Chapter 4

I didn' t leave my apartment for a week. I turned off my phone, ignored the doorbell, and just sat in the dark, replaying the humiliation of the engagement party over and over in my head.

Liam didn' t call. Not once. It was as if I had ceased to exist. The silence was more painful than any angry words could have been.

On the eighth day, my front door burst open. Olivia stood there, a suitcase behind her, her face a mask of pure rage. She had taken the first flight she could get after I finally answered one of her thousand text messages with a single, pathetic "help."

"That' s it," she said, kicking the door shut. "We are done. You are done with him."

She marched into my living room, pulling open the curtains and flooding the room with painful sunlight.

"He left you, Ava," she said, her voice brutally honest. "He abandoned you at your own engagement party for another woman. He humiliated you in front of hundreds of people. And he hasn't even called to see if you' re alive. What more proof do you need that this man does not love you?"

Tears I didn' t know I had left started streaming down my face. "But why, Liv? I don' t understand. He was so good to me."

"Was he?" she countered, sitting next to me on the couch and taking my hands. "Or was he just good at getting what he wanted? Did he ever take you to meet his real friends, or just to family functions? Did you ever talk about anything other than his family, his business, his needs?"

She was right. Our entire relationship had revolved around him.

"You need to break up with him," she said gently but firmly.

"But Chloe," I whispered. "He said they were just friends."

Olivia scoffed. "Friends? Ava, the Millers and the Davises are practically business partners. Their companies have been intertwined for generations. A marriage between Liam and Chloe would be a merger. It' s not about love; it' s about power. You were just a placeholder. Or worse, a resource."

The word hit me like a physical blow. A resource. That' s what I was. The realization was a cold, sinking stone in my stomach.

Just then, my phone, which Olivia had plugged in, rang. The screen flashed with Liam' s name. My heart leaped with a stupid, traitorous hope.

"Don' t you dare ignore it," Olivia said, her eyes hard. "Answer it. Hear what the monster has to say for himself."

I took a shaky breath and answered. "Liam?"

"Do you have any idea what you' ve done?" His voice was cold, furious. There was no apology, no concern. Just pure, unadulterated anger.

"Me? What I' ve done?"

"Chloe is still in the hospital! The stress you put her under caused a major setback. My mother is furious. Her mother is threatening to pull the Davis funding from our new project!" He was shouting now. "All because you couldn' t handle yourself for one night!"

I was speechless. He was blaming me. For everything.

Something inside me snapped. The last flicker of hope died, replaced by a cold, hard rage.

"Go to hell, Liam," I said, my voice shaking, and hung up the phone.

Olivia pulled me into a hug. "I' m so proud of you," she whispered.

The next day, there was a knock at the door. It wasn' t Liam. It was his sister, Sarah. She had a basket of fruit and a sad, apologetic look on her face. Olivia stood beside me, her arms crossed, a silent, intimidating bodyguard.

"Ava, I am so, so sorry about everything," Sarah began, her voice dripping with false sympathy. "Liam is just under so much pressure. You have to understand, Chloe' s health is so fragile. Our families... it' s complicated. We' ve all been walking on eggshells around her for years."

She painted a picture of Liam as a tragic hero, torn between duty to his family' s legacy and his love for me. She made Chloe sound like a dying saint. She made me sound like an unreasonable child.

"He really does love you, Ava," Sarah said, her eyes pleading. "He' s just... trapped."

I listened to her weave her web of lies, and for the first time, I saw it all with perfect clarity. It wasn' t complicated. It was simple.

They were all liars.

And Liam' s love? It had never been real. It was a tool, a means to an end. The end was me, and whatever they could take from me. The realization didn' t just break my heart; it obliterated it.