Chapter 4

Eliza POV:

The doctors diagnosed my injuries as superficial. Deep lacerations, bruising, but nothing a few weeks of healing and a course of antibiotics couldn't fix. My collapse was confirmed as a severe allergic reaction, a psychosomatic response to extreme stress. My body was literally rejecting Cash.

"I want to be discharged," I told the doctor the next morning, my voice flat.

Cash, who had been sitting vigil in the chair by my bed, immediately protested. "You can't. You need to rest, 'Liza. You're not well."

"I have a job to get back to," I said, not looking at him.

He scoffed, a sound of pure, unadulterated arrogance. "That teaching job? Don't be ridiculous. I'll cover your salary for the next year if you want. You shouldn't be working anyway. A Robinson..."

He stopped himself, but it was too late. A Robinson wife. The words hung in the air between us, a bitter mockery of everything I once believed.

"You forget," I said, my voice dangerously quiet. "I'm a lawyer. I graduated from Columbia Law, remember? On a full scholarship."

For five years, he had encouraged me to be his dependent, to let him take care of me. For five years, I had put aside my ambition, my own dreams, to support his. I had turned down an offer from one of the most prestigious law firms in New York to take a low-stress teaching position because he'd asked me to.

Now, I saw his request for what it was: not protection, but control.

"A lawyer?" he said with a patronizing little smile. "Come on, 'Liza. What's the point of that piece of paper? You'll never have to work a day in your life with me."

Rage, cold and sharp, flooded my veins. He saw my degree, my passion, my entire identity outside of him as nothing more than a "piece of paper."

I thought about that piece of paper. I thought about contract law, tort law, and the criminal code. I thought about all the ways I could use the law to systematically dismantle his entire world. To make him pay for every lie, every betrayal, every single moment of pain he and his family had inflicted on me.

But then, a familiar ache pulsed deep in my abdomen. A tiny, fluttering reminder of the innocent life caught in the crossfire.

This wasn't just about me anymore.

I took a breath, shoving the vengeful thoughts away. For now.

"I need to go back to work," I repeated, my tone leaving no room for argument. "My end-of-year performance review depends on it."

"Your performance review?" He laughed, a short, incredulous bark. "Eliza, your entire salary is less than what I spend on watches in a month. It doesn't matter."

The casual cruelty of his words, the way he so effortlessly dismissed something that was important to me, was the final confirmation. He had never seen me as an equal. I was a pet. A project. A pretty little thing he could keep on his arm.

My face must have gone rigid, because his smile faltered. He stopped arguing.

They discharged me that afternoon.

Cash drove me back to the apartment we shared, the beautiful pre-war penthouse overlooking Central Park that I had once thought of as our home. Now, every object seemed to mock me.

I had spent months overseeing the renovation of this place. Cash' s leg injury meant he couldn' t handle stairs well, so I had worked with the architects to create a seamless, single-level living space. I' d chosen the specific grain of the hardwood floors for the way they felt under bare feet. I' d designed the custom bookshelves to hold his first-edition classics. I' d done it all out of love, to build a sanctuary for the man I adored.

I remembered the day he saw the finished apartment for the first time. He' d wrapped his arms around me, his chin resting on my head, and whispered, "How did I ever get so lucky? I swear, 'Liza, I' ll never leave you. If you ever try to leave me, I' ll die."

Tears had sprung to my eyes then. I had held him tight and promised, "I'll never leave you. Not ever."

The apartment was the same. The floors, the bookshelves, the view of the park.

But the man was a stranger. And his promises were nothing but dust.

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