Chapter Four

I stared down at his name flashing against the dark screen, the pale glow illuminating the hotel room bed.

Kevin.

My thumb hovered over the glowing green button for a fraction of a second before I swiped it away and declined the call. Almost instantly, the screen lit up with a text notification.

“Stop sulking, Elodie. It’s late, come home now.”

I stared at the words, a dry, bitter chuckle rising in my throat. Stop sulking. To him, my ruined dignity, my shattered heart, and six years of silent endurance were just a childish temper tantrum.

I made a move to power down the device entirely, but my trembling fingers accidentally tapped an old saved video in my gallery instead.

The sound of a thunderous orchestral introduction echoed softly through the quiet room.

On the tiny screen, a younger, radiant version of myself stepped into a brilliant golden spotlight. My skin was smooth, untouched by flames, and my eyes sparkled with unbounded joy as my voice soared through the high, delicate crescendo of a classic musical theater solo.

I was brilliant. I was vibrant. I had the world at my feet, and every major director in the country was watching me.

My eyes welled with fresh, scalding tears. I hadn't run into that inferno seven years ago because I wanted to entrap a billionaire CEO into marriage. I hadn't risked my life expecting a ring.

It was Kevin who had knelt by my hospital bed while my head was still wrapped in thick, blood-stained bandages. It was Kevin who held my hand, his voice laced with absolute gentleness, promising that he would spend the rest of his life taking care of me, protecting me, and cherishing me.

He was the one who handed me a rope when I was drowning in despair. He was the one who gave me hope in the first place, only to construct a gilded cage and starve me of the very love he promised.

Wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, I forced myself out of bed and walked into the bathroom, turning on the cold tap. I splashed freezing water against my face, trying to numb the burning ache behind my eyelids.

Looking up into the bathroom mirror, I met the gaze of the scarred woman looking back. The jagged crimson skin stretched across my left profile was stark, but my eyes, for the first time in six years, were beginning to clear.

"This is ridiculous. Get some sleep Elodie," I whispered to my reflection, gripping the edges of the marble sink. "You have a recording session tomorrow. Don't ruin it because of him."

I was suddenly overwhelmingly grateful that I had kept practicing my vocal scales every single day.

What I had treated as a pathetic coping mechanism to kill time while waiting for Kevin to return home was now the very key to my salvation.

My mind drifted back to the early months of our marriage. I had been so hopelessly in love, so naive. Kevin was working absurdly long hours, routinely coming home long past midnight.

Worried that his body would collapse under the strain of his executive duties, I had spent hours preparing a warm, homemade meal, carefully packing it into a thermal container, and taking a cab to his corporate tower.

I remembered standing outside his private executive suite, holding the warm bag, my heart fluttering with excitement. But before I could push the door open, the voices of Kevin and his closest VP drifted through the crack.

"It's almost one in the morning, man," his friend had said, throwing a pen onto the desk. "You just got married a month ago. Aren't you eager to get home and be with your new wife?"

Kevin had remained entirely silent.

A long, heavy beat passed before the friend gasped in shock. "Wait... don't tell me... you haven't slept with her yet?"

"I've tried," Kevin’s voice had carried through the door, flat, heavy, and completely stripped of his usual suave charm. "I really tried, Bob. But every time I look down at her face... I can't get hard."

Standing in that empty, dimly lit hallway years ago, those words had sliced through my chest like a butcher's knife.

That was the exact moment I learned the truth.

The face I had sacrificed to save his life wasn't a badge of honor to him. It was a repulsive, stomach-churning defect.

I had walked silently to the nearest trash chute, thrown the warm meal away, and never set foot in his office building again. And from that day on, I hid my face behind my hair and agreed to never appear in public with him.

A shuddering breath escaped my lips as I turned off the bathroom light. Crawling under the crisp hotel sheets, I closed my eyes and let exhaustion pull me into a deep, dreamless sleep.

The next morning, I woke up early. My phone screen was flooded with dozens of missed calls and urgent texts from Kevin, demanding to know where I was.

I ignored every single one of them, swiped the screen clean, and left the hotel after my morning routine.

When I stepped into the high-end recording studio, the crisp smell of acoustic foam and electronic equipment grounded me.

I greeted everyone with a new found energy, and it was even more endearing how they reciprocated it exactly.

The sound engineer handed me a set of heavy headphones, and as I stepped behind the studio microphone, the familiar weight of my past life rushed back.

I took a deep, steadying breath, closed my eyes, and let the piano intro play.

When I opened my mouth, the raw, pent-up pain, betrayal, and longing of the past six years poured into the melody. My voice resonated through the studio, rich, powerful, breathtakingly clear, and filled with a fierce emotion that no scar could ever touch.

When the final note faded, the room behind the glass window went completely quiet.

The producer and the technical staff were staring at me, wide-eyed, before breaking into enthusiastic applause over the intercom.

"Elodie, that was unbelievable!" the producer gushed, his voice full of genuine awe. "The control, the raw passion…you haven't lost a single step! You belong on a stage. Absolute star power!"

A genuine smile, a real, radiant smile, spread across my lips for the first time in years.

A small spark of my old self, the confident, brilliant musical actress, ignited inside my chest.

I was standing on my own two feet again.

Thanking the crew, I gathered my belongings, stepped out of the recording booth, and walked through the glass entrance of the studio building into the bright morning sunlight.

I didn't even have time to take two steps onto the pavement before a tall, towering figure stepped directly into my path, blocking the sun.

I froze.

Kevin stood right in front of me, his immaculate suit slightly rumpled, his dark eyes brooding and sharp as his gaze locked onto mine.