Chapter 2

I woke up to the sterile smell of disinfectant and the soft, rhythmic beep of a heart monitor.

The first thing I saw was Liam' s face, etched with what looked like deep concern. He was sitting by my bedside, holding my hand.

"Ava, you' re awake," he said, his voice a low, soothing hum. "You scared the hell out of me. You just collapsed."

His thumb stroked the back of my hand. The gesture, once a comfort, now felt like a violation. It was a performance. I could see the subtle calculations behind his worried eyes. He was assessing the damage, not to me, but to his situation.

I pulled my hand away from his. The movement was small, but it felt like shifting a mountain.

"I' m fine," I said. My voice was raspy.

"You' re not fine, you fainted. The doctor said it was exhaustion and dehydration," he insisted, trying to take my hand again. "You' ve been pushing yourself too hard for the IPO. For me."

I looked straight at him, my gaze unwavering. The fog of shock was starting to clear, replaced by a cold, hard clarity.

"Liam."

My voice was flat.

"What you said in that room. I heard it."

His mask of concern didn't slip, but a flicker of something-annoyance, maybe-passed through his eyes before he could hide it.

"Ava, you were overworked. You must have misunderstood."

"You said you were going to marry someone named Chloe."

I didn't ask it as a question. It was a statement. A fact I was forcing him to confront.

He sighed, a long, theatrical sound of a man burdened by a woman' s emotions. He leaned back in his chair, breaking eye contact.

"Look," he began, his tone shifting into something condescending, "we' ve been together a long time. We' re adults. Some things... they don' t need to be spoken aloud. It' s an understanding."

"An understanding?" I repeated, the words tasting like ash. "What understanding, Liam? The one where I spend ten years of my life building your company while you plan a future with someone else?"

"Don't be dramatic," he said, his voice turning cool. "Our partnership has been incredibly successful. We both got what we wanted."

"I wanted you," I said, the words raw and quiet. "You promised me marriage. A future."

He waved a dismissive hand. "We were kids. People say things. Life gets complicated. I have responsibilities now, an image to maintain. The company needs..."

Just then, the door to the private hospital room opened.

A young woman stood in the doorway. She was beautiful, with wide, innocent eyes and a soft, gentle demeanor. She was holding a bouquet of white lilies.

She looked exactly like the kind of woman a man like Liam would want to present to the world.

Pure.

"Liam?" she said, her voice light and melodic. "I was so worried. Your assistant told me what happened."

She rushed to his side, placing a delicate hand on his arm and completely ignoring my existence on the bed.

Liam' s entire posture changed. He softened, his face melting into a look of genuine affection that he had never, not once in ten years, directed at me.

"Chloe, I'm fine," he said gently, taking her hand. "Ava just had a small spell."

He said my name like I was a piece of company equipment that had malfunctioned.

Chloe finally glanced at me, a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes before she arranged her face into a mask of polite sympathy.

"Oh, you must be Ava," she said. "Liam's told me so much about how... helpful you've been."

The rage that was simmering in my chest went arctic. Helpful.

Liam, seeing the storm gathering on my face, quickly stood up.

"Chloe, why don't you wait for me outside? I'll be right there," he said, guiding her toward the door.

She gave him a sweet, trusting smile and left, the scent of lilies lingering in the air. Lilies. The flowers of funerals. How fitting.

Liam turned back to me, his patience clearly worn thin.

"This is exactly what I'm talking about, Ava. This drama. It's not a good look."

I didn't say anything. I just stared at him, my heart a cold, heavy stone in my chest. He was a stranger. The man I loved, the man I built a life for, didn't exist. He had never existed.

He must have taken my silence for acceptance, because he started moving around the room, gathering his things. He picked up his phone from the bedside table.

As he did, the screen lit up. The lock screen.

It wasn' t the default Aegis logo, or a picture of the city skyline.

It was a photo of Chloe, smiling softly, bathed in golden sunlight.

My gaze drifted from his phone to the wall of the hospital room. He had been here for hours, waiting for me to wake up. He'd unpacked his bag.

And on the small table next to his chair, his personal tablet was open. The screen was filled with a photo gallery.

Hundreds of pictures.

All of them were of Chloe.

Chloe at the beach. Chloe laughing in a cafe. Chloe sleeping. Candid shots, posed shots, intimate moments captured and saved. A digital shrine to the woman he loved.

In ten years, Liam had never once made me his lock screen. He had never kept a single photo of me on his personal devices.

"Security risk," he'd always said. "You know we can't be sentimental, Ava. It's a weakness."

But for her, he was nothing but sentiment.

The last piece of my broken heart crumbled into dust. It wasn' t just that he didn' t love me. It was that he had never, ever valued me in the same way. I was a tool. She was a treasure.

The truth was a brutal, physical force, and it finally brought me to my knees.