To Love You Twice

August in Verona smelled of damp asphalt and bruised jasmine. The coastal rain had hung suspended in the air for over a fortnight, turning the skyline into a sprawling watercolor of slate gray and silver fog. It suffocated the city’s usual restlessness, replacing it with a slow, heavy hum.

Inside the glass-paneled offices of Vantage Media, Astrid Sterling cleared her mahogany desk with surgical precision. She dropped her company lanyard into the top drawer with a dull click, pocketed her motorcycle keys, and headed for the reception foyer. It was precisely 4:58 PM.

As she passed the lounge, a whisper cut through the air conditioning's drone: "Look at her. Clocking in at the exact second, leaving before five. Must be nice not caring about the firm."

A second voice chimed in with nervous delight: "That girl has no team spirit—"

The elevator chimed. Astrid stepped inside, turned around, and caught the two junior associates dead in their tracks as her pale green eyes locked onto theirs. The whispering ceased instantly, caught in their throats.

Astrid tilted her chin up slightly, her lips curling into a dry, razor-sharp smirk.

"That girl has a name," she said, her voice smooth and entirely devoid of heat. "It’s Astrid Sterling."

The doors slid shut, cutting off the flush of crimson spreading across their faces.

Alone in the mirrored cabin, Astrid twirled her keychain around her index finger and let out a quiet scoff. Somewhere between her first week and her sixth month, the office hive-mind had assigned her an ever-rotating roster of derogatory labels: The girl who clocks out too fast. The girl with the attitude. The girl who defends her designs instead of saying ‘thank you for the feedback.’

It was exhausting. She was paid to deliver brilliant creative architecture, not to play emotional martyr for insecure managers. She was perfectly content earning a living, but she drew the line at swallowing petty corporate misery.

Reaching the subterranean garage, she zipped her matte-black leather jacket, straddled her Ducati Scrambler, and fastened her carbon-fiber helmet. With a low, guttural roar that echoed against the concrete pillars, she throttled out into the wet Verona traffic.

Her destination was the Verona Holistic Care Institute—specifically, their integrative neuropsychiatry and somatic therapy department. Astrid wasn’t entirely convinced she needed clinical intervention, but she found dark humor in the modern mantra that the end of Western stress management is holistic recalibration. If an eccentric specialist actually handed her a diagnosis for acute burnout or chronic sensory overdrive, she could slap the medical certificate on HR’s desk tomorrow. Let the office whisperers deal with "the girl whose nerves you don't want to test."

She was entertaining the thought when the brake lights ahead flared in a synchronized sea of scarlet.

A gridlock at five in the afternoon was normal, but this was a dead halt. Astrid eased off the throttle, downshifting as she maneuvered toward a right-hand bypass. Just as she cleared the corner, a tall silhouette stumbled out from the sidewalk, collapsing blindly toward her front tire.

Are street scammers getting this desperate? Against a two-wheeler?

Astrid’s reflexes kicked in instantly. Clutch in, front brake feathered, rear brake pressed smoothly while her eyes flicked to the left wing mirror to ensure no trailing vehicle was about to crush her rear fender.

She swung wide, clearing the man by two feet. He crumpled onto the wet asphalt without making contact.

A woman rushed from the curb an instant later, falling to her knees beside him. "Richard! Richard, look at me! Somebody call an ambulance! Please, he’s not breathing!"

Astrid killed the engine, kicked the stand down, and pulled off her helmet. Walking over, she took in the scene with swift, clinical detachment: the man’s lips were already turning an ischemic plum, his skin graying beneath the streetlamps. Unresponsive to verbal stimulus. Agonal gasps fading into stillness.

She dialed the emergency dispatch on her phone, setting it to speaker while bystanders began to gather in a hesitant ring.

"Is it a cardiac arrest?" a passerby murmured, clutching an umbrella. "The four-minute window... dispatch will never get an ambulance through this rain in time."

Astrid knelt, preparing to initiate manual chest compressions, when her gaze caught the rear quarter-panel of a vehicle parked precisely four yards away in an executive bay.

A pristine, obsidian-black Bentley Flying Spur. On its rear passenger window was a high-visibility, luminescent decal:

[PRIVATE EMERGENCY RESPONSE: AUTOMATED EXTERNAL DEFIBRILLATOR (AED) ON BOARD]

[IN EXTREME CRISIS: BREAK GLASS TO RETRIEVE. NO CIVIL LIABILITY WILL BE PURSUED.]

Astrid froze for a fraction of a heartbeat. That customized decal style... it struck a chord buried deep in the marrow of her past, far more luxurious than the vintage sedans she once knew.

She didn't waste time on sentiment. She ran to the driver-side windshield, read the VIP contact placard, and dialed the direct private number.

Ring... ring... No answer.

"Forgive me, billionaire," she muttered under her breath.

Astrid gripped the steel-reinforced chin bar of her carbon-fiber helmet with both hands. Lining up her stance with the lower corner of the tempered rear-passenger window, she swung with clean, kinetic force.

CRACK.

The street went dead silent.

"Ma'am! What are you doing? That's a quarter-million-dollar Bentley!" a pedestrian yelled, pulling back in terror.

"Is she insane? She's smashing a luxury car on camera!" another gasped, already raising their smartphone.

Astrid ignored them completely. On the third strike, the spiderwebbed safety glass gave way under the blunt force. She thrust her gloved hand through the rubberized membrane, popped the interior latch, and hauled out the heavy red casing of a state-of-the-art Zoll AED.

Striding back to the fallen man, she snapped open the lid. The machine chimed to life with an automated synthetic voice: Unit OK. Stay calm.

"Tear his shirt open," Astrid commanded the weeping wife. When the woman remained frozen in shock, Astrid stripped the buttons herself, exposing the bare chest. "We’re using a defibrillator. Stand clear."

Apply pads to patient's bare chest.

Astrid didn't need the prompt. The memory flooded back with crystal clarity, accompanied by a phantom voice from years ago: One pad beneath the right clavicle, the other on the left mid-axillary line... The machine analyzes rhythm; it charges automatically if ventricular fibrillation is detected...

Her hands worked with fluid muscle memory.

Analyzing heart rhythm. Do not touch the patient.

"Don't touch him!" Astrid warned, extending an arm to hold the wife back.

Shock advised. Charging. Press the flashing orange button.

Astrid pressed it without hesitation.

A sharp jolt racked the man's torso. The automated monitor resumed: Shock delivered. Begin CPR.

Astrid positioned the heel of her palm over his sternum, locking her elbows, counting the rhythm out loud at 110 beats per minute. Two cycles in, the blare of sirens cut through the drizzle. An advanced life support ambulance parted the crowd, and two paramedics sprang out with gurneys and oxygen kits.

Within minutes, after manual ventilation and advanced monitoring, the senior paramedic glanced up at the cardiac monitor, exhaling. "Sinus rhythm restored. Pulse is weak but stable. Who deployed the AED?"

The wife turned blindly, her face streaked with tears, searching the wet pavement. "The girl with the bike... she..."

Astrid was already stepping back into the shadows of the awning. She waved a dismissive hand, retrieved the defibrillator case, and slid it neatly back through the shattered window of the Bentley. She considered writing a note, but knowing she had just called the owner's linked private number, she figured their legal team wouldn't have trouble tracking her if they intended to dispute the repair costs.

She inspected her helmet, brushed off two stray crumbs of safety glass, clicked the visor shut, and swung her leg over the Ducati. With a twist of the throttle, she merged into the damp asphalt vein of the avenue.

Behind her, the crowd was still whispering when the heavy revolving doors of the adjacent Vance Tower glided open.

Alexander "Alec" Vance stepped onto the granite portico. He was draped in an impeccably tailored charcoal Savile Row three-piece suit, his swan-white collar anchored by a silk tie woven with deep burgundy undertones. His countenance was cold, his chiseled jaw set in severe lines, and his hazel eyes held the quiet, predatory stillness of a man who controlled empires before breakfast.

The distant wail of the departing ambulance echoed off the wet concrete.

Alec's gaze dropped instantly to his Bentley, settling on the pulverized glass of the rear window. A single glance at the shifted AED harness inside told him everything.

Ten years. He had carried an AED in every private vehicle he had owned across three different continents, through four fleet upgrades.

It had never once been touched. Until today.

His chief of staff, Calvin Montgomery, hurried forward, his brow furrowed as he checked the missed call alert on his encrypted tablet. "Sir, it seems someone accessed the emergency compartment just moments ago. Let me escort you back to the lobby while security secures the perimeter and calls the precinct—"

"Hey! Mister!" A bystander broke through the drizzle, waving a phone eagerly toward them. "It was a biker! A girl in a black leather jacket on a sports bike! I recorded the whole thing—she smashed your window and sped off! You can get her plates from this!"

Calvin moved with seamless, protective agility, stepping directly between the agitated pedestrian and his employer, raising a hand to halt the approach. "Keep your distance, please."

Alec didn't look at the phone screen.

His eyes were drawn toward the intersection fifty yards ahead. Through the veil of rain, a lone motorcycle was idling at the red light. The rider sat upright, slender yet commanding, wearing a matte-black helmet and a jacket that cut a silhouette carved into the deepest, most guarded corridors of his subconscious.

His hazel eyes narrowed, catching the gray light of the sky like polished amber.

Her?

The thought struck him with the force of an electric shock.

Impossible.

Astrid was supposed to be in Milan, eight thousand kilometers away, buried in private architectural contracts. She would never return to Verona without a word to their shared circles, and she certainly wouldn't materialize out of the rain to smash the window of his car on a random Tuesday.

He didn't dare indulge the ache of that phantom hope. Within a second, Alec's rational intellect crushed the speculation into dust.

Calvin glanced at the blurry video on the bystander's screen, sighed at the illegible angle, and looked back at his boss. "Sir, your orders?"

Alec pulled his gaze back from the distant taillights as the traffic light turned green and the motorcycle vanished into the mist.

"Call for the secondary car," Alec said, his voice low, deep, and steady. "We cannot afford to delay the appointment at the Holistic Care Institute."

Astrid arrived at the Verona Holistic Care Institute with five minutes to spare. She scanned her appointment QR code at the check-in kiosk and was promptly directed to Consulting Suite 3 in the Department of Integrative Neuro-Psychiatry.

She pushed the frosted glass door open. Behind a minimalist timber desk, the attending physician looked up. As his eyes locked onto her face, a fleeting tremor rippled across his composure before he quickly masked it beneath clinical neutrality.

Astrid, having turned to latch the door, missed the subtle shift entirely. She took a seat across from him and offered a crisp, professional greeting.

"Good afternoon, Doctor."

It was the polite, measured tone reserved strictly for strangers.

The doctor froze for two full seconds. Glancing down at his monitor under the pretense of verifying her file, he swallowed hard to steady his voice. "Astrid Sterling?"

"Yes."

He adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, pushing his unse