Chapter 2 Once A Cheater, Always A Cheater

Evan froze, his hand flying to his cheek, his eyes wide in disbelief. The sting of Cassandra's slap burned hotter than the red mark she'd left behind. It wasn't just the pain that shocked him it was her.

Cassandra.

He had always thought of her as the soft one. Quiet. Fragile. A woman too delicate to break anything other than her own heart. He never imagined she had this kind of fury inside her sharp and blazing like wildfire.

"You slapped me?" he asked, his voice low with stunned incredulity, almost a whisper.

Cassandra's chest heaved, her eyes shining with unshed tears and fury. "How long?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper, and then louder, laced with rage, "How long have you been cheating on me?"

Evan opened his mouth to speak, but she didn't let him.

"Here I was, losing sleep, thinking something was wrong with you. That maybe you were sick, depressed, stressed about work. But all this time, you've been here-" she jabbed a shaking finger toward the penthouse door, "-with that thing."

He winced.

"How could you do this to me Evan?" Cassandra continued, venom dripping from every word. "Even if you were tired of the relationship, you could have just ended things between us the right way, not go behind my back to sleep with a slut."

Evan's jaw clenched. His nostrils flared. His bare chest rose and fell with quickening breath as anger twisted through his features.

"Don't talk about her like that."

"Why not?" Cassandra spat, stepping toward him, too furious to care about his height, his strength, or the fury building in his gaze. "She is a slut, that's what she is.'"

"I said, don't talk about her like that!" he snapped.

Before she could say another word, Evan moved.

His hand lashed out, gripping Cassandra by the throat not hard enough to crush, but tight enough to make her gasp. He shoved her backwards until her spine met the cold hotel wall with a muted thud, her soaked blouse plastered to her skin, her breath caught in her throat.

The hallway light flickered above them, casting a dim glow over the twisted scene.

Evan leaned in, his voice low and furious, his eyes wild with a betrayal of his own making.

"Don't you ever insult that woman again," he growled, his face inches from hers. "That woman is ten times better than you in every way. Smarter. Stronger. And she doesn't play the victim every time something doesn't go her way."

Cassandra's eyes widened, but not with fear. With disbelief. With a fresh wave of hurt. Her hands instinctively rose to his chest, pushing, but he didn't budge.

"You're hurting me," she rasped.

But Evan didn't flinch. Didn't move. His gaze was locked on hers, filled with a bitterness she didn't recognize.

The same man who once swore he'd rather die than hurt her now looked at her like she was an inconvenience.

Evan's hand trembled against her neck not from hesitation, but rage. His fingers dug deeper, crushing against her skin, and Cassandra's lips parted with a choked gasp as she clawed at his wrist, nails slipping uselessly across his skin. Her chest hitched. Her feet shifted, searching for leverage, but she was pinned. Trapped. Her back was to the wall and the man she once loved now looked like a stranger wearing Evan's face.

Then he pointed a finger his free hand lifting as if to drive the knife of his words deeper and hissed, "Let's get one thing clear."

His voice dropped an octave, calm now, cruel in its control.

"I never really loved you."

Cassandra froze. Even as her lungs burned for air, those words slammed into her harder than the wall behind her.

Evan's lip curled into a sneer. "Yes, we had some fun together. I won't lie about that. I thought maybe I thought I could love you. That if I tried hard enough, you might become someone worth it." His finger moved closer, almost grazing her cheek. "But you turned out to be too weak. Too emotional. Too... average."

Tears leaked from the corners of Cassandra's eyes. Not just from the lack of oxygen, but from the raw, tearing pain of every word he threw like shrapnel.

"My parents," he went on coldly, "they would have never accepted you. Do you understand that? You're not their kind of woman. You were never going to be."

Cassandra's mouth moved, but no words came out. Her windpipe was a locked gate, her body trembling violently beneath his grip.

"And that woman in there?" He tilted his head toward the door, his voice full of reverence now. "She's not just anyone. She's my fiancée."

The world stopped.

Fiancée.

Cassandra's heart stumbled. Her vision blurred.

She couldn't breathe not just from the pressure of his hand, but from the suffocating weight of that word.

Fiancée?

He was going to marry her?

"I had plans to tell you," Evan said with a scoff, as if that justified anything. "If only you'd stayed away. If only you knew how to mind your business like a proper woman."

Her knees buckled. Her hands lost their strength. The room swam before her, a cacophony of marble tiles, flickering lights, and the fading edges of consciousness.

Then-

The door creaked open.

A sultry voice slipped into the corridor, soft and sweet, like honey over poison.

"My love," the silver-haired woman purred, her golden eyes gleaming under the hallway light, "you're squeezing too tight."

It wasn't alarm in her voice. Just a gentle observation, as if Evan were simply holding a fragile vase too firmly.

Evan blinked, his eyes darting toward her, as though waking from a dream. His grip loosened immediately, and Cassandra crumpled to the ground like a broken doll, gasping as air rushed back into her lungs.

She coughed violently, her hands flying to her throat, cradling the bruised skin where his fingers had been. Her sobs were raw now, her voice hoarse and torn from the abuse. The pain wasn't just physical; it was deep, soul-shattering.

He had tried to kill her.

He would have.

He didn't stop because he realized what he was doing he stopped because she told him to.

Cassandra looked up, her vision blurred by tears. Evan stood there, still half-covered in the duvet, his eyes empty of regret. The woman at the door his fiancée smiled like she had won a prize. She didn't even spare Cassandra a second glance.

And Cassandra broke.

A rough sob tore from her throat as she got to her feet, pushing off the cold wall. Her legs shook, and she stumbled down the hallway. She ran. Through the corridor, into the elevator, and out of the lobby. The rain poured down hard, mixing with her tears. Her wet blouse stuck to her bruised skin as she disappeared into the night.

Behind her, Evan didn't move. He just turned and went back inside, back to the woman he called his fiancée.