Chapter Two

The next morning, the sunlight was so harsh it made me dizzy.

I spent the entire night erasing every trace of myself from the penthouse. Everything Alexander had bought for me—jewelry, gowns, even the little decorative pieces he’d once offhandedly praised—I left neatly in the walk-in closet or in their original places, untouched.

At the end, I opened my laptop and typed out an extremely short resignation letter, sending it to HR and to Alexander’s encrypted work mailbox. My fingers didn’t tremble once. My heart felt like a dried-up well.

That afternoon, Alexander came back.

I was carrying the last small suitcase out the door when I ran right into him in the hallway. He looked like he was in a good mood. His gaze slid over the suitcase by my feet, then over the unnaturally tidy living room behind me. The corners of his mouth lifted in a faintly satisfied curve.

“You cleaned up nicely.” His tone was light, like he was complimenting a maid who’d finally done her job properly. “Much more sensible of you.”

A wave of bitterness surged up my throat.

I pushed it down, held out the cold metal key, and said hoarsely, “I’m leaving. Here’s your key.”

“Mm.” He hummed absently, already looking toward the elevator. “Perfect timing. Isabella’s coming by to look at the place later. You can just give the key to her. Same difference.”

Same difference.

The home I’d lived in for five years, this space where he and I had shared countless memories, handed over to his new bride like a hotel suite being checked out of and reassigned.

My heart felt like a stone left to freeze outside—heavy, and sinking.

Isabella arrived quickly, strutting in like a proud peacock in her heels, slipping her arm naturally through Alexander’s.

“Alexander, so this is where you’ve been staying? The view is gorgeous.” She smiled as she spoke, but her eyes were like searchlights, sweeping over the apartment, over me, over the luggage at my feet.

“Lillian.” Alexander turned to me, his voice pure command, devoid of any feeling. “Show Isabella around. She’s the lady of the house from now on.”

Lady of the house. The three words were dipped in poison.

I followed behind Isabella like a programmed robot, silent.

She pointed and commented, critiquing the décor, her voice so full of superiority it almost overflowed. Finally, she stopped in front of the display cabinet in the living room, her eyes landing on one particular crystal sculpture.

“Oh, this one’s quite unique.” She reached out, fingertips brushing “carelessly” over the sculpture’s crystal wings.

It was my sculpture. Before I met him, in the darkest period of my life, I had scraped by selling that piece—my first and only real work of art worth anything. He’d bought it, and once told me it represented the sincerity of us “starting from nothing.”

A strange little smile curled Isabella’s lips. Her finger flicked, just slightly.

“Careful!” I cried out without thinking.

Too late.

The sculpture that held so many memories tipped off the cabinet, tracing a desperate arc through the air before crashing against the cold marble floor.

Bang—!

The shattering sound ripped through the room, shards of crystal scattering like tears. A sharp pain stung my calf and the back of my hand; slivers of glass had sliced my skin, and blood was already rising in tiny beads. Isabella let out a delicate gasp and clutched her leg. There was only the faintest red scratch there.

Footsteps rushed toward us. Alexander strode into the living room, brows drawn tight. “What happened?!”

Isabella immediately wilted into his side like she’d suffered some great tragedy, eyes going glossy with tears. “Alexander! I’m so sorry, I… I accidentally knocked over this ornament… my leg really hurts…”

Alexander’s gaze swept over the mess on the floor, then went straight to the hand covering Isabella’s shin. He didn’t spare so much as a glance for my bleeding hand and calf. He went to her at once, his voice more anxious and gentle than I’d ever heard.

“Don’t move. Let me see. Where are you hurt? Does it hurt a lot?” He examined her tiny scratch like it was a mortal wound.

I stood frozen in place, a ghost no one could see.

The cut on my hand burned fiercely, warm blood dripping off my fingers, dotting the floor in small, shocking spots of red. But what I felt even more clearly was the barren wasteland inside me, ground to dust in an instant.

He held Isabella carefully, guiding her toward the door like she was made of glass. Just before they left, he seemed to remember I existed, and without looking back, threw a single line over his shoulder—addressed to the butler, not me:

“Clean this up.”

That night, I bandaged my own hand in the guest room. My phone lit up. It was a text from Alexander, just one sentence, sharp as an ice pick that finally shattered what was left of my delusions:

Don’t pull stunts like that again. Can’t we at least part on good terms?

I looked from the cold words on the screen to my hand, wrapped in gauze.

So the destruction of what I’d cherished as a symbol of our love, the injuries I’d actually suffered—that was all, in his eyes, just some pathetic trick to win him back.

I typed out a two-word reply on the cold glass screen.

Of course.