Chapter 1

The giant screen of the charity gala flashed between smiling faces, then settled on a couple. The "kiss-cam."

The crowd cheered.

On screen, Olivia Hayes, my Olivia, was laughing, her head tilted towards the man beside her. Ryan Stone.

He leaned in, his smile impossibly white under the stage lights, and pressed his lips to hers. It wasn't a quick peck. It was a real kiss, slow and deliberate, for everyone to see.

The cheers grew louder.

I stood in the shadows by the exit, holding her coat and her spare pair of heels. For eight years, I was the man she came home to. In public, I was Ethan Miller, her personal assistant.

My heart felt like a cold, hard stone in my chest. Her narrative was a grand, sweeping epic. I was just a footnote, written in invisible ink.

I watched them on the screen, the perfect power couple. A rising tech mogul and a charismatic social media influencer. It was a story everyone loved.

Everyone but me.

I made a decision right there, under the hum of the air conditioning and the distant sound of applause. I was done.

I pulled out my phone and found my mom's number.

"Ethan? Is everything okay? It's late."

"Mom," I said, my voice steady, surprisingly so. "About that girl you mentioned... Dr. Chen. Is she still... available?"

There was a silence on the other end, then my mom's voice, full of cautious hope. "Lily? Yes, I think so. Why?"

"I'm ready," I said. "I'm coming home."

Just then, Olivia' s voice cut through the air, sharp and clear. "Ethan! Where are you?"

I ended the call and turned. She was walking towards me, Ryan's arm draped possessively around her waist.

"Ryan's feet are hurting," Olivia said, not looking at me but at Ryan, her voice soft with concern. "His new shoes are too tight. Go get him the emergency comfort kit from the car."

"The car is parked a ten-minute walk away," I said quietly.

Her eyes finally met mine, and they were cold. "Did I ask for an excuse? Go. Now."

Ryan smirked at me over her shoulder. It was a look of pure victory.

I just nodded, turned, and walked away. The humiliation was a familiar weight.

I remembered the first time I met her. I was a broke artist with a part-time job at a gallery. She came in to buy a piece, not mine, but she saw my sketches. She said I had talent.

She was just starting her company then, full of fire and ambition. I was drawn to her light.

A few months later, her then-boyfriend, Ryan, had left the city to pursue his career. She showed up at my tiny apartment, drunk and crying.

"He's gone," she'd slurred, collapsing into my arms. "He chose his followers over me."

That night, she kissed me. That night, our secret started.

She called me her safe harbor, her quiet place away from the storm of her life.

I believed her.

I even took the job as her assistant, a position funded by her mother's company, because she said she needed me close. I put my art on hold for her.

It was only later I realized she never called me by my name when we were in bed. She just moaned, "Don't leave me."

Just like she'd moaned about Ryan that first night. I wasn't her harbor. I was just the stand-in lighthouse keeper.

As I walked back with the kit, I heard their voices from the hallway.

"He's just an assistant, Liv," Ryan was saying, his voice dripping with disdain. "You can't keep someone like that so close. People will talk. It looks cheap."

"I know," Olivia replied, and her voice was the thing that finally broke me. It was casual, dismissive. "I'll handle it soon. Don't worry about him."

I stopped, stood in the shadows, and listened to the sound of my world shattering. It wasn't a loud noise. It was a quiet, final crack.