เข้าสู่ระบบShe doesn't let the tears fall.She tips her head back, jaw locked, forcing them down by sheer stubbornness. The November sky above The Ashwood is dark and moonless, the kind of dark that makes a person feel small, and Allie stands on the private drive watching the place where Liam's taillights disappeared and tells herself, very firmly, that she is not going to cry about this twice.She cried on the bus bench.That was her one.He left again.She asked for one thing — one real, human thing — and he drove away. Which tells her everything she needed to know about where this marriage currently is, and she is done being surprised by information she's been collecting for eleven days.She has nowhere to go.Chloe's apartment is — occupied, in ways that cannot be undone — and she cannot go back there tonight. The Ashwood is technically Liam's building, and even in the borrowed unit she'll spend the whole nig
They are absolutely, definitively, not fighting.Allie processes this in the roughly three-quarters of a second before her brain mercifully instructs her to stop processing and leave."Sorry—" Her voice comes out somewhere between a squeak and a whisper. "Sorry, I'm — you carry on, I'll just—"She turns.She hits the doorframe.She stumbles through it anyway.She doesn't look back.She walks very quickly to the stairs, then very quickly down the stairs, then very quickly through the front door and down the private drive of The Ashwood, and she keeps walking until she's well past the garden lights and the trees close around her and the building is behind her and she can stop and press both hands against her burning face and stand completely still for a moment.Chloe West, she thinks, staring into the middle distance. Hates him. Will definitely divorce him. Didn't move when he kiss
Preston looked at Liam and waved one hand with the idle authority of a man who has decided the topic is closed."Forget my problems." He dropped back into the chair. "Let's talk about yours. When are you going to go get your wife?"Liam's gaze stayed on the window. The city. The ten thousand lights that were easier to look at than anything else right now."I'll figure it out.""That's not an answer.""It's the only one I have."Preston studied him — the rigid set of his shoulders, the way his hand pressed flat against the glass, the particular stillness of a man who has run himself into a wall and is still deciding whether to try to climb it or just stand there."You were insufferable, you know," Preston said. "When you first got together. Walking around like you'd invented happiness. Made the rest of us want to push you into traffic." He paused. "And now you're standing at a window at midnight like something out of a Victorian
"He accused you of what?"Chloe is sitting cross-legged on the guest bed, staring at Allie with an expression that suggests she has just heard something so absurd it physically offended her."You and Adam," Allie says flatly. "He thinks there's something between me and Adam."Silence."Adam Hart," Chloe says carefully. "His nephew.""Yes.""The one who was just discharged from the hospital.""Yes.""With broken ribs. From saving your life.""Chloe—""Has Liam Hart lost his actual mind?" Chloe puts both hands flat on the bed. "Like — genuinely. I want to understand the cognitive pathway that takes she visited him in the hospital and arrives at something is happening. That's not a misunderstanding, Allie, that's a malfunction."And somehow, despite everything — despite the bus bench and the tear tracks and the cold-lit horror of
Preston Whitmore.Allie stares at him and the pieces rearrange themselves so fast she almost gets dizzy.Liam's best friend. The one who showed up at his birthday with three bottles of single malt and a story that kept the table laughing for an hour. The one who Liam trusts the way you trust someone you've known long enough to have survived things together.That man is standing at the top of Chloe's staircase in a gray robe with damp hair and an expression that has just gone from possessive-toward-Chloe to completely blindsided-by-Allie in under three seconds."Sister-in-law?" he says again, like maybe he misidentified her the first time."Hi, Preston." Her voice comes out surprisingly level. "Didn't expect to find you here.""I could say the same." His eyes move to her face — reading her the way men who are good at reading people do, fast and comprehensive and landing on the parts that hurt. "You're alone."Not a quest
"You live here?"Allie stares at the building in front of her — different entrance, different unit, same complex — and then at Chloe, who has her key out and her expression arranged into something carefully neutral."I told you I was married," Chloe says."You told me you were waiting to get divorced.""Both things can be true."Allie opens her mouth. Closes it. Looks at the building again. "You live ten steps from my husband's front door and you didn't think to mention this?""You've been busy." Chloe pushes the door open. "Come inside."The Ashwood is the kind of building that was sold before the first brick went down — developers calling future owners before construction, asking for preferences, building every unit to spec. Every apartment is different. Intentional. Personal.Liam's is clean lines and low drama, the aesthetic of a man who finds visual noise exhausting.Chloe'
Allie sighed: “We are really married, but we will be divorced soon.”Scarlett’s eyes widened in disbelief. "How can this be?" she asked, her voice laced with shock.Allie turned onto her side, staring at the ceiling. "The truth is simple. He doesn’t love me. I was just a distraction. A temporary fi
Vivian Brooks was ecstatic.Someone like Liam Hart—powerful, untouchable—could only be toying with Allison Brooks. That much was obvious.Now that everything was out in the open, Allison had become nothing more than a liability. He would discard her without a second thought, and Vivian couldn’t wai
Allie’s hands curled into fists as she glared at Liam.“I don’t care anymore, Liam. Julian is better than you, and at least he doesn’t treat me like I’m disposable. I won’t waste my breath arguing. If you don’t sign the divorce papers, I’ll take this to court. Let’s see if you can keep your secrets
Liam Hart’s words cut through the air, leaving the entire room in stunned silence.Wife?What did he just say?The gathered reporters exchanged glances, trying to make sense of the bombshell that had just been dropped. Around the doorway, the secretarial staff, especially Ava, wore expressions of p







