CHAPTER 11

Dominic's POV 

The thing about guilt is, it doesn’t announce itself. It creeps.

Like fog. Like rot under polished wood.

And lately, I’ve been smelling it everywhere.

It infuses all things into early morning coffees that grow cold too fast, into rides to work as penance, into the long silences in otherwise short conversations. It came in the small silences. In the spaces where my laughter should have been. In the way Serena would look at me along the dinner table, eyes soft and searching, as if she was trying to understand a language she used to be able to speak but could no longer.

"You've been awfully quiet these days," she remarked one night, her voice cautious, as if the softness would make it less true. "Has it got to do with the Elena drama?"

I did not look up from my plate. Just prodded at the grilled chicken as if it had personally done me wrong. "No, just work," I growled. "It's been a lot these days."

The same line. Again.

Safe. Rehearsed. Half-true.

She nodded slowly, her fork hovering over her plate as if she'd forgotten what she was in the midst of eating. Her nails clicked on the stem of her wine glass, soft taps that rang out louder than words ever had. I could tell that she was looking at me. Not in the flirtatious way she'd used to look at me when we first met back when our conversations crackled and flashed, but differently. Distantly. Detachedly. As if she were gazing at a painting that had once moved her but now left her perplexed.

I reached out across the table, pushing hers. It was rigid. Almost-sorry. She smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes.

"We're fine," I said.

She nodded again.

But I wasn't sure we were.

Because the truth was, I wasn't fine. Not even close.

Whenever I closed my eyes, I did not see spreadsheets or quarterly projections or the latest boardroom tantrum that I was supposed to soothe.

I saw Liana, my ex wife.

She was supposed to be ex-everything. 

Ex-regret, ex-nightmare, ex-lover… but still, her writing was everywhere around me. Her name lingered in my inbox, on newspaper headlines, in the clipped argumentations between clients who did not think I heard.

She was everywhere now. On my phone. On magazine covers. On late-night panel interviews and front-row tech conferences. She smiled in ways only the camera got to see—poised, polished, invincible.

#TheLianaEffect. #QueenOfTech.

The world was practically salivating over her comeback, and I was supposed to sit back, applaud politely, and move on.

Worst of all? She was dominating the very space I’d once owned. Every headline felt like a dagger. And the last one? The last was the worst yet.

“The Tech world in an uproar as the famous Dominic Smith slowly loses his spot to his Ex-wife, Liana Davids.”

Fuck it!

What else could they say? What they were saying was, "She left him and ended up better off." They just didn't put it bluntly, and in all honesty, they didn't have to.

That was the part I couldn't abide.

In my office, I sat behind my desk, half the city's skyline out my glass windows like one of someone else's hard-earned canvases. My eyes weren't on the city, however. They were fixed on the screen.

She wore white. Fitted. Strong. Magnetic. Her smile held the same spark. Half charm, half steel. I remembered that smile. It used to be mine. Once was my anchor and my storm. Once I woke up with it. Kissed the edge of it before meetings. Slept beside it after long, dirty nights. Until something snapped.

She began to wear on me.

She was just… everywhere. In my office. In my strategies. In my decisions. She started to behave like she could manage my company better than me and maybe she could. That is what frightened me.

So I hated her for it.

I told myself she was arrogant. I told myself she needed to be put in her place.

God forgive me, I told myself a lot of things to excuse the things I did.

And yes… I had hit her. Over and over.

And now, that one fear I'd had for years, the consequences was finally catching up with me.

And now? Now the world was calling her a force of nature.

They weren't lying.

That night, I sent her tulips.

Black, one as precious to her as coffee. It was like the dress she had on when I first met her, squished between dog-eared novels in a booth in the corner of the downtown library. The flowers weren't an olive branch. They weren't an apology. They were a declaration.

I didn't leave a note. She'd know.

She was always so smart. Smarter than I perhaps was. At least, more composed. More calculated in how she handled confrontation.

Then I made the call.

Had my assistant invite her to a meeting, presenting as a potential investor pitch. Subtle. VIP. Strategic. Just get her in the room. I needed her close enough to read again. To know her new beat. Her new tells. I'd study her like a playbook.

And then I'd dismantle her. This wasn't about love anymore. This was war.

But she didn't budge.

Two days passed. Nothing. No returned flowers. No phone call. Just silence.

But then, a response finally came. Not directly to me but through a post on social media I could swear was directed to me.

“Some men confuse strategy with obsession. I wish them healing.”

Healing. She wished me healing.

I stared at my phone, the words burning themselves into my skull. My mouth went dry. My hands curled into fists so tight the bones ached.

She knew. She knew I was the one.

And in place of running away or fighting back, she brushed me aside like an insect buzzing around her head.

And the worst part?

It worked. Because I haven't been able to think about that post since.

And now I'm not sure if I'd like to win.

But I also don't know how to lose to her.