Chapter 2

I lunged at Liam. It wasn't a thought, just a raw, animal instinct. My nails went for his face, the face I had loved for seven years, the face that had lied to me.

"You bastard!" I screamed, the sound tearing from my throat.

He caught my wrists again, easily overpowering me. He was stronger. He was always stronger.

"Elara, stop! You've lost your mind!"

Suddenly, his phone, which he'd dropped in the scuffle, lit up. A call was coming through. The name on the screen burned into my eyes.

Chloe.

He shoved me away, a hard, definitive push that sent me stumbling back. I tripped over a fallen picture frame and landed hard on the floor. He didn't even glance at me. He just answered the phone, his voice instantly changing, softening.

"Chloe? Are you okay? No, I'm home. Just... a small issue."

I watched him, my husband, protecting his mistress from me. He turned his back, lowering his voice into an intimate murmur. The contrast was a physical blow.

I couldn't hear her words, but I could imagine them. Innocent, worried, maybe even a little tearful. She was an expert at playing the victim.

Liam's shoulders tensed. "What? Of course not. She's just being hysterical." He listened for another moment, his jaw tight. "I know. I'll handle it. Stay there. I'll be back soon."

He hung up and turned to face me, his expression colder than I had ever seen it. It was like looking at a stranger wearing Liam's face.

We stood there in the ruined living room, the space between us a silent battlefield. The air crackled with everything left unsaid.

"She's not hysterical," I said, my voice dangerously low. "She's a liar. And so are you."

"I'm not doing this, Elara," he said, shaking his head with a weary sigh, as if I were a childish problem he had to solve. "I am not having this conversation while you're in this state."

"This state?" My voice rose, cracking. "You cheat on me, and I'm the one with the problem? You lie to my face for months, and I'm the one who's hysterical?"

A wave of pure, unadulterated rage washed over me. All the pain, all the betrayal, it coalesced into a single, sharp point.

"Fine," I spat, the word tasting like poison. "You want me to be calm? Let's be calm. Let's get a divorce."

I said it to hurt him. To shock him. To make him see the magnitude of what he had done. I expected him to fight, to deny, to beg.

Instead, a flicker of something unreadable crossed his face. Relief?

"Okay," he said, his voice completely level. "If that's what you want."

The floor dropped out from under me. The air rushed from my lungs. I had thrown my last weapon, and he had simply caught it and turned it back on me. The rage evaporated, replaced by a cold, terrifying panic.

"No," I whispered, the sound barely audible. "No, I didn't mean it."

The regret was instant and suffocating. I had just handed him the escape he wanted.

"You can't," I said, stumbling to my feet. "Liam, you can't."

I grabbed a piece of the broken vase, the sharp edge digging into my palm, but I didn't feel it. I threw it against the wall, a pathetic, desperate attempt to rewind time, to undo my stupid, impulsive words.

It shattered with a weak tinkle. Nothing changed.

I fell to my knees in front of him, the glass shards digging into my skin. I didn't care. The pain was a distant echo compared to the chasm opening in my chest. I grabbed the hem of his pants, my last anchor in a world that was spinning out of control.

"Please, Liam," I begged, all my pride gone, washed away by a tidal wave of fear. "Don't leave me. I'm sorry. I'll do anything. Please."

He looked down at me, his face impassive. "Elara, get up. You're embarrassing yourself."

His words were a slap. He was disgusted by my pain. My desperation.

"It's too late for this," he said, his voice flat. He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a folded set of documents. He dropped them on the floor in front of me.

Divorce papers.

They were already drawn up. Signed by him. The date was from three weeks ago. He had been planning this all along. The affair wasn't a mistake; it was a strategy.

"I was going to wait for the right time," he said, as if that were some kind of kindness. "But you've forced my hand."

I stared at the papers, at his neat, confident signature. My world narrowed to that single, damning line of ink.

"I'll give you everything," he said, his tone now businesslike, "the house, the cars, a generous settlement. Everything except the company. Thorne Innovations is mine."

"Why?" The question was a raw whisper.

He finally showed a flicker of emotion. A defensive anger. "Because Chloe deserves better than to be some dirty secret. She has pride. She's not like... this." He gestured vaguely at my kneeling form, at my tears.

He chose her pride over our seven years. Over our vows. Over me.

A new feeling began to bubble up through the despair. A cold, hard fury. He wanted to throw me away for a newer, shinier model and expect me to go quietly.

I looked up at him, my tears drying on my face.

"No," I said, my voice shaking but firm. "I won't sign. I won't make it easy for you. If I'm miserable, you're going to be miserable with me. You want to be with her? Fine. But you will always be married to me. You will never be free."

I thought it would hurt him. I thought he would see the fire in my eyes and remember the woman he fell in love with.

Instead, he just shook his head, a small, pitying smile on his lips.

"You'll sign," he said with absolute certainty.

Then he turned and walked out the door, leaving me on the floor amidst the ruins of our life, the divorce papers lying like a tombstone at my feet. The click of the door shutting was the sound of my life ending.