Chapter 2

Six years ago, I stood in my father' s study, the same room where he had just reminded me of my deadline, and told him I wouldn't marry a stranger. I told him I had met someone. Her name was Sarah Miller. She wasn't from a prominent family, and she didn't have a trust fund, but she was smart and kind and she made me feel like the man I wanted to be, not the heir I was supposed to be.

My father warned me. He said love was a fleeting luxury, but legacy was permanent. I told him my legacy would be one I built myself, with her.

For six years, I believed that. I poured everything I had into our relationship, into proving him wrong. I built a successful architectural firm on my own merits. I bought a penthouse apartment in Tribeca, a space I designed for us, for our future.

Now, sitting in the back of a taxi, the city lights blurring past the window, that past felt like a story about someone else. The fight I had put up seemed naive, a foolish rebellion against an inevitable reality. The love I thought was a fortress had been dismantled from the inside.

I got back to our apartment, the one I designed. The silence was heavy. I walked through the living room, my footsteps echoing on the polished hardwood floors. Every object was a memory. The photograph on the mantelpiece from our trip to Italy. The stack of architectural magazines on the coffee table, with pages she had bookmarked for me. The faint scent of her perfume in the air.

It was a home built for a future that no longer existed. My heart felt numb, a dull, persistent ache that was worse than sharp pain. It was an absence of feeling.

My phone buzzed. A text from Sarah.

'Ethan, where are you? Please come back. We need to talk.'

I stared at the message, my thumb hovering over the screen. Before I could decide what to do, another notification popped up.

A voice message from Sarah. It must have been an accident, a pocket dial.

Curiosity got the better of me. I pressed play.

The sound was muffled at first, then I heard her voice, clear and agitated.

"...can't believe you did that, Liam! In front of everyone!"

Then his voice, not drunk anymore, but cloying and manipulative.

"I had to, Sarah. I couldn't watch you throw your life away on him. He doesn't love you like I do."

A soft sigh from Sarah. "It's not that simple."

"Yes, it is," he insisted. There was a rustling sound, like fabric moving. "You know you feel something for me. Just admit it."

There was a pause. I held my breath.

Then I heard her laugh. A soft, breathless laugh. It wasn't an angry sound. It was intimate.

"You're impossible," she said, but there was no force in her words.

The voice message ended.

I slowly lowered the phone. The numbness in my chest solidified into a cold, hard certainty. I wasn't just losing a fight against my family's expectations, I was losing a fight I didn't even know I was in.

My phone buzzed again. Another text from Sarah.

'Are you getting my messages? I' m really worried. I' m just at my office finishing some things up.'

A lie. The sounds in the voice message were not from an office. They were from somewhere quiet, private.

I typed back a simple, hollow reply.

'Just needed some air. Don' t worry. See you later.'

Let her believe I was still in the dark. Let her have her false sense of security. It didn't matter anymore.

I walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the city. The view I had once found so inspiring now felt vast and empty. Our shared life was a beautifully designed room, but the foundation was rotten. All the pictures and furniture were just distractions from the decay underneath.

I stood there for a long time, just watching the endless stream of lights, feeling a profound sense of detachment. I was an architect who had failed to see the fatal flaw in his own masterpiece.

An email notification pinged on my phone. It was from an old college friend, Mark, who had been at the party. The subject line was just a single question mark.

I opened it.

There was no text. Just an attachment.

It was a photo.

It was a candid shot, probably taken with a phone from across the street. It showed the alley behind the ballroom.

Sarah was there. And so was Liam.

He had her pressed against the brick wall. His hands were on her waist, and her hands were on his shoulders. They were kissing.

It wasn't an angry kiss, or a confused one. It was deep, consuming. The kind of kiss you can't fake.

The screen went dark, but the image was burned into my mind.

Irrefutable.

The final piece of evidence. The last nail in the coffin of our six-year love story.