Rainwater streamed along the corners of Aruna’s temples, dripping past her trembling chin. Beneath the gloomy glow of the streetlights, Rangga’s gaze tracked her every movement. He stood barely an inch away, letting the rain from the sky soak his expensive shirt completely.
The patter of water striking the asphalt seemed to fade farther and farther away, drowned out by the uneven rush of Aruna’s breathing.
“That name.” Aruna’s voice came out, her throat suddenly tight and dry. “I only copied it from the cover of an old book that had been left on the table.”
Rangga didn’t move. His thumb crushed the bundle of wet papers in his hand until the edges curled. “The first edition of The Hunt. A faded brown cover with blue-ink scribbles on the very last page.” He stepped a centimeter closer and lowered his gaze. “That nickname was written by only one person in this world—my late grandfather, on the exact day he handed that book to a little girl crying in the corner of the history section.”
Aruna felt as if a heavy weight had slammed into her chest. A memory from more than a decade ago, carefully tucked away in the most isolated corner of her mind, suddenly surged to the surface. The day she ran from a terrible argument at home and hid behind the rows of dusty wooden shelves in the city library. A teenage boy in a school uniform, his gaze cold, held out a box of tissues and an old book without saying a word before leaving the room.
“So the boy standing by the window that day,” Aruna whispered, her voice nearly swallowed by the force of the night wind.
“The man you’ve been searching for in every line you write,” Rangga interrupted softly. His eyes flashed with a tangled mix of emotions—astonishment, regret, and a warmth that had long been buried. “I spent five years searching for the owner of that anonymous blog, Aruna. I bought up every share in this publishing company and funded Valerie’s project because I thought she was the one who had rewritten the memories from that library.”
Aruna took a step back. The truth struck her far too hard. All this time, the man she had admired from afar—the man whose soul she had poured into manuscript after manuscript—had approached Valerie not because of the influencer’s beauty, but because he was following the trail of her own fingerprints.
“Mr. Rangga, please.” Aruna shook her head and wiped the rain from her face.
“It’s already too late. This lie has gone too far. My name has never existed in this industry. The public only knows Valerie.”
“Then we’ll return that name to where it belongs,” Rangga said firmly. He reached out and took Aruna’s cold, wet wrist. His grip was warm, a stark contrast to the chill of the night. “Come with me. We’ll finish this tonight.”
Aruna stared at Rangga’s hand wrapped around hers. The warmth seemed to spread rapidly, burning away all the doubts that had imprisoned her in the shadows for so long. But before she could answer, the glare of another car’s headlights cut sharply through the darkness from behind Rangga’s sedan. A vehicle came to an abrupt stop right beside them.
The car door slid wide open. A sturdy, middle-aged man in an expensive suit stepped out, assisted by a bodyguard holding a large umbrella. The older man’s face hardened with fury when he saw Rangga still holding Aruna’s hand in the pouring rain.
“Rangga!” the older man’s booming voice shattered the tension of the night. “What are you doing with this strange woman out here?”
Rangga froze. His grip on Aruna did not loosen, but his jaw clenched tight as he stared at the older man before him.
“Father?” Rangga breathed.
The older man stepped closer, looking Aruna up and down with a sharply contemptuous gaze. “Valerie just called headquarters. She said you canceled the partnership contract and threatened to destroy her reputation for the sake of some file clerk.” The older man pointed his wooden cane at Aruna. “Who is this woman, Rangga? And why is she holding our family’s confidential caption draft?”