Chapter 1: Greater Than Our Feelings

“So, you have nothing to say?”

Liliana’s voice was a fragile whisper in the silence of their bedroom. Every word felt like a shard of glass in her throat. She stood in the middle of the room, feeling small and defeated.

Across the room, Sebastian Blackwood stood by the window, staring out at the storm raging outside. His taut back, perfect in its expensive suit, was a wall she could not breach.

“There’s nothing left to say, Liliana,” he answered, his voice calm, controlled, and that’s what broke her. “You’ve made your feelings perfectly clear.”

“My feelings?” Liliana laughed, a dry, humorless sound. “I just came from the doctor, Sebastian. The doctor who told me that I will never be able to give you the child you and your mother so desperately want. That’s not a ‘feeling.’ That is a fact that has shattered my life. And I came home… I came home needing you.”

He didn’t turn. “I’m here.”

“No, you’re not!” she cried, her voice finally breaking. “You’re standing over there, watching the rain, while your mother just informed me in my own living room that I am a ‘damaged asset’ that needs to be thrown away. Where were you then, Sebastian?”

“I’ve spoken to my mother. She shouldn’t have used those words.”

“Those words?” Liliana stepped forward, anger finally giving her strength. “She told me I had failed in my only duty as your wife! And you… you defended her!”

“I did not defend her!” Sebastian finally turned, and for the first time, Liliana saw a crack in his cold mask. There was pain there, but it was buried under layers of frustration. “I was trying to make you understand her position! Our position! An heir is… an expectation.”

“An expectation,” Liliana repeated, her voice flat. “I just lost the dream of ever becoming a mother. A dream I had long before I ever met you. And the only thing you can say is ‘an expectation’?”

“This is a dynasty, Liliana! It’s bigger than just you and me!” he retorted, his voice rising, an echo of their earlier argument. “It’s bigger than our feelings!”

And there it was. The sentence that froze everything. The sentence that killed the last vestiges of hope in Liliana’s heart. Bigger than our feelings.

The silence that followed was heavy and final. Liliana looked at the man she had loved so blindly, the man she had thought was her other half. She no longer saw her husband. She saw a CEO. A guardian of a legacy.

“You’re right,” she said, her voice now eerily calm, a terrifying quiet. “It is bigger than my feelings. And I can no longer live in the shadow of something so large.”

She turned and walked steadily to her closet. She didn’t reach for a designer handbag or a jewelry box. She pulled an old canvas backpack from the top shelf, the one she had carried when she first came to this city.

“What are you doing?” Sebastian asked, his voice now wary.

“I’m doing what I should have done a long time ago,” Liliana answered, shoving her wallet and passport inside. “I’m throwing away myself.”

She walked past him, toward the door. She didn't hesitate.

“Liliana, stop,” he said, his steps following her. “Don’t be ridiculous. This isn’t the end of the world. We can solve this. There are other options. Adoption. Surrogacy. We can…”

She stopped at the threshold and turned to him one last time, a sad smile on her face. “You still don’t get it, do you? This was never about a baby, Sebastian. It was about me. Was I enough? Enough for you, even when I was ‘damaged’? And tonight, you gave me your answer.”

“That’s not true!” he protested, his voice now holding a sliver of real panic.

“Isn’t it? Then tell me, Sebastian. Right now. Right here. If you had to choose between me, just me, imperfect and unable to give you an heir, and the Blackwood legacy… which would you choose?”

She watched him, waiting. Their entire future hung on that answer.

Sebastian opened his mouth, then closed it again. He looked at his wife, the woman he loved, and behind her, he saw the ghosts of his father, his grandfather, and all the Blackwood generations demanding he continue the line. He hesitated. And that hesitation was an answer louder than any word could ever be.

“Thank you,” Liliana whispered. “I understand now.”

She turned.

“If you walk out that door,” Sebastian’s voice came from behind her, cold and threatening again, a last defense for his wounded ego, “don’t ever think of coming back. You will lose everything.”

Liliana paused, but didn’t look back. “I’m losing nothing, Sebastian,” she whispered to the empty hallway. “Because I never truly had any of it. Goodbye.”

She walked down the stairs, her sobs only breaking free once the heavy front door closed behind her, shutting her out of the life she had built and destroyed in a single night.

Upstairs, Sebastian heard the front door close. He didn’t move. He just stood there, listening to the deafening silence. He walked to her side of the bed, and there, on the silk pillow, glinting in the dim lamplight, lay her wedding ring.

He picked it up. The metal was cold. And that’s when, for the first time in his controlled, adult life, something inside Sebastian Blackwood finally broke.

*

FIVE YEARS LATER.

Liliana Dawnson strode into the lobby of Grandland Holdings with a portfolio in her hand and a confident smile on her face. This rising star of a property firm was her newest client. They had skyrocketed in the last two years, known for their ambitious projects and their mysterious, intensely private CEO. She had yet to meet him because all communication had been through his board.

Today was her first meeting with the CEO himself to present her final proposal for the launch of their newest luxury residential tower.

She was shown to the top-floor boardroom. It was empty, save for a single, high-backed black leather chair facing away from the door, looking out over a panoramic window that displayed the entire city.

“The CEO will be with you shortly, Ms. Dawnson,” the assistant said before closing the door.

Liliana placed her portfolio on the gleaming table. She admired the view, her heart filled with a quiet pride at how far she had come, all on her own.

Suddenly, the large chair began to slowly turn.

Time stopped. The smile froze on Liliana’s face, then crumbled. The air was stolen from her lungs. The man in the chair looked at her, his face a mask regret, and a five-year-long ache of longing.

It was Sebastian Blackwood. And Liliana stared back at her ex-husband, with no smile, no recognition, only a gaze of pure, arctic ice.

“You,” she breathed, the word laced with venom. “This company… it’s yours?”

Sebastian didn’t answer. He just stared, as if he were seeing a ghost.

“Hello, Liliana.”

***