Introduction

Eight years.

That' s how long I poured my soul into my music, my career, and the woman who molded me, Cassidy Vance.

We were a Nashville power couple, or so I thought.

My latest album, months in the making, sat unlistened on her desk while she flirted with some record label suit, her back always turned to me.

Then, a text. A grainy photo of Cassidy boarding a private jet with Cal Rivers, the new country-pop sensation, her "new project." She dismissed me with an ice-cold phone call about an "emergency meeting," then hung up.

Hours later, her Instagram shattered what was left of my world: a cozy cabin, a glass of wine, and a caption announcing Cal as her new "#muse."

My phone exploded. Public humiliation, accusations of being a jilted lover-it was relentless.

She called, not to apologize, but to threaten: "I made you, Liam. Don' t forget I can un-make you." To prove it, she froze my accounts, then revealed she' d sold my childhood home, the place where I wrote my first songs, for scrap. Everything I was, everything I loved, turned to dust.

How could someone I loved so deeply, someone I built my entire life around, betray me so completely?

My career, my home, my identity-all wiped away for a younger, more marketable model. Why did I ever trust her? How could she be so cold, so calculating?

Whispering a silent prayer to the voice in my head, "The Guide," I finally gave in: "Sever my love for her." Four years later, after surgically removing every last trace of the man I was, Noah Stone returns to Nashville. And the leading judge of "Nashville' s Next Legend" is Cassidy Vance.