Page 1 of His Orders

1

IVY

Two months ago

The train groans as it rounds a bend, metal grinding against ice-slicked tracks. Outside, a thick mist clings to the frozen banks of the Larkspur River, curling between bare trees like fingers dragging through smoke. Everything beyond the glass looks blurred, dreamlike. Perhaps this is a dream, because in no reality did I ever plan on coming back.

If the universe had the slightest respect for my decisions, I’d be stretched out on some sun-warmed dock in a place where no one knew my name, my past, or the man who once wrapped his hand around my wrist and smiled like he owned me. Instead, I’m watching Valleria’s skyline rise through the fog, a jagged fortress of glass and steel that swallows the horizon. The city is waiting. It always has been. I’ve just been set on disappointing it.

Exhaling, I lean my forehead against the window. The chill sinks into my skin like a cold slap of reality. Maybe it should make me feel something—remorse, regret, the creeping thrill of closure. But all I feel is the weight of inevitability pressing in like the train walls around me.

I told myself I was done with this place. Done with its perfect, polished corridors and the people who smiled too widely when they asked about my engagement, their curiosity sharper than their politeness. Done with the hushed whispers in country clubs and the way everyone had waited, breath held, for me to explain why Daniel Holt—the golden boy, the perfect fiancé—wasn’t perfect after all.

So I left.

Not just Valleria. Not just Daniel. I left the version of myself who had once stood in his shadow, who had smiled and nodded and swallowed every ugly thing he fed me because I didn’t want to admit that I had made a mistake. I spent the past two years disappearing—moving from country to country, throwing myself into grassroots work, rebuilding houses, learning how to make coffee in a tin pot over an open fire in places where no one cared about Daniel Holt or Ivy Dawson or the picture-perfect life I had burned to the ground.

And for a while, it worked.

Until my brother called.

Until he said the words,Mom and Dad are finally going through with the divorce, and suddenly, I was stuffing my life into a suitcase, buying a train ticket, telling myself that this would be temporary—just long enough to be the understanding daughter, the supportive sister.

Just long enough to remember why I hate this city.

I shift, stretching my legs under the table. The train car is mostly empty, just a handful of passengers lost in their own worlds. A couple sits near the back, their heads tilted together in quiet conversation, the woman’s laugh soft but genuine. Acrossthe aisle, a businessman scrolls through his phone, his brows furrowed in concentration, his briefcase balanced on his knee like a lifeline.

And then there’s me—curled into my seat, arms folded against the chill, staring out at a city I once thought I’d spend my life in.

The train begins its slow, steady crawl into the station. Lights streak past the windows, neon reflections smearing across the glass. I catch my own reflection for a second—messy waves of dark hair, oversized sweater slipping off one shoulder, the shadowed hollows under my eyes making me look almost unfamiliar, not because I am fragile, but because I’m exhausted.

A voice crackles over the intercom, announcing our arrival. I grab my bag, exhaling slowly as the train lets out one final, metallic groan and lurches to a stop.

Welcome home.

I ignore the voice in my head that whispers,You should have stayed gone.

The station breathes with movement—suitcases rumbling over uneven tiles, tired voices negotiating plans, the low murmur of arrivals and departures bleeding into the overhead announcements. The café by the exit still has its overpriced pastries lined up in neat little rows, untouched at this hour. Someone has left a half-finished coffee on the armrest of a plastic chair, the liquid inside swaying with the vibration of another train rolling in.

Stepping outside, I take a moment to watch the city as it unfurls in front of me, its skyline jagged against the dark. The streets are damp, not quite raining but carrying the leftover weight of it, the pavement slick under shifting headlights. Cabs cluster near thecurb, the occasional impatient tap of a horn breaking through the lull of traffic.

I make my way toward one, my boots pressing shallow prints onto the wet concrete. The driver barely looks up as I slide into the backseat, and the second the door shuts, I’m hit with a layered assault—burnt coffee, cheap vanilla air freshener, and the unmistakable tang of worn leather seats that have absorbed too many stories. It’s a little better than the station, though not by much.

I give the driver my address, watching as we pull away from the platform, merging onto the slick, rain-speckled streets of Valleria.

It's strange how quickly the city pulls me back in, how familiar it all still is. The towering townhouses with their ivy-wrapped iron gates, the upscale boutiques with curated window displays, the glint of taillights reflecting off the cobblestone roads. Stately, elegant, refined—a little like an overpriced perfume commercial with a dash of inherited wealth and seasonal depression.

As the cab turns onto Ashford Street, a row of Victorian townhouses rises from the pavement, their façades elegant, untouched by time or the people who pass beneath them. One of them belongs to my parents.

I stifle a curse as I recall what it means to me. The house itself is beautiful in a way that doesn’t invite living. Soaring ceilings, polished marble floors, a chandelier in the foyer so grand it looks like it belongs in a palace or a particularly dramatic crime scene. It’s nice. Stupidly nice. The kind of nice that makes me uneasy, like I should be walking through it in heels and a stiff-lipped smile instead of bare feet and bad decisions.

“Actually… can you stop two blocks up?” I ask.

The driver glances at me in the rearview, skeptical but obliging. A few minutes later, I’m standing outside Hollis & Sons Bakery, one of the only places in this city that still makes their pastries with actual butter and not whatever overpriced substitute Valleria’s socialites swear by these days.

I step inside, letting the smells of sugar and fresh dough work their magic. The line moves quickly, and within minutes, I’m standing on the sidewalk, blissfully clutching a warm, deep-fried beignet dusted with powdered sugar.

If self-destruction had a flavor, it would taste like this.

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