Chapter 3

Amelia Avila POV:

Cortney Sims. The name now tasted like ash in my mouth. When she first joined AG Designs as Gabe' s intern, she had seemed harmless enough. Young, eager, with wide, innocent eyes that belied the viper beneath. I hadn't given her a second thought, too secure in my seven-year relationship with Gabe, too busy building our empire. I believed our love was an impenetrable fortress, a bond forged in shared dreams and countless sacrifices. How foolish I had been. Love, like everything else, is subject to entropy. It decays if not nurtured, if taken for granted. And Gabe, my Gabe, had taken it all for granted.

I remembered the early days when he would work late, his passion for architecture consuming him. I would often make him dinner, something simple but nourishing, then drive it to the office. It was my small way of nurturing not just him, but us.

One evening, about six months ago, the memory was a fresh wound, the scent of the cooling pasta still vivid. I had pulled up to the AG Designs building, the city lights beginning to sparkle around me. My heart was light. I was bringing Gabe his favorite lasagna. As I approached his office, a soft, melodic laugh drifted from behind the slightly ajar door. Cortney' s laugh. It was light, airy, utterly charming.

My smile, already in place for Gabe, faltered. I paused, a strange premonition twisting in my gut. What was so funny? I pushed the door open just a crack.

The sight that greeted me froze me in place. Cortney was sitting on the edge of Gabe's desk, a small container of takeout food in her hand. She was holding a fork, playfully feeding Gabe a piece of sushi. He leaned back, his eyes twinkling, accepting the morsel with a smile I had never seen before. It wasn' t just a smile; it was a gaze filled with a tenderness, a profound softness that made my stomach clench. A tenderness he reserved for me, I thought. But no. He was giving it to her.

My world tilted. The lasagna in my hands suddenly felt heavy, cold. My heart constricted, a sharp, searing pain. I stood there, rooted to the spot, watching him devour the sushi, watching him gaze at her with that look. A silent scream ripped through me, but no sound escaped my lips.

I quietly closed the door, my hands trembling so violently I almost dropped the food. I walked away, the lasagna growing colder with every step, just like my heart. I stood outside in the pouring rain, the food forgotten, its warmth seeping into the cardboard container, cooling, cooling, cooling.

Later that night, I went back. The rain had stopped. I walked into his office, the leftovers of Cortney' s meal still on his desk.

"Amelia? What's wrong?" Gabe asked, feigning concern, his voice laced with annoyance. "You' re drenched. Did you forget your umbrella again? You're so clumsy sometimes."

He didn't ask why I came back. He didn't ask if I had seen anything. He just complained. "You know, Amelia, sometimes you're a little... clingy," he said, rubbing his temples. "I need space to work. You need to understand that."

Clingy. The word echoed in my empty heart.

After that, the small betrayals began to stack up. Little things. Cortney volunteering to stay late with him, "to help." Gabe always agreeing. Cortney suggesting design ideas that I had proposed months ago, but now, coming from her, they were "brilliant." Gabe ignoring my subtle warnings about Cortney' s ambition, her lack of boundaries. He even allocated a significant chunk of our marketing budget to a frivolous social media campaign Cortney had designed, a campaign that ultimately yielded minimal results, just because she "had a great vision."

I tried to ignore it. I tried to convince myself that Gabe was just busy, that he was blind to her manipulations. But a gnawing suspicion began to eat away at me. One night, unable to bear it any longer, I confronted him, his office still smelling faintly of her cheap perfume.

"Gabe," I said, my voice trembling despite my best efforts to keep it steady. "Are you in love with Cortney?"

He slammed his hand on the desk, the sudden noise making me jump. "What kind of ridiculous question is that, Amelia?" he snapped, his face contorted in anger. "Are you out of your mind? Why are you always so paranoid?"

He didn't miss a beat. He didn't even flinch. His eyes, usually so expressive, were cold, hard, and devoid of any guilt. Only impatience. Only annoyance. He made me feel like I was the problem, I was the crazy one. I stood there, speechless, the accusation hanging heavy in the air, suffocating me. The man I loved, the man I had given everything to, had become a stranger. A cruel, indifferent stranger.