Introduction

For ten years, Julian Thorne, the Silicon Valley titan, was my world.

He came into my life when I was a nobody, busking on the streets, and transformed me into a princess, envied by every woman in the country.

He promised me forever, fighting his powerful family to marry me, treating me like the most precious thing in existence.

But that fairy tale shattered the moment Bethany Greene entered the picture, and six months was all it took for him to erase a decade of devotion.

My husband, once full of warmth, became a stranger who looked at me with cold fury.

He accused me of manipulating Bethany into leaving him, spitting "Liar" with disgust.

He played a video of my younger brother, Finn, on life support, threatening to pull the plug if I didn' t convince Bethany to return.

"He' s a vegetable that' s costing me a fortune," he said coldly, as I begged him not to.

The pain of knowing I might lose Finn, my only family, was unbearable, but the true horror was yet to come.

As I pretended to call Bethany, a sharp, cramping pain shot through my abdomen.

I was bleeding.

"Julian, please... help me," I whispered, terrified, realizing I might be losing our baby.

He dismissed it as drama, then his face lit up with a genuine smile when Bethany called his phone.

He left without a second glance, instructing the butler to lock me in the meditation room, confident I was just trying to manipulate him.

Hours later, alone, bleeding, and pounding on the locked door, I felt the life I was carrying slip away.

My baby was gone, lost because the man I loved condemned me.

When I woke in a sterile hospital room, Bethany was there, clinging to Julian, fabricating a story about me harassing her parents.

He believed her instantly, his eyes cold and unmoved, denying we' d ever had a baby.

"Lost what baby? Scarlett, stop making up stories to get attention."

He watched impassively as Bethany forced me to apologize for something I hadn' t done, her triumphant smirk a knife to my heart.

Then, he dropped the final bombshell, "I'm divorcing you."

He even had his lawyer tell me he expected me to wait patiently for him to return after his "fling" with Bethany was over.

That was the moment everything snapped into brutal clarity.

My love for him, which had endured so much, finally burned to ashes, leaving only a cold, hard resolve.

I signed the divorce papers, picked up the plane ticket, and looked him straight in the eye: "I don' t want you to love me anymore. I' m done."

And with that, I walked out, leaving Julian and his new obsession behind, ready to disappear and never look back.