. Laughing. Light. Effortless.
"Can we get makeup to check her lips again? Smudge's gone but it's still a bit dry." a staff commented.
"Okay, light's hitting her perfectly now. Let's roll another set." another added.
She stood in the middle of all the noise like she belonged to a different world.
I froze.
Everything dropped out from under me—thoughts, breath, logic. I had spent weeks trying to forget her. Told myself what happened in Melbourne was a fluke. That she was just a brief, beautiful mistake.
But I still remembered.
I remembered how she looked at me the night we met. Sharp. Calm. Completely unimpressed. She didn't ask what I did, didn't try to place my last name. She just looked at me like she saw everything—and didn't flinch.
It was dark in that bar, the kind of place locals went to disappear. She sipped her Negroni like she was trying to slow down time.
"You always drink that slow?" I asked.
She shrugged. "I like to feel things properly."
She told me she was a nurse transitioning to become an actress. Had come to Australia alone at eighteen. Her voice had a tightness to it—not quite pain, but not far off. She spoke like someone who'd survived things without needing to explain them.
And then, somewhere between midnight and dawn, it happened.
She kissed me first.
And when I kissed her back, it felt like something dangerous had snapped loose.
I don't do one-night stands. I don't like messy things. I don't like risks. I've seen too many of my father's secrets leaked through cheap perfume and bad judgment. My brother boasts about his flings like they're accomplishments. I don't. I keep my life clean. Quiet. Controlled.
But she was different.
She didn't ask for anything. Not my number. Not my name. Just gave herself to the moment without apology or hesitation. Like it was the only honest thing left in the world.
Her hands were unsure at first. Her breath caught. Her eyes flicked up to mine with something between defiance and fear.
That's when I knew.
She hadn't done this before.
She didn't say it. Didn't have to. And I didn't say anything either.
Because I could feel it—the way her whole body trembled under my hands, the sharp inhale when I entered her, the silence that wrapped around us after. It wasn't shame. It was something purer. Fierce.
She wanted it. Needed it. And I wanted her like I'd never wanted anyone.
She was a virgin. Lustful. Wild. Unafraid.
I couldn't get enough of her.
No wonder I slept. Like the world had finally stopped turning.
And when I woke up—
She was gone.
Just a pillow with the faintest scent of her hair.
I went back to that bar the next night. Asked around the hotel. Waited.
Nothing.
She vanished like she was never real....
And now here she was, again. In my city. In my company.
And she didn't even look at me.
I stepped back into the hallway, hung up the call I wasn't listening to. Leaned against the wall, stared through the crack in the door like some intern.
I stood there too long. Heart pounding like a drum I couldn't shut off.
She looked the same. And different. Softer somehow, but just as luminous. There was an energy to her—untouched by the world she had wandered into. She wasn't trying too hard. She never did. That's what made her different.
Even that night, when everything burned between us, she hadn't asked for anything. No future. No promise. No drama. Just one night of being seen. Of feeling.
I had let her go because it was better that way. She wasn't a girl fit for Tantoco. And I wasn't built for softness.
But seeing her again—here, in Manila, under the fluorescent lights of my own company—felt like the heavens were playing a joke.
Or maybe answering a prayer I never dared whisper.
Back in the office, I asked for the cast and crew list. No one questioned it. Just handed it over.
I skimmed through the names, trying not to look too eager. Then I saw it.
"Anri Sevilla."
So that was her name.