The billionaire's secret soulmate
img img The billionaire's secret soulmate img Chapter 9 Goodbye, Ryan
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Chapter 9 Goodbye, Ryan

Liana hadn't planned to see Ryan again. Not ever. Not after everything.

But New York had a funny way of forcing people back into your orbit, especially when you least wanted them there.

It was late afternoon, the sky overcast, the sidewalks damp from an earlier drizzle. She'd ventured out for air, nothing more-one of those restless walks where movement was easier than stillness. Her apartment had begun to feel like a prison of unspoken thoughts and sleepless nights. She hadn't eaten properly in two days, hadn't checked her work email in four, and hadn't replied to the growing stack of voicemails from her boss, her mother, or-most persistently-Ryan.

She turned the corner of Fifth and Madison, head down when a voice stopped her in her tracks.

"Liana."

The sound hit her chest like a stone.

She looked up, and there he was.

Ryan.

Tall. Confident. Wearing the same coat she used to steal from his closet when she was cold. His hair was a little messier, his eyes darker than she remembered-but he was still him. And somehow, that made it worse.

She didn't say anything.

"Can we talk?" he asked.

"No."

"Please." He stepped closer. "Just five minutes."

"Why?" she asked, voice low and sharp. "So you can give me another version of the truth?"

He looked hurt, but she didn't care. Not this time.

"Look, I know I messed up," he began. "But I can't just let us end like this. You didn't even give me a chance to explain."

"I gave you years, Ryan," she snapped. "Years of chances. I gave you grace. I made excuses for you. I stood by you even when you were half-present and emotionally unavailable and making me feel like I had to compete for your attention."

He blinked, stunned. She had never spoken to him like that before.

"I never meant to hurt you," he said.

"But you did."

A silence settled between them, thick and suffocating.

"I didn't sleep with her," he said suddenly.

Liana's breath caught. "So what, I imagined it?"

"No-I mean, yes. I kissed her. It wasn't innocent. But it didn't go further. I stopped it."

She laughed. Cold, hollow. "You stopped it after I caught you."

He didn't reply.

"Do you know what it's like," she continued, "to walk into your apartment and realize it doesn't belong to you anymore? That someone else has taken your place while you were too busy trying to hold the relationship together?"

Ryan looked down. "I was spiraling. I didn't know how to talk to you anymore. It always felt like you were two steps ahead of me-at work, and in life. You didn't need me."

"That's not true," she said, voice trembling with anger. "I needed you to grow up. I needed you to be a partner. But you resented me for being strong instead of learning how to stand beside me."

He winced. "That's not fair."

"No, what's not fair is that I kept trying to become less just to make you feel like more."

A beat passed.

"I loved you," he whispered.

She met his eyes. "Maybe. In your way. But not in the way I needed."

They stood there on the sidewalk, the hum of traffic filling the space where love used to live.

"You always said we were meant to be," he said, his voice soft now. "You believed in us."

"I believed in the version of us I hoped for," she replied. "But not the one we became."

He looked at her like he was trying to memorize the shape of her face, the sound of her voice, the person she'd become in his absence.

"I'm sorry, Liana. I am."

She nodded. "I believe you. But that doesn't change anything."

"I want to fix this."

"You can't."

He looked crushed, and for a moment-just a moment-she almost felt sorry for him. But sympathy wasn't the same as love. And pity had no place in goodbye.

"This was never going to work," she said. "Not because I didn't love you. But because I loved you more than you were willing to love yourself. And I can't keep shrinking myself to fill your empty spaces."

She turned to walk away.

He called after her, "Is this it?"

She paused, one hand on her coat pocket, the wind catching her hair.

"It has to be."

And then she kept walking.

She didn't look back.

Back at her apartment, she dropped her keys on the counter and exhaled for what felt like the first time all day.

It was over.

Not with drama, not with fireworks. Just a quiet, necessary end. The kind that doesn't feel triumphant-but clean.

She sat at her small kitchen table, opened her laptop, and reopened the document she had started the day after she left him. The words she had written were still there:

"This is over."

She added:

"And I meant it."

Then she closed the file.

Her phone buzzed again. Ryan. She blocked the number.

She made a cup of tea, wrapped herself in the thickest blanket she could find, and sat by the window, watching the late afternoon fade into twilight. Below her, people hurried along the sidewalks with purpose, with plans. She had none, and for the first time, that felt like a gift.

There was grief, yes. And anger still simmered beneath the surface.

But there was also something else now: stillness. And beneath that stillness, the first quiet hum of possibility.

            
            

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