Chapter 2 Bella's Pov

CHAPTER TWO

Bella's POV

My breath stopped.

My world stopped.

And just like that-

everything I thought I knew,

everything I believed,

everything I planned for today...

was shattered.

For a moment, everything inside me went silent.

It was the kind of silence that presses against your eardrums, thick and suffocating, like the world had been dunked underwater.

I felt the ring slip from my fingers- cool metal against trembling skin - and did nothing as it then fell to the floor.

There was a tiny clink, barely a sound, as it hit the office carpet but to me, it was a sound louder than my heartbeat breaking open.

I stared at Ethan and Camilla frozen in that stupid, intimate posture - his hands still cupping her waist, her lipstick smeared against his mouth like a brand. It was a bright, glossy betrayal.

The scene before me, no matter how real it was, didn't make sense. And my brain refused to process it.

Camilla.

My friend and Ethan's assistant.

Ethan.

My... everything.

Or what I thought was my everything.

I didn't even breathe. I couldn't breathe.

When Ethan looked back and saw me, he jumped back so fast he nearly tripped over the leg of his desk chair.

"B-Bella...Bella, wait...this isn't...God, it's not what it looks like-"

His voice reached me as if through thick glass. Muffled. Far away. Unimportant.

Camilla was already stammering as well, "Bella, please...listen, we didn't mean..."

Didn't mean to what?

Didn't mean to kiss?

Didn't mean to betray me?

Didn't mean to destroy five years of my life?

Humiliation burned hotter than the tears stinging my eyes. It was as if a wild, choking fire had climbed up my throat.

I felt it in the tips of my fingers, my jaw, my ribs.

I wanted to scream.

I wanted to slap Ethan.

I wanted to drag Camilla out by her fake-blonde ponytail and ask her how long she'd been pretending to like the gifts I occasionally sent to her while sleeping with my boyfriend.

I wanted to say to Ethan:

"How long?"

"Was it worth it?"

"Did you ever love me?"

"Is this why you've been distant?"

"Did you use me?"

But none of the words formed.

I felt everything and nothing at once. It was like numbness was wrapped around agony within me.

My chest tightened until I could barely breathe.

I took one step back. Then another.

Ethan's voice sharpened in panic. "Bella...stop...don't walk out...listen to me!"

But my body had already chosen for me.

I turned and walked out.

Not a single word from me was uttered.

Not one breath wasted on them.

The door felt heavy, like resistance itself tried to keep me inside that nightmare. But I pushed through, blinking rapidly as the world blurred - office hallways turning into streaks of white and chrome.

I didn't know where I was going.

I just needed to get away before the screams in my chest spilled out of my mouth.

By the time I reached the street, the February air slapped me hard across the face - cold, sharp, merciless.

It felt like the city itself was telling me to wake up from the agony I was embroiled in.

Couples walked past me laughing, holding roses and balloons tied with glittering ribbons.

Every bit of red I saw felt like mockery.

Every promise of love I overheard felt like a slap.

Every "Happy Valentine's Day!" floating through the air twisted the knife deeper.

It was Valentine's Day.

Of all days.

Of course.

The universe had a twisted sense of humour.

The sidewalks glittered with slush, neon reflections from the storefronts trembling in the puddles. A man handed a chocolate box to his date right in front of me and she squealed with delight.

I looked away before I cried again.

Five years.

Five years of loving Ethan.

Five years of believing I'd found safety after losing my parents, after losing my sister, after losing so much.

Five years of cooking late dinners, buying anniversary gifts he barely remembered, covering for him when he forgot events, swallowing my own doubts because "he was stressed" or "work was rough lately."

Five years of thinking my love was finally enough.

And today... today I'd walked in with a ring.

A ring.

God, I felt so stupid.

My chest ached like I'd been pierced from the inside. The cold stung my eyes, or maybe that was just the tears breaking free.

I rounded a corner too fast and that was when I slammed straight into someone. Hard.

My body jolted from the impact, and the ring box slipped out of my grasp again. It clattered onto the concrete, flipping open as if mocking me - the diamond catching the streetlight and shining brighter as if telling me it was more important than the Ethan who had just broken my heart.

"Shit...sorry," I muttered, crouching to grab it, but a hand reached it first.

A large hand.

The stranger I had just slammed into had bent down in one smooth motion and picked up the box.

When he straightened, I looked at him and froze.

Because nothing about him was... normal.

He looked like he'd stepped out of a darker, sharper dimension - like a character an artist sketched in charcoal and angles.

He was tall, broad-shouldered and the coat he was wearing was tailored to a precision that whispered expensive danger.

He had jet-black hair that was slicked back with the kind of careless perfection men like Ethan could never pull off.

And his eyes-

Oh.

His eyes.

Gray, cold, and stormy.

The kind of gray that warned of hurricanes before the sky even changed.

He looked at me - through me - with unsettling calm, as though chaos didn't exist for him, only observation. His gaze drifted down to the ring in its velvet bed, then back to my face that was streaked with tears and humiliation.

Oh God, no, I thought while feeling embarrassment run through me in waves.

He tilted his head slightly.

"Yours?"

His voice was a low baritone, smooth but edged with something dangerous. It was likd a quietness that didn't feel peaceful at all, but powerful.

I should have said yes.

I should have said thank you.

I should have walked away and gone home to cry into my pillow.

But something inside me snapped.

Or maybe it awakened.

Maybe it was the humiliation that burned through me.

Maybe it was the pain from seeing Ethan kiss a woman that was not me.

Maybe it was the sheer recklessness of having nothing left to lose.

Or maybe it was the way this stranger looked at me - not with pity, not with confusion, but with an unreadable intensity that made heat skitter down my spine.

So I lifted my chin.

Met those storm-colored eyes.

And said the stupidest, wildest, rawest thing that had ever come out of my mouth.

"Would you marry me?"

God.

Even hearing myself say it sounded insane.

What the hell had I just say?

But the stranger didn't laugh as I had expected.

He didn't frown in surprise either.

He didn't step back or look embarrassed or call security on the crazy woman proposing to strangers in the middle of Manhattan.

Rather, bis gaze flicked to my shaking hands, to the smeared tear tracks on my cheeks, to the half-open box he still held.

Then something shifted in his expression. It was barely there, a subtle pull at one corner of his mouth.

It was a slow, dangerous, almost amused curve.

He stepped closer.

So close I could smell him. It was a clean, enticing smell with a hint of something dark, like smoke and spice and secrets. He had a scent that made the cold in me disappear in one breath.

Even as I thought about it, his voice dropped in a manner that was soft, husky and sexy at the same time and he spoke, "I do."