Chapter 2

Jensen looked at me, a flicker of surprise in his eyes. He hadn't expected me to simply "fall in line." He didn't know that my quiet acceptance was not surrender, but a declaration of war.

He tried to smooth things over later that night. He came into my room, the hour late, the house silent. The moonlight sliced through the window, painting stripes across the expensive rug. He sat on the edge of my bed, his presence a heavy weight I no longer welcomed.

"Harper," he whispered, his voice laced with the false tenderness he now reserved for public appearances. "I know this is difficult. But we're a team, remember? We'll get through this. It's temporary. Just for the family."

"Temporary," I repeated, the word tasting like ash in my mouth. "Is that what you told me when you proposed, Jensen? That our love, our marriage, would be 'temporary'?"

He flinched. "That's not fair. This is different. This is about legacy."

"Legacy? Or convenience?" My voice remained level, a dangerous calm that should have warned him. "You promised me everything, Jensen. A shared future. A family of our own. You said I was the only one."

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "And you are. You are the only one. My heart is with you." The words sounded hollow, rehearsed.

In that moment, something inside me clicked shut. A door I had kept open, despite all the abuse, finally slammed closed. The love I had once felt for him, so vast and consuming, shriveled and died. It wasn't a sudden explosion of anger, but a cold, quiet extinction.

I remembered Jensen, not as the Logan CEO, but as the ambitious, almost desperate young man I first met. He was a junior analyst then, overshadowed by his older brother, living in a cramped apartment that barely fit his dreams. My father, Franklin Taylor, a self-made tech mogul who built his empire from nothing, had seen through Jensen' s polished veneer immediately.

"He's a climber, Harper," my father had warned, his gaze sharp. "He sees you as a stepping stone, not a partner."

But I had loved Jensen. Or rather, I had loved the man I believed him to be-the man who claimed to love me with such fierce intensity. He had proposed to me on a rainy rooftop, on bended knee, with a ring he couldn't afford. He'd looked into my eyes, brimming with tears, and sworn an oath that resonated with the raw desperation of a man who felt he had nothing to lose.

"I will love you, Harper Frost, until my last breath," he'd promised, his voice choked with emotion. "I will never betray you. I will always choose you." He' d even stood up to my formidable father, pouring out his heart, begging for my hand.

My father, ever the pragmatist, had seen the intensity, perhaps mistaken it for genuine devotion. But he was also a man who protected his own. He had one condition.

"If you ever betray my daughter, Jensen," my father had stated, his voice like steel, "if you ever give her cause to question your fidelity, everything you gain through this marriage, everything you build, will be forfeit. Understand?"

He' d then presented a document. A prenuptial agreement, ironclad and merciless, with an infidelity clause that would strip Jensen of every penny and every asset gained during the marriage, should he stray. It also contained a clause about the primary marital residence.

Jensen, starry-eyed and insistent on his "undying love," had signed it without a second thought. "Of course, Mr. Taylor," he' d said, a confident smile on his face. "I would never dream of it." He'd even laughed, as if the notion of betraying me was absurd.

The irony now burned like acid in my throat. He had signed away his future, unknowingly. And I, fool that I was, had been touched by his supposed devotion.

Jensen leaned in, attempting to kiss me. His lips brushed my cheek, and I felt it-the lingering scent of Isabella' s perfume, faint but undeniable, mingling with his own. It was a cloying, sickly sweet smell, like bruised flowers.

My stomach lurched. A wave of nausea washed over me. I pushed him back gently, subtly, but with a force that surprised even me.

"I need to sleep, Jensen," I said, my voice flat. My body felt repulsed, a visceral reaction to his touch. The betrayal was no longer just an abstract concept; it was a physical presence, a foul taste in my mouth, a lingering scent on my husband' s skin.

He hesitated, then rose, a flicker of hurt in his eyes. He didn't press. He simply left, closing the door softly behind him.

I lay in the dark, my body rigid, the nausea slowly subsiding. But something else had taken its place. A cold, hard clarity. The door was closed. And it would never open again.