Chapter 2

The party was a blur of hostile faces and whispered insults. Liam stood alone, a ghost at his own wife' s celebration. Technically, his ex-wife' s celebration. The knowledge was a small, cold comfort in the pit of his stomach.

"I can' t believe he had the nerve to show his face," a woman whispered to her companion, loud enough for Liam to hear.

"Scarlett is a saint for letting him stay under her roof," the man replied, sneering. "After he tried to humiliate her like that."

Liam' s announcement had backfired, at least in this gilded cage. Scarlett, a master of manipulation, had spun the narrative immediately. She told everyone he was having a mental breakdown, that he was delusional, that she was worried for him. Her friends, ever the loyal sycophants, lapped it up. They now looked at him with a mixture of pity and contempt.

He endured it because he had nowhere else to go, not yet. He had a plan, but it required one final act in this theater of cruelty.

He stayed because of his father. Years ago, Liam' s father, a brilliant but unassuming engineer, had saved Scarlett' s father from financial ruin. He' d bailed out the Hayes family company with his own life savings and a revolutionary patent, asking for nothing in return. But the elder Hayes, a man of old-world principles, had insisted on repaying the debt. He proposed a union between their children, a marriage to bind their families. Liam' s father, seeing his son' s quiet infatuation with the beautiful Scarlett Hayes, had agreed.

It was a debt of honor, one Liam had tried to uphold even as Scarlett turned their marriage into a public spectacle of his humiliation.

Scarlett' s own hostility had a deeper, more twisted root. When she was a teenager, a series of scandalous private photos of her were leaked online, threatening to destroy her family' s reputation. The official story, the one she clung to, was that Liam, who had been a family friend even then, was somehow involved or had failed to protect her. She had hated him for it ever since, a festering resentment that poisoned every interaction they ever had. The marriage was, for her, a cage she was forced to share with the man she blamed for her deepest shame.

"Liam."

Scarlett' s voice cut through the noise. She was standing by the grand piano, flanked by Tiffany and two new men, Chad and Brad, the escorts from the other night. They were her new favorites.

"Come here."

It was not a request. Liam walked toward her, his steps measured. He felt the eyes of everyone in the room on him.

"My friends and I were just talking," Scarlett said, a cruel smile playing on her lips. "We feel your suit is far too formal for such a relaxed evening. It doesn't match the mood."

Chad, a vapid man with overly whitened teeth, snickered. "Yeah, man. You look like you' re going to a funeral."

"Take off the jacket," Scarlett commanded.

Liam didn't hesitate. He slipped off the jacket of the expensive suit, folded it neatly, and placed it on a nearby chair.

"The tie, too," Tiffany chimed in, her eyes gleaming with malice.

He unknotted the silk tie and placed it on top of the jacket.

"And the shirt," Scarlett said, her voice dropping. "I want to see if you' ve been keeping up with your workouts."

The room went quiet. This was a new level of degradation. He could feel the stares, some shocked, most hungry for the drama. He began to unbutton his shirt, his fingers moving with a slow, deliberate precision.

He was not ashamed of his body. The gym had been his only sanctuary for three years. It was the one place where he could build something for himself, a strength that was his alone. He had a lean, powerful physique, carved from years of silent discipline.

As he pulled the shirt off, a collective gasp went through the room. It wasn't the reaction Scarlett had expected. Instead of mockery, there were murmurs of surprise and, from some of the women, open admiration.

Liam stood there, bare-chested, his face a calm, indifferent mask. He met Scarlett' s gaze. He saw the surprise in her eyes quickly curdle into something else. Rage. He had something she couldn't ridicule. He had something that didn't belong to her.

For a moment, he thought she might stop. But her narcissism was a fire that consumed everything. She couldn't stand to be upstaged, not even by the object of her scorn.

"The pants," she hissed, her voice low and dangerous. "Take them off. All of it."

Liam looked at her, his expression unchanging. He didn' t say a word. He just slowly, deliberately, reached for the buckle of his belt. The room was deathly silent, the only sound the soft click of the metal as he undid it. He was numb to the eyes, numb to the shame. He was a machine following its programming, waiting for the cycle to end.