A bitter smile tugged at Gabriella's lips. So this was what she'd always been to him.

An hour later, Gabriella and Damian Nunez stepped out of the New York City Civil Courthouse, each holding a finalized divorce decree in their hand.

Hayleigh Blair waited eagerly by the curb, eyes lighting up the second she saw the divorce papers in Damian's hand. She'd finally earned the right to be Damian Nunez's wife, fair and square.

She put on a fake look of concern as she glanced at Gabriella. Something had shifted in the woman-her striking features were even more captivating now, but there was a cold, unapproachable edge to her that made it hard to meet her eye.

Hayleigh had always been jealous of that face. Now, she'd never have to look at it again.

"The family doesn't want you anymore, and you walked away with nothing," Hayleigh simpered, voice sickly sweet. "Do you even have anywhere to go?"

In her eyes, Gabriella was nothing but a backwoods hick from the Ohio Rust Belt. It had been a blessing for her to even be tied to the Blair household, and now that blessing was gone.

Gabriella let out a cold, humorless laugh. Even now, Hayleigh was still pretending to care about her.

Memories flashed through her mind, sharp and unforgiving: when the Blairs found out she'd been switched at birth, they'd shipped her off to live with distant relatives in the Rust Belt the second she was born, never checking in, never caring. They'd only brought her back to New York when she turned 18-the same year she'd met Damian Nunez.

Hayleigh, the Blairs' real daughter, had been found two years prior, immediately sent to an elite private boarding school in Switzerland, all to make her worthy of old-money heir Damian Nunez.

It wasn't until Hayleigh returned to New York for good that Gabriella learned the truth: the family had found their real daughter, and they wanted nothing to do with her anymore.

They'd never raised her. Cutting ties meant nothing to her. She'd only come back to New York to find out what had happened to her birth parents.

She'd also finally learned why she'd been sent away in the first place: she was never a Blair, not by blood.

And just a few days prior, she'd overheard Damian's friends talking, and learned the truth: Damian had met the sweet, innocent Hayleigh on a business trip to Europe, and fallen head over heels at first sight. When Hayleigh came back to New York, they'd fallen into a whirlwind romance.

Hayleigh had even sent Gabriella explicit photos of her and Damian in bed, over and over, just to taunt her, to humiliate her.

A homewrecker, bold and unapologetic to the extreme.

Gabriella shot her a single, indifferent glance. "Don't trouble yourself, Miss Blair. Where I go is none of your business."

She didn't spare Damian a single look. Spine perfectly straight, she hailed a yellow cab on the side of the road and climbed inside, the door slamming shut behind her.

She'd walked away so decisively because she knew the other terrible thing Damian had done.

Damian's hand tightened around the divorce decree until his knuckles turned white, veins bulging in his forearm. She'd left without even glancing at him. Not once.

But why had her gait been so off? So strange?

He stared at the cab as it disappeared into New York traffic, gaze fixed on the empty road long after it was gone, unable to look away.

"Damian, this is perfect!" Hayleigh gushed, clinging to his arm. "That backwoods hick is finally gone, and we can be together, properly, for everyone to see."

She was so overjoyed, she could barely wait to call her parents and tell them the good news.

A cold glint flashed through Damian's eyes, but his voice was soft and tender when he spoke. "Hayleigh, let me drive you home."

"Oh, that's wonderful!" Hayleigh beamed. "Daddy will be so happy when he hears you're divorced. Let's go home and tell him the good news right now!"

Damian's eyes swirled with barely restrained emotion, unreadable to anyone but himself. He looked down at the sweet, innocent young woman in front of him, and smiled a soft, gentle smile. "Of course, Hayleigh. Let's go tell your father right now."

"Yes!" Hayleigh was ecstatic. She'd finally gotten rid of Gabriella for good. Gone completely. It was all thanks to her mother's flawless plan, the one that had gotten Damian and Gabriella divorced once and for all.

Damian pulled the car to a stop in front of the Blair family's grand Upper East Side townhouse. His phone buzzed in his pocket, caller ID flashing the CEO of H.Y. Holdings. He told Hayleigh to get out of the car and wait for him inside.

Hayleigh nodded obediently, climbing out and waiting on the front steps.

"Hello?" Damian answered, voice low and gravelly, features sharp and cold.

A mocking, yet deeply impressed voice came through the line. "Well, well. Your sales director's got some real nerve. Showed up at my warehouse with a knife to my throat, made me sign that damn contract. I put a bullet in her side, and she dug that slug out with her bare hands right in front of me. I've never admired a woman in my life, but your Gabriella? She's the one. She still breathing?"

Damian's pupils constricted violently, his blood turning to ice in his veins. "What did you just say?"

Damian hung up the phone, knuckles white around the device, and immediately dialed his executive assistant's number.

"Where is Gabriella Blair?"

"Mr. Nunez, Miss Blair stopped by the estate briefly earlier. She grabbed a single suitcase and left."

Damian had known she would leave, but he'd never imagined she'd vanish this fast. Shot, and with nowhere to go?

"Did she say where she was going?"

"No, sir. But Director Blair was picked up by a multi-million dollar luxury vehicle. A man was behind the wheel-handsome, clearly extremely wealthy."

A sheet of ice instantly descended over Damian's dark eyes. He slowly set the phone down on his desk, face schooled into a mask of casual indifference, even as rage and venom coiled tight in his chest.

Divorced for less than a day, and she's already being chauffeured around by some rich bastard. She never loved me at all, did she? That's why she betrayed me without a second thought.

Gabriella, you're really something.

Gabriella had been picked up by her older brother, Andrew Carlisle, and driven straight to Carlisle Manor-the Carlisle Foundation's palatial, heavily guarded private estate in the heart of Manhattan's Upper East Side. Andrew had been called away on urgent foundation business, leaving her alone in the manor. He had no idea she'd been shot.

She lay back on the soft, custom-made king-sized bed, staring at the familiar, opulent surroundings of the suite she hadn't stepped foot in for four years. She couldn't hold on any longer. Her face was deathly pale, cold sweat beading and dripping down her forehead. The searing pain from the bullet wound in her side, tangled with the crushing heartache in her chest, was unbearable.

She lay there weak and exhausted, eyes closed, long lashes trembling softly. She couldn't understand it. How could two people who'd once loved each other so deeply, fall apart so completely, so suddenly?

Every memory of the past four years with Damian flashed through her mind-the soft, tender look in his eyes that was once only for her, a look that now belonged to someone else forever. The thought sent a searing, tearing pain through her chest.

It turned out even the most heartfelt vows had an expiration date.

There was another reason she'd been so determined to finalize the divorce: she was pregnant.

But Damian had eyes and ears everywhere, his reach endless across Wall Street and Manhattan. She could never, under any circumstances, let him find out about the baby.

After she'd been shot, she'd dug the bullet out of her own side with her bare hands. She'd refused anesthesia, terrified it would harm the baby growing inside her.

Her mind drifted to the promise she'd made her grandfather, the head of the Carlisle Foundation, all those years ago. She'd finally made her decision: she would return home, take her rightful place as the sole heir to the Carlisle legacy.

She had finally let go of this broken relationship for good. It was time to return to where she truly belonged, to step back into her true identity: Gabriella Carlisle.

One Month Later.

Early autumn, bright and sun-drenched.

Gabriella's wound had fully healed. She stepped out of Carlisle Manor, slipping a pair of oversized designer sunglasses over her eyes. She stared up at the brilliant sunlight, a deep, unbridled smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

For a month, she'd lain low here, cutting off all contact with the outside world.

She wore a sharp, tailored crimson blazer, her red lipstick bold and vivid, her smile unruly and free. She climbed into the waiting luxury sedan at the curb, and gave the driver a single instruction: the Nunez Group headquarters. She was going to collect the last of her things from her office.

At the base of the Nunez Group skyscraper.

Gabriella pulled open the car door, and came face to face with Damian Nunez, who was just stepping out of the building. Beside him stood Hayleigh Blair, her smile soft and demure, her arm looped through his.

The tender, loving look in Damian's eyes as he glanced down at Hayleigh stabbed straight through Gabriella's chest. Her hand at her side clenched into a tight fist, unbidden.

Hayleigh's eyes flicked to Gabriella, a flash of surprise crossing her face-what was she doing back here? But her expression smoothed over instantly, and she shot Gabriella a challenging, triumphant smile. "Blair, long time no see!" she greeted, voice sickly sweet.

Gabriella ignored her completely.

Damian looked at Gabriella with a lazy, mocking smirk, his gaze sweeping past her to the multi-million dollar luxury sedan idling behind her. Their eyes locked, and his sharp, penetrating gaze drifted, almost imperceptibly, to her side where the bullet wound had been.

He let out a cold, sharp laugh, disgust swirling in the depths of his eyes. "You've got quite the life, Blair. Took a bullet to the side, and you're still up and walking around like nothing happened. You're lucky to be alive."

A sharp, searing pain lanced through Gabriella's chest. The heart he'd broken hadn't gone numb; it hurt worse than ever, now that he'd said it out loud. "My apologies for not dying and disappointing you," she said, voice flat and cold. "I'm just here to collect my things from my office, then I'll be gone."

Damian stared at her cold, emotionless gaze, his eyes growing darker, more frigid, more bloodthirsty by the second. "No wonder you walked away with nothing in the divorce, Gabriella. You already had your next sugar daddy lined up, didn't you? You're absolutely shameless."

The words stabbed into her chest like a knife. Gabriella looked up at his cruel, smirking face, and let out a cold, bitter laugh. "You cheated on your wife while you were still married, Mr. Nunez. What right do you have to call me shameless?"

She stepped past the two of them, spine perfectly straight, and walked toward the glass doors of the Nunez Group skyscraper.

Damian's furious voice boomed out from behind her, sharp and unyielding: "Gabriella! Stop right there!"

Gabriella froze mid-step, not even turning around, when Damian's cutting voice sliced through the hum of the Nunez Group lobby.

"Gabriella, I'll have someone send your things down. Don't track dirt all over my company's floors. Don't you know how filthy you are?"

The cruel words hit her like a thunderclap, slamming straight into the center of her chest.

He was the filthy one, yet he had the audacity to turn the blame on her.

She spun around in a rage, her gaze sharp and clear, lazy and laced with unmistakeable contempt. "Damian, aren't you the filthier one here?"

She flicked a pointed glance at Hayleigh, who was clinging to his arm.

Even though the words weren't directed at her, Hayleigh felt as if a hard slap had landed straight across her face.

"Damian..." she ground out through her teeth, glaring viciously at Gabriella.

Damian deliberately pressed a kiss to Hayleigh's cheek. "Be good, Hayleigh. I'll stand in line later and buy you that ice cream cake you love so much."

Gabriella's hands clenched into tight fists at her sides, forcing herself not to look at the gut-wrenching sight before her.

She'd loved ice cream cake too, once. But Damian had always forbidden her from eating it, saying her body was too sensitive to the cold, that it was bad for her health. It turned out he'd just never wanted to buy it for her in the first place.

That was the difference between being loved and not being loved at all.

Hayleigh snuggled obediently into his chest, grinning happily.

Damian narrowed his eyes, staring at Gabriella. She'd changed. She'd always been quiet and cold, but she'd never been this sharp, this unapologetically confrontational before.

It was only then that he noticed what she was wearing: a sharp, tailored crimson blazer that clung to her perfect figure, fiery and stunning, a world away from the muted, modest clothes she'd always worn before.

What shocked him even more was her hair.

Once, he'd said offhand, "I like your hair long."

And she'd barely cut it at all, for four whole years.

Now, it was cut into a sleek, chin-length bob, sharp and polished. In her blazing red blazer, she looked like a completely different woman, her cold eyes calm, composed, and unreadable.

Gabriella had no intention of stepping foot into the building again. She pulled out her phone and called Marla, her former subordinate, asking her to bring down the items in her desk drawer.

She never wanted to set foot in Damian Nunez's company ever again.

A few minutes later, Marla hurried across the marble floor with a cardboard box, handing it over to her. Gabriella checked the contents, confirming it held the files she needed, then clutched the box to her chest, climbed into the waiting luxury sedan, and drove away without a single backward glance.

Hayleigh couldn't believe how lucky Gabriella was. No matter how hard she tried to crush her, Gabriella always ended up in the arms of another wealthy man.

But it was for the best. This way, she could have Damian all to herself, completely.

"Damian, Gabriella's new man must be filthy rich, right? The car she drove off in is even nicer than yours," Hayleigh simpered.

Damian's dark eyes clouded over, unreadable. Whoever this man was, he was powerful. For an entire month, he'd dug into every corner of New York, and he'd found nothing on Gabriella's whereabouts, not a single trace of the man she was with.

"She's divorced from me. We're done, once and for all," Damian said, voice flat. He turned and walked toward his car parked at the curb.

Hayleigh stared at his back, her mood souring instantly. For a month, she'd been by Damian's side every single day, desperate to have him completely. But beyond his gentle words and pretty gifts, he'd never once spent the night at her apartment.

"Damian, wait for me!" Hayleigh ran after him, climbing into the car beside him. There was a charity gala that night, and rumors were swirling that a rare, priceless blue-violet diamond would be up for auction.

She was determined to make Damian buy it for her, to set it in an engagement ring, a symbol of their love.

Damian had called her that morning, telling her he'd be taking her to the auction, and she'd giddily spent hours getting dressed up for him.

Gabriella hadn't driven far when her phone rang. It was her grandfather, Cornelius Carlisle IV.

"Grandfather," she said, voice softening.

"Little one, at the charity gala tonight, there's a rare blue-violet diamond going up for auction. No matter the cost, you must win it for me," Cornelius said, voice firm and commanding.

Gabriella blinked in surprise. "Grandfather, since when have you been interested in diamonds?"

"Don't worry about that, little one. Just win it for me. Grandfather has his reasons," he said, tone leaving no room for argument.

Gabriella smiled. "Alright. I'll be there later. Have someone send the invitation over to the manor."