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Chapter 1
publish date:
2026-04-02 23:32:49ARIA’S POV
“Sign it…”
My fingers froze around the pen and for a moment, I only stared at Damien.
The divorce papers lay between us like a dead thing, white, still and final.
I thought I prepared for this day but I lied to myself, nothing prepared a woman for the man she loved to sit across from her and end her marriage like he was signing off a business deal.
I then lifted my eyes to his face, his tie was loose, his jaw was hard, his fingers tapped the table once, he was angry, but not in the way I wanted, not because he was losing me, not because he was hurting, he was just angry and that made the pain worse.
Because if he was not hurting over this…then what was I even here for?
I wet my lips, but my mouth was dry.
“So that’s it?” I asked and my voice was low. “Three years, and all I get is paper?”
His eyes lifted to mine, it was sharp and heavy.
“Don’t start this, Aria.”
I almost laughed. Don’t start this? Like I was the one ending us?
I looked down at the papers again, and I held the pen tighter and then my mind betrayed me.
Rain, a broken windshield, blood on my hands and a hand gripping mine so hard that I even thought my bones would crack and that weak voice, that rough, broken voice.
“Don’t leave…”
My breath caught and then I blinked hard and returned to the room.
I would not think about that night, not now, not when the same man who once held my hand like his life depended on it now could not even look at me like I mattered.
I then forced my voice out.
“Look at me and tell me you really want this.”
He did look at me and that was the problem.
Whenever Damien Blackwood looked at me like this, my body remembered things I wanted to forget.
His mouth on my neck, his hand slid up my thigh under the dinner table while we smiled in front of guests.
The way he once pressed me against the wall in this house and whispered against my lips,
“You drive me crazy.”
I hated that my skin still remembered him, that even now, with divorce papers in front of me, my pulse still jumped when he looked at my mouth for one second too long.
His voice then dropped lower.
“You know why we’re here.”
“Do I?”
His jaw tightened and no one spoke, I wanted him to say something, anything, that he tried, that this hurt, that he was sorry.
And then my fingers began to tremble.
So I placed the pen down before he noticed and then his phone lit up on the table and I saw the name before I could stop myself.
Lila.
I was shocked,, he didn't hide it, he just glanced at the screen, then he turned the phone over, like that should make me feel better and a bitter smile pulled at my lips.
“I see.”
His eyes returned to mine. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Turn this into something it’s not.”
That almost made me laugh. Something it’s not?
I then leaned back slowly and stared at him.
“So this really is about her.”
“It’s not that simple.”
But it was, it really was her.
I then nodded once, but my throat burned and then I asked the one question I should not ask.
The one question I knew would hurt me but I asked it anyway.
“Did you ever regret marrying me?”
Maybe he would say no, maybe he would give me one mercy before destroying me but Damien had never been a merciful man.
He then looked me straight in the eyes and said,
“That marriage should never have happened.”
I could not believe and everything in me stopped, there was no sound, no tears, just pain, raw pain.
I then stared at him, and for one second, I did not know this man.
This could not be the same man who dragged me into his lap after midnight and kissed me until my knees gave out.
This couldn’t be the same man who once held my waist so tightly in bed like he was scared I would disappear before morning.
Not the man whose skin ran hot against mine while he said my name like it belonged in his mouth.
But damn it, it was him. Always had been. And maybe that's what sliced the deepest.
I nodded, grabbing the pen before doubt could creep back in because one more beat and I knew I'd bail. My hand shook like hell as I wrote my name.
Aria Blackwood.
I let the pen fall and pushed the papers toward him over the table. Turned to walk out.
Something stopped me cold. God knows what. I just halted right there. Looked back once more at him, the man I'd poured my whole stupid heart into, the one who'd gazed at me endlessly without ever really getting it.
Then I said what was left.
"One day, Damien…” My voice was quiet, but steady. “You’ll find out exactly what you lost.”
His face did not change, he thought I was speaking from heartbreak, from wounded pride, from the pain of being replaced.
He had no idea I meant something far bigger than that.
I then turned and walked to the door before my tears disgraced me.
My hand was already on the handle when my phone vibrated in my handbag.
I almost ignored it but something made me stop and I pulled it out and looked at the screen.
It was one message, and just like that, my heart stopped.
"Miss Vale, the board has been asking for your decision on Blackwood Group’s expansion. We can’t delay much longer.”
I froze and my fingers tightened around the phone, I did not reply, not yet.
Because the man sitting behind me still had no idea…his empire had been standing on my shadow.
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