Chapter 2

Cassandra's pov

  

  I froze, my hand flying up to my cheek, eyes wide in disbelief. The sting of my slap burned hotter than the red mark I’d left behind. It wasn’t just the pain that shocked him…it was me.

  

  He had always thought of me as the soft one. Quiet. Fragile. A woman too delicate to break anything other than her own heart. He never imagined I had this kind of fury inside me, sharp and blazing like wildfire.

  

  “You slapped me?” he asked, his voice low with stunned incredulity, almost a whisper.

  

  My chest heaved, my eyes shining with unshed tears and fury. “How long?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper, then louder, laced with rage, “How long have you been cheating on me?”

  

  He opened his mouth to speak, but I didn’t let him.

  

  “Here I was, losing sleep, thinking something was wrong with you. That maybe you were sick, depressed, stressed about work. But all this time, you’ve been here…” I jabbed a shaking finger toward the penthouse door, “…with that thing.”

  

  He winced.

  

  “How could you do this to me, Evan?” I continued, venom dripping from every word. “Even if you were tired of the relationship, you could have just ended things between us the right way, not go behind my back to sleep with a slut.”

  

  His jaw clenched. His nostrils flared. His bare chest rose and fell with quickening breath as anger twisted through his features.

  

  “Don’t talk about her like that.”

  

  “Why not?” I spat, stepping toward him, too furious to care about his height, his strength, or the fury building in his gaze. “She is a slut, that’s what she is.”

  

  “I said, don’t talk about her like that!” he snapped.

  

  Before I could say another word, he moved.

  

  His hand lashed out, gripping my throat, not hard enough to crush, but tight enough to make me gasp. He shoved me backwards until my spine met the cold hotel wall with a muted thud, my soaked blouse plastered to my skin, my breath caught in my throat.

  

  The hallway light flickered above us, casting a dim glow over the twisted scene.

  

  He leaned in, his voice low and furious, his eyes wild with a betrayal of his own making.

  

  “Don’t you ever insult that woman again,” he growled, his face inches from mine. “That woman is ten times better than you in every way. Smarter. Stronger. And she doesn’t play the victim every time something doesn’t go her way.”

  

  My eyes widened, but not with fear. With disbelief. With a fresh wave of hurt. My hands instinctively rose to his chest, pushing, but he didn’t budge.

  

  “You’re hurting me,” I rasped.

  

  But he didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. His gaze was locked on mine, filled with a bitterness I didn’t recognize.

  

  The same man who once swore he’d rather die than hurt me now looked at me like I was an inconvenience.

  

  His hand trembled against my neck not from hesitation, but rage. His fingers dug deeper, crushing against my skin, and my lips parted with a choked gasp as I clawed at his wrist, nails slipping uselessly across his skin. My chest hitched. My feet shifted, searching for leverage, but I was pinned. Trapped. My back was to the wall and the man I once loved now looked like a stranger wearing Evan’s face.

  

  Then he pointed a finger, his free hand lifting as if to drive the knife of his words deeper and hissed, “Let’s get one thing clear.”

  

  His voice dropped an octave, calm now, cruel in its control.

  

  “I never really loved you.”

  

  I froze. Even as my lungs burned for air, those words slammed into me harder than the wall behind me.

  

  His lip curled into a sneer. “Yes, we had some fun together. I won’t lie about that. I thought maybe I thought I could love you. That if I tried hard enough, you might become someone worth it.” His finger moved closer, almost grazing my cheek. “But you turned out to be too weak. Too emotional. Too... average.”

  

  Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes. Not just from the lack of oxygen, but from the raw, tearing pain of every word he threw like shrapnel.

  

  “My parents,” he went on coldly, “they would have never accepted you. Do you understand that? You’re not their kind of woman. You were never going to be.”

  

  My mouth moved, but no words came out. My windpipe was a locked gate, my body trembling violently beneath his grip.

  

  “And that woman in there?” He tilted his head toward the door, his voice full of reverence now. “She’s not just anyone. She’s my fiancée.”

  

  The world stopped.

  

  Fiancee.

  

  My heart stumbled. My vision blurred.

  

  I couldn’t breathe, not just from the pressure of his hand, but from the suffocating weight of that word.

  

  Fiancée?

  

  He was going to marry her?

  

  “I had plans to tell you,” Evan said with a scoff, as if that justified anything. “If only you’d stayed away. If only you knew how to mind your business like a proper woman.”

  

  My knees buckled. My hands lost their strength. The room swam before me, a cacophony of marble tiles, flickering lights, and the fading edges of consciousness.

  

  Then…

  

  The door creaked open.

  

  A sultry voice slipped into the corridor, soft and sweet, like honey over poison.

  

  “My love,” the silver-haired woman purred, her golden eyes gleaming under the hallway light, “you’re squeezing too tight.”

  

  It wasn’t alarm in her voice. Just a gentle observation, as if Evan were simply holding a fragile vase too firmly.

  

  He blinked, his eyes darting toward her, as though waking from a dream. His grip loosened immediately, and I crumpled to the ground like a broken doll, gasping as air rushed back into my lungs.

  

  I coughed violently, my hands flying to my throat, cradling the bruised skin where his fingers had been. My sobs were raw now, my voice hoarse and torn from the abuse. The pain wasn’t just physical, it was deep, soul-shattering.

  

  He had tried to kill me.

  

  He would have.

  

  He didn’t stop because he realized what he was doing; he stopped because I told him to.

  

  I looked up, my vision blurred by tears. Evan stood there, still half-covered in the duvet, his eyes empty of regret. The woman at the door, his fiancée smiled like she had won a prize. She didn’t even spare me a second glance.

  

  And I broke.

  

  A rough sob tore from my throat as I got to my feet, pushing off the cold wall. My legs shook, and I stumbled down the hallway. I ran through the corridor, into the elevator, and out of the lobby. The rain poured down hard, mixing with my tears. My wet blouse stuck to my bruised skin as I disappeared into the night.

  

  Behind me, Evan didn’t move. He just turned and went back inside, back to the woman he called his fiancée.