LilaBanes
On the night of her first solo gallery opening in New York, Cleo Parks looks exactly where she is meant to be.
At twenty-eight, she runs her family's prestigious London art empire, moves effortlessly between cities, and carries her parents' legacy with quiet grace.
But the life she lives was written long before she ever chose it.
The next day, over lunch in Central Park, her mother's closest friend places a final gift in her hands: a green notebook written during the last months of her mother's life - meant for Cleo only when the time was right.
As she begins to read, the pages awaken questions she has carefully buried - about freedom, about courage, and about the kind of love that shapes a life without ever asking permission.
And then Paul returns.
Her childhood confidant.
Her once inseparable companion.
The only person who ever knew her before the world decided who she should become.
Their paths parted years ago without explanation.
Now, drawn back together by something neither distance nor pride could erase, their connection rekindles - slowly, deeply, inevitably.
But love is not always about staying.
Sometimes it is about walking away.
Sometimes it is about loving someone so fiercely that leaving feels like the only way to survive.
A contemporary romance about legacy, grief, and the quiet, relentless force of a love that never truly disappears.