LOGINMorning arrived without ceremony.There was no alarm to break the quiet, no lingering warmth in the sheets, no sense of being pulled reluctantly from rest. Sleep had left me long before my eyes opened. Pale light crept across the ceiling in narrow bands, turning the room from shadowed to merely dim, and with it came the immediate awareness that the night had not passed cleanly. I lay still, listening to the penthouse settle into morning. The distant hum of the air system, the faint creak of the building adjusting to temperature, the muted rhythm of a city already awake somewhere far below.Adrian was not beside me.I had known that before confirming it, the absence almost physical in the space he usually occupied. Somewhere down the hall, water ran briefly and then stopped. A drawer opened. Closed. Everything precise. Controlled. Nothing accidental.I moved slowly, pushing myself upright and sitting on the edge of the bed for a moment longer than necessary. My body felt rested enough,
The ride home was colder than the walk out of the restaurant.Not because of the weather or the heater being too low, but because even breathing felt risky between us. As if sound itself might break something that had already cracked open. Speaking would have required acknowledging the space that had formed, and neither of us seemed willing to give it a name.Adrian drove.His hands rested firmly on the steering wheel, posture flawless, eyes fixed on the road ahead. To anyone passing us, he would have looked like a man focused on driving, calm and controlled, untouched by whatever had just happened. But I could see the tension he carried in the smallest details. His jaw was clenched so tightly a muscle jumped beneath the skin. His grip on the wheel never loosened, never shifted, as though control itself depended on keeping his hands exactly where they were.He did not speed. He did not hesitate. He drove with precision, as if accuracy could scrub emotion away, as if following the line
The cold night air hit me first.Not harshly—just enough to remind me that the room we’d left behind was too warm, too full of polished surfaces and curated smiles. Adrian walked ahead to speak with the valet, his posture straight, composed, already in control of whatever came next.My mother drifted toward him, chatting softly, still flushed with excitement.My father lingered.He watched them for a long moment—Adrian’s expensive coat catching the light, my mother glowing under it—before he turned to me.“Walk with me for a second,” he murmured.I nodded.We stepped toward the edge of the courtyard where the restaurant’s lights bled into the snow-dusted pavement. The fountain behind us whispered, a low hush of water that made everything else seem farther away.My father didn’t speak at first.He rubbed his hands together, the way he always did when he was nervous, or cold, or thinking harder than he wanted anyone to notice. His coat was too thin for this weather. He hadn’t bought a n
The car pulled up to the private drive of an impossibly expensive restaurant—marble pillars, warm lights, a doorman already stepping forward. Adrian exited first, then extended a hand toward me out of sheer obligation.I placed my hand in his briefly—his grip firm, impersonal, electric in all the wrong ways. He released me the moment my feet touched the ground and began walking toward the entrance at a pace that forced me to keep up but never catch up.He opened the door for me.We stepped inside.The warmth of the chandeliers washed over us, the murmur of wealthy diners creating a low hum. A host approached, smiling professionally.“Mr. Vale, your party has arrived.” Adrian nodded. “We’ll join them.”I exhaled slowly, quietly.He walked ahead of me.I followed with a careful, graceful stride—chin lifted, eyes composed, the perfect daughter coming to dinner with her fiancé.But inside, everything hurt.We approached the table.My parents rose immediately—my mother’s eyes lighting up,
I didn’t move at first.The door had slammed, the frame still trembling, but the silence afterward was so absolute that it felt like a vacuum. My back slid down the wall until I was sitting on the floor, my knees pulled to my chest, breath trembling in and out of me like it was trying to escape too.I don’t know how long I stayed there.Long enough for the shock to dissolve into pain.Long enough for pain to slide into humiliation.Long enough for humiliation to swell into something sharp enough to breathe.When I finally stood, my legs threatened to give out. I pushed myself into the bathroom and locked the door behind me—not because I thought he’d come in, but because I needed one place in this penthouse where his voice couldn’t reach me.The mirror was merciless.Red nose.Blotchy cheeks.Eyes swollen, still shimmering with tears.I braced both hands on the counter, leaned forward, and let the sobs come—silent at first, then ragged, my chest folding in on itself. My reflection blur
The ring stared back at him like an accusation carved into stone.The heart-shaped sapphire—bright, deliberate, symbolic—lay abandoned on the dresser as if it meant nothing. Adrian sat on the edge of the bed, elbows braced on his knees, staring at that brutal flash of blue until the cold inside him thickened into something heavy and corrosive. The longer he looked, the clearer the conclusion became—not because it made sense, but because fury always writes its own version of the truth.She took it off.She left without telling him.She came back in different clothes—clothes that had not been the ones folded neatly on the bed when he left her.There was only one conclusion his mind allowed.She had been with a man.A man who mattered.A man she didn’t want to know she was engaged.Jaden.The name itself scraped across his restraint like broken glass.The front door clicked open. Soft footsteps. Hesitant, careful, as if bracing for an argument she already knew she would lose. He didn’t l







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