CHAPTER 443

ARIA’S POV

“I’m not letting you take Ethan from me.”

Lydia sits next to me, vulnerable in a way I’ve never seen before. She begins speaking softly, revealing her regrets and the reasons behind her actions. She admits that her past choices were driven by greed and a hunger for wealth, and that those choices led her to hurt Ethan and her ex-fiancé. She speaks of how, after fleeing to Arizona to escape the wreckage of her old life, she found Ethan on the shore, lost and helpless. In that moment, she says, she saw not the man she had wronged but someone she could help. Someone who needed her.

It’s difficult to fully believe her, but something about her story rings true. The way she talks about Ethan and her past mistakes feels raw and genuine, not the calculated coldness I once associated with her. She explains that when Ethan didn’t remember anything—not his name, not his family, not even his old life—he still remembered her.

“We’re meant to be together. Else, he wouldn’t have landed her