Chapter 2

Davian's POV

I clutched my phone, remembering how I'd passed up this exact job offer once before, all for Leah.

Back then, she'd pulled me close, abandoning her usual pride to beg me to stay. "Davian, what am I supposed to do if you move overseas? We're about to get married. How can you leave me here alone?"

I wrestled with the decision for a long time, but in the end, I turned down this incredible job opportunity so I could marry Leah.

Thinking back on the seven years we'd spent together, I stared at Leah, my voice tight. "Why didn't you just break up with me after Kayden came back? You must have loved me for at least a moment during all these years, right?"

Leah went quiet.

Kayden gave a helpless smile. His tone was tinged with pity as he said, "She didn't break up with you because I wouldn't let her. You built your whole life around her. I was afraid you'd fall apart again if she walked away."

He stepped toward me like a saint bestowing charity. "Davian, I let the love of my life stay by your side for seven long years. I watched her celebrate your birthdays, shoot wedding photos with you, and plan a wedding with you.

"I've stepped back for long enough. Now I just want the wedding that was always mine. Why can't you grant me even that?"

Leah suddenly reached down, cradling her stomach. "If it were just the two of us, I would've given you time to process this. But I'm three months pregnant. I won't let my child grow up calling their own father 'uncle'."

When she looked up at me, her voice turned cold. "Kayden gave up seven years for you, Davian. Now that I'm carrying his baby, I'm done playing along."

With just a few sentences, she erased seven years of our lives.

Yet there was a time when Leah treated me as if I were the most important person in the world.

When I was hospitalized with severe gastritis, she canceled all her meetings to stay by my bed for two straight days.

When her family tried to tear us apart, she gave up her credit cards and moved into my cramped rented apartment.

During our hardest days, we shared a single bowl of instant noodles.

She'd always slip the only poached egg onto my side and smile. "Davian, just give me a little more time. I'll make sure everyone knows you chose the right person."

Later, when her startup crashed and left her buried in debt, I worked my day job and took on freelance design gigs until late into the night, pulling her through two brutal years.

The day she secured her first major investment, she held my hand so tight that she wouldn't let go.

She swore she would never betray me.

Those tight embraces were real. Those tears were real, too.

And yet today, carrying Kayden's baby, she was telling me that those seven years of devotion were nothing but a farce.

Behind us, the giant screen suddenly flared to life.

Unaware of the chaotic scene unfolding, the tech crew had started the scheduled tribute video right on cue.

Gold lettering glimmered across the screen. "Leah & Kayden: Celebrating Ten Years of Love"

Photo after photo rolled by on a sprawling timeline.

On my 24th birthday, Leah claimed her flight was delayed, leaving me alone with a cold cake.

In the photos, she was standing beneath a snow-capped mountain, wrapping a scarf around Kayden before leaning in to kiss his frost-flushed nose.

Six months ago, when my appendix ruptured, I was rushed into emergency surgery in the dead of night.

Leah claimed she was away on a last-minute business trip and couldn't make it to the hospital.

Mom said her heart was acting up. Dad and my sister, Elaine Burke, had both turned their phones off.

I had signed my own consent forms, walking into that operating room without a single person there to hold my jacket.

In the photos, they were all celebrating Kayden's birthday on a tropical island.

Mom was handing him a gift, Dad was helping him cut the cake, and Elaine was setting off fireworks by the beach all night long.

And Simon was standing behind the camera, capturing the perfect family reunion.

Image after image filled in the seven years I had been locked out of, and every lie they'd ever told me came into painful focus.