Chapter 2 — Then Leave

Tanith

Caspian’s shock vanished, replaced by a condescending smile. He let out a dry chuckle and shook his head.

“A divorce,” he said, as if repeating a joke. He crossed his arms. “Right. Because that’s a rational decision three hours out of general anesthesia.”

He stepped closer, voice dropping into the smooth tone he used with difficult clients. “Look at yourself. You’re pale, exhausted, and full of hospital narcotics. You walk in, see Vesper in tears, and fly off the handle because you feel neglected. You had a rough afternoon. But a tantrum isn’t going to solve anything.”

Tantrum.

The word cut through the fog of pain and fatigue. Five years of devotion, of waiting up for him, of shrinking myself to fit his world—and he reduced the destruction of my trust to a tantrum.

“I am not high, Caspian,” I said. My voice was low and flat. “And I have never been more serious in my life.”

Vesper gasped. She scrambled off the sofa and dropped to her knees. Hands clutched her chest. Tears spilled over her makeup.

“Tanith, please!” she cried. “Don’t do this. Don’t ruin five years of marriage over me. It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have called him when the glass broke. I shouldn’t have asked him to come.”

She looked up at Caspian. “I’ll leave right now. I’ll pack and go back to my apartment. I don’t care if the gallery intruder knows where I live. I don’t care if I’m not safe alone tonight. I can’t be the reason she leaves you.”

It was a masterclass. She offered to leave while reminding him she was a defenseless woman in danger.

Caspian’s expression hardened. He put a protective hand on her shoulder without looking at me.

“You’re not going anywhere, Vesper. You were attacked. The police haven’t reviewed the footage yet. You’re staying here where it’s safe.”

He raised his eyes to mine. “Unlike my wife, I don’t abandon people when they need help.”

A dry laugh escaped me. No humor in it—just the sound of a woman seeing the trap she had lived in for five years.

Vesper flinched against his leg. Caspian’s eyes narrowed. “What is so funny?”

“Nothing.” I looked at Vesper, who was watching through her lashes, waiting for fury or tears.

“You don’t have to pack, Vesper,” I said. My voice was smooth, free of the anger she wanted. “You can stay. You can have the house. You can have the sofa. You can have him.”

I turned toward the stairs.

“I’m leaving.”

“Tanith, stop this nonsense!” Caspian barked, following me to the base of the stairs. “You’re being absurd. Where do you think you’re going?”

I stopped, hand on the bannister. I didn’t turn around.

“Think about this logically,” he scoffed. “You have nothing. You've spent your whole life playing housewife, arranging dinner parties and picking out curtains while living off my work.”

He stepped closer. “Who do you think you are? To have no standing in the city. No life. No house. Even your name belongs to me. Without me, without Rourke House, who are you? Where are you going? Who is going to take care of you? Think you can survive without me?”

I looked at him over my shoulder, watching him heave in anger. He genuinely believed his own words.

For a second I saw the ghost of the young man I had married—brilliant, ambitious, and hopelessly proud. Every time a newspaper linked his name to the Bellamy empire, his jaw would tighten. Whenever a board member implied he had won a contract because he was marrying into the legacy, he paced his office in silent rage, desperate to prove he was self-made.

And because I loved him, I had erased myself.

I stepped down from Bellamy Holding. I gave up my public seat, stopped attending galas under my family name, and let the city forget who I was. I stayed in the background, making quiet calls to investors, dropping his name in the right ears, orchestrating introductions while letting him think he had stumbled into the opportunities. I let him take every ounce of credit. I destroyed my own legacy so he could build his.

Now he was holding the ashes of that sacrifice up as proof that I was nothing without him.

The irony was sharp enough to taste.

I reached up and touched the platinum band on my left ring finger. It slipped off easily.

I walked past him to the side table near the entryway and set the ring down. It made a sharp clink in the silence.

Caspian’s posture faltered. His smirk died. His eyes dropped to the ring, then snapped back to mine. For the first time all night, a crack appeared—a flicker of real uncertainty.

“You’ll come back,” he said. His voice was smaller now. “When the pain wears off and you realize how cold the world is outside this house… you’ll come back.”

I held his gaze until he looked away.

“That’s what you should be afraid of, Caspian,” I said. “I won’t.”

I didn’t go upstairs. I didn’t gather clothes or belongings. I needed nothing from Rourke House. Everything in it had been bought to sustain a lie, and I was done lying.

I pulled my trench coat tighter around my waist and pushed open the front door.

The night air hit my face, cold and wet.

At the bottom of the steps, a black Maybach idled in the driveway. As soon as my boots touched the porch, the rear door opened.

A tall man in a dark suit stepped out into the rain, holding a black umbrella. He didn’t look toward the house. He walked up the driveway and held the umbrella over my head.

Then he stopped, dropped his eyes, and bowed deeply—a gesture of absolute reverence Caspian Rourke had never commanded in his life.

“The car is warmed for you, Miss Bellamy,” the chauffeur said. “Master Bellamy is expecting you.”