Chapter 3

The countdown had begun. Twenty-seven days left.

My life continued in its strange, suspended rhythm. The mansion was quiet, a vast, echoing space that felt more like a museum than a home. I spent my days in the studio, but I wasn't painting. I was planning.

Sarah Jenkins, my assistant, was the only one who knew something was shifting. I hadn't told her everything, but she was sharp. She saw the change in me.

Sarah had been with me since before Sophia, back when my studio was a cramped, drafty loft and my assistant's salary was barely enough for her to pay her rent. She' d stayed out of loyalty, and because she genuinely believed in my work. She had never liked Sophia, a fact she communicated not with words, but with a professional coolness and an observant silence whenever my wife was around.

"You've been on the phone with lawyers a lot," she commented one afternoon, setting a cup of coffee on my desk. She didn't look at me, pretending to organize a stack of invoices.

"Just sorting out some estate planning," I lied smoothly.

She nodded, letting it go. But I saw the look in her eyes. She knew it was more than that.

The primary evidence of Sophia' s life with David Chen played out, as always, on social media. She was surprisingly public about it, framing her constant presence at his side as a powerful businesswoman mentoring a promising startup founder.

There were pictures of them on Instagram, their heads close together over a laptop in a chic coffee shop. A tweet from a tech journalist mentioning Sophia Hayes's "unwavering support" for David Chen's company, 'Elysian Labs.' A photo of them on a yacht in Monaco, supposedly for a "networking event." In that one, her hand was resting on his arm, her smile radiant and unguarded in a way it never was with me.

The world saw a patron and her protégé. I saw a woman living a parallel life with the man she truly loved. It didn't even hurt anymore. It was just data, more confirmation that my decision was the correct one.

Twenty-two days left.

The phone rang. It was Sophia' s assistant, a perpetually stressed young woman named Chloe.

"Mr. Miller," she said, her voice rushed. "I'm so sorry to bother you, but Ms. Hayes wanted me to make sure you were reminded about the Art & Tech Gala this Friday."

I had no idea what she was talking about. "The what?"

"The Art & Tech Gala? At the Digital Arts Pavilion? Ms. Hayes is one of the main sponsors. She had one of your early pieces, 'Urban Solitude,' installed in the main hall for the event. She was certain she told you about it."

She hadn't, of course. Forgetting to tell me things was second nature to her.

"She thought it would be a wonderful opportunity for you," Chloe continued, her voice chirpy and false. "To be seen, to network."

I felt a ghost of an old feeling, a faint echo of the bitterness that used to consume me. I remembered a time, years ago, when an event like this would have been a huge moment for me. I would have been thrilled, grateful. I would have carefully picked out a suit, felt a nervous flutter in my stomach. To have my work featured so prominently, to have my powerful wife promoting me-it was everything the younger Ethan had thought he wanted.

Now, the thought of it just made me tired.

I looked at the painting in my mind's eye. 'Urban Solitude.' The very piece she had bought that first night in the gallery. The painting that had started it all. The irony was suffocating.

"Mr. Miller? Are you still there?"

"Yes, I'm here," I said, my voice flat. "Thank you for letting me know, Chloe."

"Of course! Ms. Hayes said she would save you a seat at her table."

A seat at her table. A prop to be displayed next to her. The artist husband. Proof of her patronage, her good taste.

For a moment, I considered not going. Why bother? What was the point? My life with her was already over in my mind.

But then, a different thought took hold.

I needed to go.

I needed to see it one last time. Not as a participant, but as an observer. A sociologist studying a strange, alien tribe. I wanted to stand in the back of the room and watch her in her natural habitat, watch her performance. I wanted to see my painting, the symbol of our beginning, hanging on a wall at an event that so perfectly symbolized our end-a fusion of her world of tech and my world of art.

It would be a final, quiet confirmation. A closing of a circle.

"Tell her I'll be there," I told Chloe.

I had no intention of sitting at her table. I would go, watch, and leave. A ghost at the feast.