Chapter 4

"He hasn't been here, has he?" My voice was raspy, but the question was clear.

Sarah shook her head, her expression a mixture of pity and fury. "No. He's been at her side. Nonstop. I heard the nurses talking. He's been hand-feeding her, reading to her. Like she's a child."

"Sarah, don't," I said, cutting her off before she could start. I saw the excuses forming on her face, the attempt to find some rational explanation for the irrational.

"Maybe he's in shock," she started, "Maybe he feels so guilty he can't face you..."

"No," I said, my voice firmer than I expected. "Stop. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to make excuses for him anymore."

The truth was a clean, sharp blade. It hurt, but it was better than the slow poison of false hope.

"I'm lucky to be alive," I whispered, more to myself than to her. The doctors had told Sarah the beam had fractured three vertebrae and caused massive internal damage. If it had landed an inch to the left, it would have severed my spinal cord. An inch to the right, and it would have crushed my skull. I was lucky.

"Our marriage, our relationship... it's done," I stated. It wasn't a question or a cry of despair. It was a fact. Like the sky is blue, or fire is hot. Ethan abandoned me.

"For so long," I continued, my eyes fixed on a crack in the ceiling, "I thought I was the lead in my own life. It turns out I was just a supporting character with a bad case of main-character syndrome." I let out a dry, humorless laugh. "The 'love of his life' was just a role I was playing until the real star showed up."

Just then, the door to my room creaked open slightly. Two junior assistants from my own architectural team peeked in, thinking I was asleep. They were whispering.

"Did you hear? Mr. Miller just ordered the VIP suite for that intern, Chloe, to be redecorated. He said the color of the walls was 'too stressful' for her," one said, her voice dripping with disbelief.

"I know," the other whispered back. "And Mark said he spent two hours on the phone with a chef in France to have her favorite macarons flown in. Meanwhile, Mrs. Miller... Olivia... she almost died. She saved his life. And he hasn't even sent a flower."

The first assistant sighed. "It's so unfair. Mrs. Miller built half that company with her own two hands. That intern has been there for what, three months? And he looks at her like she hung the moon."

I closed my eyes, letting their words wash over me. It was one thing to know it myself. It was another to hear it confirmed by others, to know his cruelty was not a secret, but a public spectacle.

I had been waiting. A small, stupid part of me had been waiting for him to burst through the door, full of apologies and explanations. I had been waiting for him to tell me it was all a terrible misunderstanding. I had been waiting for him to choose me.

Then, Sarah's phone buzzed. It was a text from Mark Thompson, Ethan's loyal but kind-hearted assistant. She read it, and her face went blank with shock.

"What is it?" I asked.

She looked at me, her eyes wide with a kind of horrified awe. "Ethan... he's not in the hospital anymore."

My heart gave a stupid little flutter. Was he coming here?

"He went out," Sarah said slowly, as if she couldn't believe the words herself. "Mark just saw him. He went to that little French patisserie on the other side of town. The one you love."

Hope, idiotic and stubborn, surged in my chest.

Sarah crushed it with her next sentence. "He told Mark that Chloe had a craving for their rosewater croissants."

That was it. That was the end. He was at my favorite bakery, buying pastries for her. The absurdity of it was more painful than any grand betrayal. It was the small, thoughtless cruelty that finally broke me.

I looked at Sarah, my eyes clear and dry.

"Get my lawyer on the phone," I said. "Now. And tell Mark to start drafting my resignation from the company."

My voice didn't shake. "And find me the best divorce attorney in the country. I want the papers drawn up. I'm filing."