Chapter 2

Harper Jensen POV:

I slammed the safe door shut, the click echoing the final, definitive snap of my heart breaking. My movements were sharp, jerky, a stranger operating my own limbs. I shoved the art print back into place just as his footsteps sounded on the stairs.

He appeared in the doorway of the office, a perfect picture of the charismatic politician. His tie was loosened, his smile was weary but warm, and his arms were open for me.

"Hey, baby," he said, his voice a low, intimate murmur. "Long day. I missed you."

I stared at him. The man I had loved for seven years. The man who had held me when my parents died. The man whose ambition I had championed, whose dreams I had treated as my own. He was a stranger. A monster wearing a familiar, handsome mask.

My face must have been a blank canvas of shock, because his smile faltered. "Harper? You okay? You look pale."

He moved toward me, his hand reaching for my cheek. I flinched back, a sharp, involuntary recoil.

His hand froze in midair. Hurt flickered in his eyes, a masterful performance. "What' s wrong?"

Words wouldn' t form. My throat was a desert. I had the marriage license seared onto the back of my eyelids, the audio of his cold calculations ringing in my ears. Harper is for the image; Corinne is for the dynasty.

He sighed, a put-upon sound. "Is this about the gala tonight? I know you hate these things, but it' s important. It' s for the children' s hospital."

He always did this. Framed any potential conflict as me being difficult, or stressed, or not supportive enough of the greater good he was supposedly serving. Gaslighting. I' d read the term, but I' d never felt its suffocating fog until this moment.

"I' m fine," I managed to choke out. The words tasted like ash.

His expression softened, the concern flowing back into his features as if on cue. "No, you' re not. You' ve been working too hard. Let me take care of you."

He led me out of the office, his arm around my shoulders. His touch felt like a brand, a claim of ownership I now found repulsive. In the kitchen, he started pulling out ingredients for my favorite pasta, chattering about his day, about a victory in the city council, about how close we were to making a real difference.

I watched him, a ghost in my own home, and saw everything with horrifying clarity. His life was a stage, and I was just a prop. A very beautiful, very successful, very well-placed prop.

He turned, holding up a bottle of wine. "A toast? To us. To the future Mr. and Mrs. Hart."

The sound that escaped my lips was a strangled laugh, thin and brittle.

He frowned. "What' s so funny?"

"Nothing," I said, schooling my features into a mask of neutrality. "I' m just... tired."

He bought it. Of course, he did. In his world, my emotions were simple, manageable things, easily explained away by fatigue or stress. They were not complex reactions to an earth-shattering betrayal because, in his world, that betrayal didn't exist for me to see.

Later, as he slept, I lay beside him, rigid and cold, staring at the ceiling. His phone, which he' d carelessly left on the nightstand, buzzed. I reached for it, my movements slow, deliberate.

It was a text from a contact saved as 'CS.' Corinne Schmidt.

The message read: 'Heirloom looks beautiful on you. Saw the pictures from the jewelry launch. Can' t wait for it to be mine for real. H sleeps beside you now, but I sleep with our future.'

Attached was a photo. It was a screenshot from a high-society blog covering a jewelry launch party I' d attended last week. In the photo, I was wearing the engagement ring Carter had given me-a stunning, modern, custom-designed piece. But the text wasn' t about my ring.

Corinne had circled something on another woman' s hand in the background. A signet ring. The Hart family heirloom. A heavy, antique gold ring meant for the wife of the eldest Hart son. Carter had told me it was being restored, that he wanted me to have something that was purely 'us,' not tied to the past.

But there it was. Not on my finger. Not in a restorer' s shop. On the hand of a socialite at a party. No, wait. I zoomed in. Corinne' s text implied... it was her hand. She must have been at the party.

I felt a new wave of nausea. He hadn't just given his name to another woman. He had given her my place. He had given her the ring that was meant to symbolize my entry into his family, into his history.

And I had been posing for cameras, smiling, wearing the pretty, meaningless bauble he' d had made to keep me quiet.