Chapter 4

Amelia’s POV

The elevator ride down felt eternal, each of the forty-three floors carrying me farther from the life I'd known. My reflection in the mirrored walls looked thinner than I remembered, dark circles shadowing my eyes despite the makeup Harper had carefully applied this morning.

The lobby sprawled before me as the elevator doors opened, all marble and expensive. I was almost to the revolving doors, when I heard it.

"Sterling's wife was just some waitress, right? No wonder it didn't last."

I froze mid-step, my body responding before my mind caught up.

Two women stood by the reception desk, their designer outfits and perfect hair marking them as secretaries or paralegals to someone important. One was showing the other something on her phone, their heads bent together conspiratorially, laughing quietly in that way women did when they thought no one important could hear them.

"I heard she married him after spilling wine on him at a charity event," the blonde one said, her voice carrying just enough to reach me. "Like, how desperate do you have to be to think that's romantic instead of mortifying?"

"Please." The brunette rolled her eyes, her red lips curving into something cruel. "Gold digger is written all over that story. Probably thought she'd hit the jackpot, landed the big fish, set for life."

"Well, the jackpot clearly had other plans." The blonde laughed again, scrolling through her phone. "Did you see who he's been meeting with lately? Lydia Crane. Now that's his level. Old money, sophisticated, actually belongs in that world."

They walked away still laughing, their voices fading into the lobby's ambient noise, completely unaware that I stood ten feet away with their words landing like physical blows to my chest.

Gold digger. Desperate. His level.

My hands trembled against my thighs, and I pressed them flat against the fabric of my dress, forcing myself to breathe through the humiliation burning like acid in my throat. This was what people thought, what they'd probably always thought behind their polite smiles at Sterling charity galas. That I was some nobody who'd gotten lucky through clumsiness and desperation, then predictably screwed it up when reality set in. That Daniel Sterling divorcing me was inevitable, natural, the correction of a mistake that should never have been made.

That I'd never belonged in his world to begin with, and everyone had known it except me.

The lobby suddenly felt suffocating despite its soaring ceilings and expensive air circulation. I pushed through the revolving doors into afternoon sunlight, gulping air like I'd been underwater, like I'd forgotten how to breathe properly in the three minutes since leaving Reeves's office.

Outside the main building, I thought I was almost free, when I saw him.

Daniel stood beside his sleek black Aston Martin parked directly in front of the building, speaking with Margaret. She laughed at something he said, touching his arm with familiar ease.

Our eyes met across the distance.

For one brief, aching moment, I thought—hoped—he might acknowledge me. Might say something, anything at all.

But Daniel turned his face away deliberately, as if I were a stranger. As if I were invisible.

As if three years of marriage meant nothing at all.

I forced my legs to move, to carry me past them, past the car, past everything.

My phone buzzed against my hip. A text from Harper lit up the screen.

"Job interview lined up for tomorrow. Small marketing firm, entry-level. I know the owner. You've got this."

Entry-level at twenty-seven years old. Starting over with nothing but a high school diploma and three years of playing house for a man who'd decided I wasn't worth keeping.

I typed back with shaking fingers "Thank you. For everything."

Harper's response came immediately "That's what family does. Also, I bought you interview clothes because you left your entire wardrobe in that sterile penthouse, and we're not wearing sadness to job interviews."

Despite everything, I smiled. It was small and fragile, but it was real.

I started walking with no destination in mind, just moving because standing still meant thinking too hard about the settlement I'd refused. About the money that could have made everything easier but would have made me feel infinitely worse.

About Daniel turning his face away from me like I was nothing.

The city flowed around me with beautiful indifference, full of people who had no idea that my world had just imploded for the second time in less than a week.

My phone buzzed again. Unknown number, professional formatting.

"Ms. Hart, this is Jonathan Reeves. I've reviewed your signed documents with Mr. Sterling. He's requested I inform you that you're making a mistake walking away from the settlement terms as negotiated."

I stared at the message, reading it three times. Not Daniel himself reaching out, not even a phone call. His lawyer, delivering a message like I was a business associate receiving a formal notice.

He couldn't even be bothered to tell me himself that he thought I was being foolish.

My fingers moved across the screen: "Tell Mr. Sterling I've made enough mistakes. This isn't one of them."