Three days before my wedding, my fiancé, Liam, vanished. He was supposed to be in California meeting with investors.

Instead, I found him on a TMZ livestream, crashing his old flame Seraphina's sold-out Madison Square Garden concert to perform a surprise duet.

At the end of the song, Seraphina declared Liam her "soulmate" and pulled him into a passionate kiss as ten thousand fans screamed their approval.

Tears blurred my vision as I watched them locked in an embrace on the screen. A moment later, I wiped them away and called my father.

"Dad, the wedding is off."

"And pull every last cent of our investments from Apex Fintech. I don't want our money anywhere near that so-called soulmate of his."

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1

After hanging up, I didn't bother wiping the fresh tear tracks from my face, letting the cold New York wind sting my skin. My body went rigid, my eyes locked on the screen where Liam was practically glowing.

In the ten years we had been together, he had always been respectful, always considerate. But he had never, not once, looked at me with that kind of fire in his eyes.

In public, he deliberately kept more distance from me than from a perfect stranger, all to maintain his "cool, professional image" as a rising star in the financial world.

But just now, under the gaze of thousands, he’d kissed Seraphina with a fierce abandon, as if he wanted to consume her whole, to brand her as his own.

When the kiss ended, Seraphina, her face flushed, buried herself in his chest.

Liam pulled her into a protective embrace, his hand gripping her slender waist possessively as he pressed a soft kiss to her forehead.

The crowd erupted, their screams mixing with shouts of "So hot!" and "That man is gorgeous!"

Those cheers made me feel like a complete and utter joke.

After all, whenever Liam was intimate with me, he was always perfunctory, almost clinical, barely cracking a smile.

Even if he occasionally hurt my feelings, he would only offer a flat, robotic apology, followed by the excuse that he wasn't good at expressing himself.

So, it wasn't that he was incapable of passion.

All that surging love, that raw possessiveness… it was real.

I just wasn't the one to inspire it.

After the concert, Seraphina quickly removed her makeup backstage and linked her arm through Liam's as they slipped into his car.

That car was a wedding gift from my father, a custom-ordered Bentley.

I sent a text, telling my driver, Frank, to follow them discreetly as they sped toward Seraphina's penthouse in Tribeca.

The same Liam who never bothered to open a car door for me now rushed around to the passenger side, carefully shielding the top of the doorframe with his hand as he helped Seraphina out.

Seeing them walking hand in hand, I could no longer suppress the rage boiling in my chest. I threw open my car door and stormed toward them.

"Liam! Is this what you meant by 'meeting investors' in California?"

At the sight of me, the tenderness on Liam's face instantly froze, replaced by a flash of raw irritation.

He frowned, not a shred of guilt in his eyes, only the pure annoyance of having his perfect evening interrupted.

"Ava, what are you doing here?"

He grabbed my wrist, his gaze sweeping over my tear-stained face without a hint of compassion.

"Didn't I tell you to wait for me at home? What is this, some kind of game? You're being hysterical, Ava."

The sharp pain from his grip made my eyes sting, but the ache in my heart was a thousand times worse.

For ten years, he had never used such force on me, always maintaining his so-called gentlemanly composure even during our worst arguments.

But for Seraphina, all his pretenses had shattered in an instant.

I wrenched my hand from his grip.

"Liam, aren't you tired of playing me for a fool for ten solid years?"

As soon as the words left my mouth, camera flashes exploded around us.

A dozen paparazzi materialized from the shadows, their long-lens cameras aimed squarely at the three of us.

They had clearly been lying in wait for an exclusive on Liam and Seraphina, but had just stumbled upon a far more explosive story.

"Isn't that the Sinclair heiress? Ava Sinclair?"

"Word on the street is she nearly torched her family relationship for some Ivy League scholarship kid. Bet you anything it's this Apex Fintech hotshot."

"Ten years ago, Liam was just a poor student on a full ride. He got into Columbia Business School out of nowhere—the Sinclairs must have pulled some strings for him, right?"

"But he was just on stage kissing Seraphina. So, Ava, does that make you the woman he's been two-timing all along?"

The color drained from Seraphina's face as she scrambled to explain.

"Please, everyone, don't jump to conclusions! Liam is not some charity case. His success is a result of his own incredible talent and hard work!"

"What Liam and I have is real. Please, don't get the wrong idea!"

"As for Miss Sinclair, she has been using her family's power to harass my boyfriend. We've been suffering in silence for a long time..."

"Right, Liam?"

As she spoke, her gaze darted to Liam, her eyes flashing with a desperate warning.

As a Grammy-winning superstar, her public image was everything. Being outed as a homewrecker would detonate her career.

Liam's brows furrowed. He pulled Seraphina closer into his protective hold, and when he turned to face me, his expression was terrifyingly dark.

"Ava, have you made enough of a scene?"

"Leave. Now. We can talk about this at home."

"Talk at home?" I looked at him and let out a bitter, hollow laugh. "Liam, what home do we have left?"

"In front of TMZ and God knows who else, I'm only asking you one question: whose fiancé are you?"

Liam's eyes darkened. He took a menacing step toward me, his voice a low command.

"Seraphina is a public figure. All these cameras... you're destroying her reputation."

"Be mature. Don't cause trouble here. Go home."

Be mature.

That phrase again.

For ten years, no matter what he did, no matter how much he wronged me, his answer was always the same: "Be mature."

He told me to be mature, so I accepted keeping our relationship a secret, watching him play the part of a charming, single bachelor in high society.

He told me to be mature, so I never questioned his schedule, not even when he used "work" as an excuse to spend holidays with Seraphina, forcing myself to believe it was for his career.

He told me to be mature, so I swallowed all my insecurities and suspicions, striving to be the elegant, perfect fiancée he demanded.

But now, he was telling me to be mature to protect another woman's reputation.

A sharp laugh escaped my lips. Her reputation? What about mine?

These reporters were sharks that had smelled blood. The only scoop they wanted now was my relationship with Liam. The story they were dying to write was about the Sinclair heiress who gave a man ten years of her life only to be publicly cast aside.

If I just slunk away now, my humiliation would be plastered all over New York by morning. The Sinclair family name would be dragged through the mud because of me, and I would become the laughingstock of my entire world.

He knew all this, of course. He simply didn't care.

In his eyes, my reputation, my family's honor—it wasn't worth a single strand of Seraphina's hair.

My entire decade of devotion was nothing but a stepping stone for his ambition—a total farce he could discard the second it became inconvenient!

Well, right now, I was done being mature.

I was going to make him and that woman pay for every last second of the last ten years.

"Mature?"

I repeated the word, stalking toward Liam, one deliberate step at a time.

"Liam, I've been so mature for so long that you've forgotten exactly who you're dealing with."

Liam's brow tightened.

He seemed stunned by my sudden spine, taking a reflexive step back.

"Ava, have you lost your mind? Do you want to be a city-wide spectacle?"

His face was a grim mask, his usual calm composure completely gone.

But I just looked at him with pure contempt.

"So you do have a sense of shame? I thought after a stunt like tonight, you'd forgotten the meaning of the word."

A flash of fury crossed Liam's face, and for a second, he looked like he might explode.

But he swallowed his anger, forcing a slick smile. "Sweetheart," he purred, "just go home. I promise, I'll make this up to you tonight."

I shoved him away and strode directly toward the reporters.

"Everyone, you want an exclusive headline, don't you?"

"Fine. I'll give you your headline. And you'd better get every last word of it."

I stared down the gauntlet of reporters as flashes exploded in my face.

Liam's expression went rigid, and he lunged to stop me.

"Ava, don't say anything you'll regret!"

A vein throbbed in his temple.

But I just let out a cold laugh and looked straight into the nearest camera.

"From this moment on, Liam Davis is no one's fiancé."

"Because when I, Ava Sinclair, throw something in the trash, it's free for anyone else to pick up."

The moment I finished, the press corps erupted.

Liam's face turned deathly pale.

He stared at me, his expression one of utter disbelief.

Perhaps he truly believed that no matter how much I suffered, I would never, ever have the nerve to be the one who ended it.

At this point, Seraphina couldn't hold back any longer.

"Shut up! You have no right to talk about Liam like that! He has nothing to do with you anymore!" she shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at me.

Her reaction was completely different from Liam's.

After all, she had no idea who Liam's real benefactor was.

I sneered.

"Oh, really? Still want to argue about it?"

My gaze sliced to Seraphina.

"Liam and I have been together for ten years. Our wedding is in three days. I refuse to believe you didn't know."

"So, what did you do?"

"When you were up on that stage, wrapping yourself around another woman's fiancé, did you ever stop to think you'd end up right here, right now?"