Chapter 2

The agreement papers arrived. Ethan signed them without reading. The terms didn't matter. Only freedom did.

But freedom wasn't immediate. He was still at the Miller estate, a place that felt more like a gilded cage with every passing hour. He felt a familiar ache in his bones, a phantom pain from his first life's torture. His breath hitched.

He needed to leave. Now.

He called for his driver, but one of Isabella' s security men, a holdover from when their families were closer, intercepted him. "Ms. Rossi's orders, Mr. Miller. You're to remain here until she speaks with you again."

His pleas, his demands, were met with stony silence. He was a prisoner in his own home. The irony was bitter. The script still had its claws in him.

He overheard Isabella on the phone in the next room, her voice frantic. She was talking to a doctor, then to Daniel. Daniel was sick. Not the cancer yet, but something that scared her.

"Don't worry, Danny, I'll fix it. I'll get the best doctors. I'll pay anything."

Her devotion was a physical force.

Then, he heard her talking to her father, who was still influential despite his past crimes. "Dad, I need you to pull some strings. It's for Daniel."

Ethan remembered her father' s white-collar crimes, the disgrace that had almost ruined the Rossi name before Miller Holdings stepped in. The bailout agreement had tied Isabella to Ethan. She resented it, he knew.

Now, she was moving heaven and earth for Daniel. For Ethan, in his first life, she had moved heaven and earth to destroy him.

The contrast was a raw, open wound.

He leaned against the wall, a cold sweat on his brow. He understood now, with a clarity that was agonizing. Her love for Daniel was a raging inferno. Her... whatever she' d felt for Ethan, if anything, was a flickering candle, easily snuffed out.

It was a bitter pill, but he swallowed it. He had to. There was no other way to survive.

A little while later, he saw Isabella through the partly open door. She was on the phone again, this time with Daniel. Her voice was soft, cooing.

"Yes, my love. Of course. I'll bring you your favorite soup from that little place downtown. Right away."

She had just been through some unknown stress regarding Daniel's health, perhaps a minor procedure or a worrying consultation, but her focus was absolute. Daniel wanted soup. Daniel would get soup.

Ethan remembered all the times he had tried to do small, kind things for her. A favorite book, a reservation at a restaurant she' d mentioned, a thoughtful gift. She' d usually accepted them with polite disinterest, sometimes a hint of annoyance, as if his attentions were a burden.

The disparity was a chasm.

She ended the call and turned, seeing him. Her eyes narrowed.

"You're still here," she said, not a question.

"Your men won't let me leave."

"I need to be sure you're not planning something, Ethan. This sudden agreement... it' s too easy." She walked closer, her gaze intense. "I want your word, your absolute guarantee, that you will release me from every clause, every expectation, every tie from that damned agreement. I want to be free of you, completely."

He looked at her. She had no idea he' d already signed everything, that he was desperate to be free of her.

He didn't speak. He just nodded, a slow, deliberate movement.

Inside, he was screaming: I already have, Isabella! I' m setting you free! I' m setting myself free!

But she wouldn't hear it. She wouldn't believe it.

She was still trapped in her own narrative, where he was the obstacle.

He just had to make sure he wasn't in her path when she decided to remove him again.