002

Elara’s POV

I couldn’t sleep. Part of me still clung to the desperate hope that Kane had been drugged and Chloe was only trying to provoke me. The other part hated how easily I had closed my eyes and let him call me crazy every time I questioned him. I grabbed my phone and texted the unknown number I knew belonged to Chloe:

“My husband would never cheat on me. Get over yourself.”

Then I waited. All I wanted was proof. The suspicions had started the moment he began hiding his phone and coming home with faint red marks near his collar. God, I hated how long I had ignored them.

Five minutes passed. Thirty. An hour. An agonizing five hours crawled by before Chloe finally answered. Her reply was short and mocking:

“Come to his office. Now.”

I could almost see the smug look on her face, certain I would run straight there. And I did.

“Mrs. Kane,” I told the receptionist, brushing past her tired expression and following her directions. When I reached his floor, the entire level was empty—almost as if Chloe had cleared the stage for me. I stopped just outside the half-open door of his office when her voice drifted out.

“She already asked for a divorce, baby.”

“Why do you keep pushing me to leave her?” Kane shot back.

I almost laughed.

“You already have me,” he continued. “Why does it matter?”

Chloe’s voice turned sharp. “What do you even need her for? She’s barren, useless, and has nothing left to give. You don’t even touch her anymore.”

I held my breath, waiting for his answer.

“I already told you—our marriage has opened doors for the company that should never have opened. Contracts Horizon Group had no business winning landed in our lap because of her name.”

So that was all I had ever been. A convenient asset.

Chloe pressed harder. “Then what’s the plan? She’s starting to notice. You barely sleep at home and you reek of my perfume every time you walk through the door.”

“She’s naive. Easy to manage. She didn’t even mention the mark on my neck.”

I had seen it. I had simply chosen not to shatter the last piece of denial I was still holding. What he didn’t know was that I was finished protecting his secrets. I was going to dismantle everything I had once helped him build.

“There’s no way I’m walking away now,” Kane said. “Not when I’m this close to locking down the Horizon Group contract. Once that deal is signed, I’ll cut her loose and we’ll get married in the Maldives. I can’t wait to introduce you as my wife.”

Chloe’s delighted squeal was the final crack.

I shoved the door open and slammed the divorce papers onto his desk.

“You bastard.”

Kane and Chloe sprang apart. Chloe’s smirk only fueled the rage already burning through me. She had known I would come. She had wanted me to hear every word.

“Kane. You bastard,” I repeated, voice shaking.

His face twisted. “What the hell are you doing here, Elara?”

“What does it look like? I just watched you kiss her and listened to every disgusting thing you said. How long have you been gaslighting me?”

Chloe stepped forward with false concern. “I’m so sorry you walked in on this, Elara. It’s not what you think—”

I cut her off. “Don’t. Don’t you dare.”

Kane tried the calm, condescending tone he always used when he wanted me quiet. “Elara, we’ll talk about this at home. Don’t make a scene.”

“I stayed,” I said, the words tumbling out. “I chose to be the blind, selfless wife because I still believed you were the man who pulled me back from that bridge. The man who stood at the altar with me.”

“Elara—”

“How long?” I demanded.

Chloe answered without hesitation. “The day of your first miscarriage. He was with me while his mother was calling him to come to the hospital.”

The confirmation hit harder than I expected. I had suspected. I had simply refused to believe it.

Kane’s voice turned cold. “Can you really blame me? Look at yourself, Elara.”

The sting landed, but I refused to look away. “What happened to ‘I didn’t know you felt that way’?”

He laughed, low and ugly. “Cut the act. You’ve always been easy to fool. Thinking you ever stood a chance against Chloe was your first mistake. I never loved you. You were a convenient warm body and useful for business proposals. The fact that you couldn’t even carry a child was just disappointing—especially since Chloe is carrying mine.”

The words nearly dropped me. It took everything I had left to stay standing.

“Congratulations, Mr. Kane. Sign the papers.”

His expression emptied of any emotion. “Go home. We’ll discuss this later.”

“You don’t need me for anything, and I refuse to stay your pawn. Sign them.”

He sneered. “The second I put my name on those, you walk away with nothing.”

“Isn’t that the point of a divorce? I don’t want your money or your house. Not a single cent.”

Chloe leaned in and whispered something against his ear, eyes locked on me the entire time. With a final contemptuous look, Kane scrawled his signature and shoved the papers toward me.

I picked them up, clutching them against my chest, and turned without another word. As I reached the door, Chloe’s voice floated after me, soft and satisfied.

“She won’t last a day without you, baby.”

Their laughter and the sound of another kiss followed me into the hallway.

He had made his choice. Four years wasted on a man who had never stopped belonging to someone else—a man who had used me for advantages he never even realized I had fought to give him.

Tears blurred the corridor as I pushed through the glass doors of the building. I was coming apart and refused to do it here. I collided with someone on the sidewalk but didn’t stop to apologize.

“Ellie?”

A familiar voice called behind me. I kept walking. How could I have been this stupid for so long? Elara Voss—the only granddaughter of the Voss family, the one who calculated every move—had let herself become this blind.

“Ellie.”

The voice came again, sharper this time. A car horn blared. Tires screeched. Instinct slammed my eyes shut as I braced for impact—

It never came.

Strong arms locked around me and yanked me back against a solid chest. The clean scent of mint wrapped around me, dragging me into a memory I thought I had buried years ago.

“What the hell was that, Elara Voss?” a low, rough voice growled against my

hair.

I opened my eyes and found myself staring up at a face I never expected to see again.

“Rhett?” I whispered.